Q: When you encounter a free-swimming marlin/billfish while on the troll, what tactics do you employ to get the fish to strike? I'm not talking about fish that have already appeared in the spread, but ones spotted on the surface at a distance. Do I speed up, slow down or circle the fish?

Rich Estes
Mount Pleasant, SC

A: I probably spot at least 30 percent of the black marlin I catch in Cairns, either tailing in a big swell or milling around in a group (which we think is a spawning behavior, but there's no scientific proof of this.) My years of experience spent trying to bait schools of bluefin tuna come in very handy at these times. Keep in mind that a flying carpet would be the ideal rig to have under these circumstances. This would allow you to be unseen and unheard! The whole idea is to try to get your bait or lure to the fish without disturbing it, or them, at all.

The ideal bait to present to a slow-moving marlin is a live bait. Casting small live baits to small marlin is best done from the bow, California-style, since this keeps the props and engines farther away from the fish. When using larger live or dead baits to catch big marlin, you need to troll the bait and maneuver the boat to try to get the bait in front of the spotted fish.

With either technique, do not rush in like a bull in a china shop and spook the fish! Try to act like you're piloting a flying carpet, smoothly trolling the bait on a path that you think will intersect the fish's path, keeping it far enough back that the fish is unaware of the boat's presence. If the fish goes down and comes up hot on a bait, lure or teaser, it is a whole new ballgame, and you can go into the bait-and-switch mode if need be.

If you are using lures, try to present your longest lure to the fish first. If the fish doesn't bite right away, this is a great time to toss out a small live tuna if you've got one in your tuna tubes. Your second choice is to switch from lures to dead bait, dangling the bait in front of the fish until it bites. Once you've tried every bait in your cooler and still haven't got a bite, just give that one a pass and go look for a hungry one.