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Drifting for Swordfish

Started by bigboy, April 19, 2009, 19:55:33 CET

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bigboy

Guys summer is soon on its way and we are getting geard up for the swordfish as i will be finishing school on the first of June. After we let out our longlines we are usually drifting with the longline.

This year i was thinking of not waisting the time lol !!!!!

I am thinking of rigging up a rod and baiting a hook with a mackerel and let it out away from the boat whilst we are drifting. We usually start hauling up the lines at around 10pm so there will be some time where the bait will be in darkness. Should i use a sort of light ????

Any ideas of what setup can i use ???

I got interested in trying this out as once i had read something on this forum but now i cannot find the thread!!!

Thanks in advance guys :)

skip

Drift with a sea anchor, at night, use something like a Swordlight in the water, chum a bit the area, and deploy your lines with live/dead bait suspended at different depths with a balloon.

Think this was the thread http://maltafishingforum.com/talk/index.php/topic,52.0.html

bigboy


mellieha

#3
big boy what I would like to add is something about the concentration of bait.

Darba kenna kobba tal qaddisin, xi 150 sunnara kobba.  In all this bait we found 6 swordfish and in the rest 200 hooks only 1.  The only explanation we could give was that the concentration of bait lead the fish to one place.

Translation [bigboy].

"Darba kenna kobba tal qaddisin, xi 150 sunnara kobba."
Once we had around 150 hooks all tangled up.

bigboy

#4
Mellieha are you sure that the swordfish got caught after the longline got tangled???

The probability is that you might have had a ship cut and with the current the longline drifted alot, Then what happened is when the fish were caught they ended up making a whole catastrofy ;)

I am telling you this from experience mate ;)

busumark

#5
Yes i think that what bigboy is saying is right!! You catch a fish and then it makes a whole disaster

placebo

the fishing gods might have something for me tomorrow I'll be fishing

skip


mellieha

I will explain why I think I may be right.  We normally used two methods of fishing

1 the normal longline and 2. with the 'irmiggi' - irmiggi are sort of floater being tied to a rock bolder to keep it in place. - sorry for the poor translation. ???

The issue was we had a total of 12 hooks on each irmicc and we where using a longline of aroung 350 hooks up north.  The idea was to make the whole night with the longline and then at sunrise we would fetch the irmiggi.

But what happened after around 200 hooks we found that a ship had passed by. We had noticed this early night and only hoped for the best maybe it was deep enough in the area of the ship.  We followed the current as usual and found the rest all entangled in our irmigg.  A massive 150 hook disaster. 

The only reason which makes me believe they were caught in the cobba is the fact the swordfish were all alive when we arrived to the contrarily of the usuall when they would be 3/4 dead. 

But as you definitelty, said them being hooked made the matter worse.

bigboy

Ic, But as you are saying they were found all alive soooooooo my conclusion they were the culprit to the disaster.

Irmiggi are very good and also very reliable. We usually deploy them after september as the weather starts to change soo you go out set the lines and back in. Then out in the morning to retreive