North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

G'day all

Not sure if this has changed recently but the general stats for Billies used to be 1 out of every 7 seen/raised was captured. I've been in plenty of boats & seen plenty of fishos including myself lose them lots of different ways from birds running into the line, Tuna schools pinging them off, Macs biting the bubble trail on the line, other boats cutting them off, tip wrapping them when coming out of the out rigger in windy conditions etc & just things beyond your control.

Here are a couple of tips that you can control that may increase solid hook up & captures.

First & most under rated one is the baits have to be watched, if a Billie is spotted coming onto the bait & free spooled once they slash the bait this increases the initial opportunity so much its not funny. Miss seeing it come onto the bait & it decreases the chances dramatically, if they don’t watch the baits in our boat they usually get relegated to the driver or drinks caterer.

Lots of people on the forum have been actually hooking huge numbers Billies but only landing the odd one, sharp hooks go without saying-but a lot of the hooks used for Bill fish have fairly large barbs which don’t always penetrate-try filing the barbs down so you only have a small barb-preferably hone the barb so its like an arrow-it increases easier penetration & once there in you don't actually require much barb to hold the hook in place.

Another one is if you are missing a lot of shots or the Billies are spitting it pretty quick, drop down your hook size & leader size, just make sure you check your leader after each fish, if it’s marked replace it, this generally applies more to Sails then Marlin, as the Marlin generally aren’t as finicky as Sails can be & Marlin have a tendency to do a lot more damage to the leader then a Sail, so you would have to weigh up the pros & the cons on this one, but in Darwin you would probably get away with it in most instances.

The three tips have come from personal experience over a long time, hope they help, cheers Balls.

Thanks for that, mind you 7 days to late for me LOL.

The free spooling 1 i wish i had of known about last week as we had numerous strikes and saw heaps of Sails up on the gars but just kept dragging the baits. I guess thats why we landed 1 out of 12 strikes from Billys.

Well, all part of learning and i'll be better prepared next week.

Cheers

No worries Out of the Blue

If you are using J hooks, point the rod at them once they have taken the skip bait, free spool them, come up with a count that suits you, say 10, what ever its just enough time for them to get it down the hatch, then normally engage the lever drag (if your using TLD's or similar) at the same time the rod is lifted, the boat momentum should be enough to set the hooks. If you have a pod up & set the hooks on one fish, if the others are still on the other baits if you are confident of your line & equipment back your drag off a bit & try & hook up the others. Multiple hooks ups are pretty normal when pods come up as they are more competitive, single Sails are normally harder to hook. Just on Marlin some times they will stop running when you are free spooling them to flip the bait around, that can be hard to notice due to water pressure & you may end up pulling the bait away from them, if you notice it knock the boat out of gear until they take off & then set the hooks.

Jury still out on circle hooks for me so I won't give advice on them, I will leave it to some one who has used them more.

At the next Darwin GFC meeting we will have Peter Deinhoff doing a demo on Bill fish, Pete is one of the veterans & well worth having a squiz at his techniques which will give fishos another spin on things. I will enter a submission in the DGFC forum closer to the date, cheers Balls.

Excellent Info Balls

Another thing is to not give up on them. If you dont hook up when you first put the reel in strike, drop back on them again. They will come back on it time and time again. Even once you have dropped back several times, not hooked up and have 100m of line out crank back in and you may find a sailfish chasin your bait back in. There will be no gar left at this stage but if they are fired up just a skirt will do the job.

This certainly worked when I fished Dundee with rnr last neaps.
http://www.fishingterritory.com/viewtop ... highlight=

95% of the sails we caught we dropped back on them out of the riggers before they even hit the bait. They jumped on the baits quick time then when before they just sat behind them.

Well it worked last time probably will have to rethink it all next trip.

Now this may be a stupid question, but at 34 i've heard many a time there are no stupid questions, but outriggers. I have been told, maybe miss guided, that outriggers are not much good for sails.

I'm very green in regards to bills, but during our last trip we found that running the gars only a meter or so behind both teasers work really well, for strikes anyway. I was concerned that running outriggers may take the baits too far from the teasers.

having read some of the previous posts i'm thinking that maybe the outriggers are designed so that when the fish strikes and the line drops it simulates an instant freespool.

I dont know. I'm running a 6.4 centre cab pacific sportfisher which i LUUUUUUUUUUVVVVVVVVVVV, awesome boat, but just not sure how i should set it up.

Fatal mistake obviously i'm making also is to run an ABU 6000 star drag for sails and the charter special out back with a hard body for the macks. may be a change in te wind their.

Well, any more info you can post would be great, but i'd be happy to troll all day and see 10 sails hitt'n gars and not hookin up then bottom bash for a dozen powertails and 1 jew.

SO TIDES AND SAILS NEXT WEEK.....WHO"S IN?

I have limited experience on the subject all I can say is the outriggers worked well for us.

Getting the baits out of the wash certainly helped spot the sails sitting back on them.

We only ran the baits around the same length as the teaser or a fraction longer.

I'll be stickin with the outriggers.

Am going to give a downrigger a go also for when they go quite, either with a gar or live bait. Anyone tried downrigging for sails?

