North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

G'day all

Back in July we ran a bait rigging session at the Darwin Game fishing club meeting, yesterday we went out for a quick blat to Fenton/South Gutter to go through the ropes with one of the crew fishing the Billfish classic with us in November to show him the ropes. One of the swimming mullet from that nights rigging session accounted for a liitle Black Marlin approximately 12-15 kg, it was Josh Ker's first Black Marlin so he was a pretty happy fisho. We were running 3 x 10 kg outfits with skipping gars, 1 x 15 kg outfit with a bigger swimming Queenie for a bigger Black & one 6 kg out fit with the swimming Mullet which is what it nailed, lucky it was a the smaller version on the Marlin scale. Beautiful fish, clean hook up & tag shot, photos & released in good health to grow a few kgs for November comp. My mate thought he saw another small Black zoom in behind the Shotgun bait before it peeled off, but I missed seeing it so won't call it a definite beakie.

There was a lot of bait but it was hugging the bottom & not being harrassed by anything including Pelagics, our fish came from spotting one bird following a small school of Tuna close to a contour line (the only Tuna we saw). The mullet was rigged like a bibless minnow with the tow point/crimp hard against the head with a SL12 10/0 hook.

Another mate lost a bigger Marlin on the Saturday when the Jenkai to the rear stinger hook broke, that fish was on swimming Mackerel, funny enough both fish were hooked at about 3 o'clock on the incoming tide.I know of a couple of other lost beakies in the last week, so there's a few floating about for the fishos interested in spending the time.

The first Tuesday in October we will run another bait rigging session for any interested parties & I will run a reminder before the meeting, cheers Balls.

Congrats.

Any chance of posting a photo.

Well done Balls, that swimming mullet obviously hangs in there at the speed needed to skip gars a.Ive been trolling at 3,000 rpm and 12kmh which seems to be the best speed to get the gars doing their thing, what do you reckon too quick,I was thinking of getting a small Queenie to skip back on the shotgun I also reckon a downrigger will be the next acquisition but with so many rods out its chaos.

Excellent news

I got my two hits on Saturday using skipping mullet about 750g in size - these are easy to obtain from fish shops and tough as nails when rigged, but unfortunately seem to be a bit big for the smaller marlin and sails that are the usual catch off Darwin. But they are ideal when a bigger fish comes along.

Thanks Faulksey

I'll see if Josh can send in a photo as it was his camera & its not my strong point taking photos, I'm fairly confident he will also have it in the paper this week.

Max

Most swim baits should be able to hang in at a fairly brisk speed so long as everything is central, ie towing point, hook protrusion, chin sinker or what ever weight you have etc is in the middle, having said that you normally don't troll as fast for Billfish unless you want to increase the Mack attacks. If any of the areas aren't in good allignment the baits normally either don't perform very well at a reasonable trolling speed & or worse still spin & create havoc amongst the spread. All boats & set ups are different so you have to adapt to suit the boat you are using at the time & the prevailling conditions. On the weekend we were fishing out of a smaller boat, no out riggers to give us width of spread, so we just adapted the position of the outfits to suit the boat & the conditions & still ran 5 outfits & two teasers (the conditions were about as good as you could ask for here). Any baits that have a big mouth like Queenies, Macks etc that I intend to use as a swim bait I now rig the sinker inside the mouth & crimp the lot tight at the nose, in most cases I dont have to worry about stitching anything & they tend to last a lot longer then baits that have the hooks inside the body. The beauty of this is you can pre rig these baits fresh, freeze them, when you need them its just a matter of using heavy wax thread or similar straight through the eye sockets & tie to pre rigged leaders/hooks as needed. There are so many variations that work, its just a matter of if someone hasn't done bait rigging before to get a bit of direction & select the methods that work best for you & practice them (always keep an open mind for suggestions or improvement). As for down riggers they have there good points & there bad points & it will also depend on the experience of the crew fishing with you.

Matt

Blacks love mullet, but I find baits like gars, queenies, tarpon, milkies & similar baits etc are great for either skip baits & or swim baits, but I prefer to rig mullet as swim baits mainly just because of their shape, they are fairly stiff compared to the others & they swim like the bloke who beat Hackett in the Olympics. At the end of the day the biggest thing is finding the buggers, getting them to eat what ever is presented, getting the hooks to stick & staying attached long enough to win occasionally, but when you do its pretty satisfying for everyone one in the boat.

PS When we do the brief for the Billfish comp we will have a number of co ordinates for Billfish captures if any one wants to use them they are welcome, probably worth marking them on a map & gain a bit of insight on contour lines, shoals etc where the fish were captured, cheers Balls.

Thanks for all the info Balls.
See you at the next meeting.

Blacks love mullet, but I find baits like gars, queenies, tarpon, milkies & similar baits etc are great for either skip baits & or swim baits, but I prefer to rig mullet as swim baits mainly just because of their shape, they are fairly stiff compared to the others & they swim like the bloke who beat Hackett in the Olympics.

For sure - I like the mullet because they are easy to get (at the shop). I limber them up by splitting the tail. I have my mullet jumping in and out of the water and skipping nicely on the outriggers with lots of tail flap.

I hear what you are saying re the other fish baits, all good stuff when you can get 'em - I've got a small tuskie in my freezer which I plan to rig up as a skipping bait next trip for a laugh - hopefully it will raise a decent black.

Good stuff Balls!

Here are the photo's Josh emailed.

is that the same fish? changes couler a fair bit ...

Awesome work - well done

good stuff Balls thanks for the tips I was talking to John Cooper today it sounds as though you fellas have a fair bit of Billfishing coming up.