Q: I'm about to start trolling for small blacks in North Queensland over the next couple of months and wondered if you have some specific tips on lure placement. I have a selection of Mold Craft soft heads, jets and hard heads (Black Barts, Pakulas and Wilson's) and am thinking of running a combination of dead baits on the downrigger and skirted lures in the outrigger to hopefully increase my chances. (Currently I seem to raise up to 60 percent of my billfish on the downrigger first!)

Can you explain the intricacies of trolling soft heads as teasers? We have been running a small bird daisy chain, but don't seem to be raising the amount of fish we would like. I know you've had great success in tournaments here with lures on juvenile blacks and wondered if you could share some of your findings?

Haydn Tilley
North Queensland, Australia

 

A: I had a lot of luck/success — won the Dunk Island Tournament three years running — with little blacks and big sails using small lures. I use nothing but soft lures. Marlin will readily attack big, hard lures, but the capture percentages stink.

The largest lure I used was a standard-size Mold Craft Wide Range. I also made a number of small, skinny lures with 1/2- to 3/4-inch-diameter heads by rolling up inner-tube rubber and securing it with electric tape. We added long, 12- to 14-inch skirts and called them "needlefish" lures. (Mold Craft sells them now as Needlefish.) You don't need too much skirt material on these long, skinny lures; four to six strands of dingle dangles is plenty. Armed with a couple of sharp, short-shank 8/0 hooks, this lure caught a boatload of fish.

To increase your hookups on this lure, use a very short drop-back. We used to "rod tip" the fish by raising the rod high and stepping back (forward on the boat), then throwing the rod tip down and stepping toward the stern when we saw the bite. This short drop-back proved very effective!

I trolled 8 1/2 knots with lures and always kept live baits (yakkas or slimy mackerel) at the ready to pitch on big Penn spinning reels. We often tried to reel the lures away and get the liveys out, but were not too disappointed if the fish just climbed on the lure and got caught before we could get him to switch.

The only time I ever fished deep was around bait schools where I knew there were marlin or sails. I used live baits in these instances, but not with a downrigger — I used a 2- or 3-ounce drop weight. To attach the weight, take the end of your wind-on leader closest to the boat and bend it into a short loop. Wrap a piece of light copper wire tightly around the loop and attach the weight. The weight will take your live bait down far enough to get a cod bite once in a while, but the loop will pull free of the wire and drop the weight when you get a bite.

Depending on bait availability, etc., we might switch from lures to bait and back again six or eight times a day.