G'day all

First of all for those who don't have out riggers its not the end of the world & your not in the game, they are just another expensive tool, having said that, if you have out riggers use them, make sure the clip is set to release easily depending on the skip bait you are using & yep the line from the rod to the out rigger helps it go down the hatch if you flick it out when they slash the bait.

G’day all

First of all if you don’t have out riggers it’s not the end of the world & it doesn’t mean you’re not in the ball game, there just another expensive tool, having said that if you have them use them. Out riggers allow you more spread of baits, a skip baits work a lot better with the added height, especially in crappy weather conditions. The release clip needs to be set light enough to easily release the size skip bait you are using EG Garfish would be a lot lighter then a Tuna & I use a small rubber band to reduce chance of damage to the line. Yep the line from the rod to the outrigger effectively acts like the initial free spool & helps it go down the hatch when they snavel the skip bait. In one of my other boats I used to run my teasers through the first ring of the out riggers, they were attached to old reels so I just cranked them in one we hooked up. Just on that when you hook up a Biillie keep the boat going forward until the teasers & other lines are cleared other wise eventually you will end up with a cluster f#@ck.

Re: the reel, fish with what you can afford, just make sure the drags are maintained, but TLD’s are cheaper then most bait casters & better suited to Sails & have good line capacity & good drag systems. If you hook a reasonable Black on the other gear I think it would be kiss the baby, there is a lot of good gear available, it just depends on your budget or financial controller (missus).

Personally when chasing Billfish I don’t deliberately encourage Mackerel into the spread, they show up enough without an invitation & destroy the bait spread pretty quick. The Macs can be easily targeted once you have stopped chasing Billies.

Generally I run baits closer to the boat rather then further from the boat, conditions will also play a part in this, but don’t have tunnel vision on this point, as I have watched a few boats raise more Sails in comps when they were boat shy by running there teasers & baits way back, start close & work them back if you think you need to on the day.

I have used down riggers but in our shallower waters some times there more trouble then there worth, Macs harass the cr.p out of the swim baits down deep, but they do have advantages & disadvantages. More often the not if a Billie hits it, it won’t hook up but the bait is released & they quite often follow the bait up. A squillion years ago I caught my first little Black at Cape Bowling Green with a really experienced Skipper from Townsville, at the time I think he was more surprised then I was when I said I was hooked up, he thought it was line pressure, they work it just wouldn’t be my first plan of attack up here.

Your right about not giving up on them, but try & keep them closer to the boat & get them back up near one of the other baits & have some one ready to feed it to them.

Like Barra when you think you have a good game plan they change the rules, so do Billies, you won’t stop learning when chasing Billies, take the time to watch what other fishos are doing & saying & then adopt what works for you.

Only silly question is the one you don’t ask, some of the stuff in the memory bank we just take for granted & assume others are aware of the different techniques for different species, cheers Balls

Two weeks ago we were out at sail city and raised 15 sailys to only land the one. I have not done alot of billfishing but was wondering what types of hooks 2 use? We were using skip gar with skirts on the front and were giving the sailys a good 10-15 secs free spool but barely hooked any!? A reply from you 'Balls' or any other experienced bill fisherman would b great

G'day Millsey

Lots of good hooks on the market, but I generally use Gamakatsu SL12s fishing most areas, they are pretty reliable & reasonably priced for a Billfish hook, they are a lot lighter gauge then a lot of other hooks, still strong & have pretty good penetration, I still hone my hooks, any hooks for that matter (comes from fishing light line comps). I generally use the 10/0 & 9/0 but the Sails were generally larger, with the smaller Sails that are being caught down there I would be looking at downsizing to 4/0, 5/0. & 6/0. Fishing & Out door World has a range in stock in boxes of 50 or small med size packs, not sure if they have the smaller sizes in yet, I tried to buy some the other week. I have lot of other types of hooks but I recommend the SS12s for you to try first. Make sure what ever way you rig your baits the hook is positioned well & plenty of hook exposure. I generally tie my hooks in place by using a small bait rigging needle & dental floss. I push the needle through under the hook & then tie over the hook firmly & then back around behind the hook & tie off firmly (keeps it nice & upright & holds the gape prominent. A lot of fishos wouldn't go to the trouble to do this but I find the hook stays central & not likely to slide side ways & bury in the bait. If the fish are reallly on the chew & you had to rig more baits in a hurry I might delete that part. Personally if I know I'm going to chase Billies I take the time to prepare for them & rig the baits at home, preferably while they are fresh & then freeze them in packs of 6/8. Hope it helps, cheers Balls.

Hey millsy have a gander.http://www.fishingterritory.com/viewtopic.php?t=20049 This is how i rig all baits. As for skirts i dont use them any more.
Most of the fish at dundee are small and shy away from them unless they are realy hungery. 1 thing to have ready to go is a pitch bait, this works just ask dutto. I think ballsy has all ready said it here if a fish grabes a bait and you drop him hold the line and see if he comes back again you will feel them line coming tight again. This is where mono pays for itsself. 3 weeks ago we had 1 fish have 5 goes at a bait, dropping line back each time till we hooked up. As for hooks circle size 8/0 or saltwater fly j hooks, same size. And dont forget 10kg mono. My teaser patern is simple 1 boone bird 6 squid they other is 6 or so beer cans
Last weekend we only had 1 teaser out the back and a macky teaser.