Hi guys,
I know that many people use soft lures rather than Rapala type lures. I personally always preferred using Rapala hard lures, due to the fact that I have caught a few with them. But after the competition and what I describe below it got me thinking.
Yesterday as I was inspecting both my Rapala Lures which I used for the competition and I noticed that both of they had bite marks. The marks where on both sides and where quite deep. I compared the bite marks to other lures which I have already caught Alungi on and they where the same. These lures are quite hard so the fish had to bite quite hard to leave such a mark on them. These two lures where brand new and out of the box.
The strange thing is that the drag never went off and the bite marks where quite up, a bit further down from the head so I am quite surprised how the hook which is situated on the tail of the lure did not hook up with the fish.
After all this, I came to the conclusion that the fish (I guess Alungi) attacked the lure with its mouth wide open and when they bit and felt that the ?bate? was hard they re-opened their mouth without giving any time for the back hooks to make contact with the fish. Do you think that if I used a soft type of lure (like a williamson etc) the result would have been different due to the fact that the lure is soft and the fish might have not released it so quick. Or maybe my drag settings where not good? Would be interesting to know what u guys think, and maybe improve for next season.
Thanks Steve
(ps?. I would appreciate no comments from Bikri or Fishfinder) Thanks
quick question before I answer...where the rapala lures you used for during the competition new?
These two lures where brand new and out of the box.
Those bites where from Kalang and Bikri because you took them in a wrong area for fishing ;D
according to Skars those are scratches from the hooks
Sometimes the marks are of the treble hooks touching the lure,the only problem is that you said they were new!
Quote from: SteveGB on July 06, 2009, 15:10:39 CET
These two lures where brand new and out of the box.
Now that is an entirely different equation. Seems quite difficult to get teeth marks on a lure, travelling at around 6 knots, and not even a strike...
Think about it Steve, and follow the action...the alongi usually attack sideways, they open their mouth, they bite down on the lure, they leave their teeth marks, and no sign of this activity on your rod or reel...bit difficult don't you think. Also, since you found bite marks on the lure...then the lure was dragged inside the alongi's mouth...wouldn't that have constituted a strike, not to mention a hookup?. I'm saying this since those tripple hooks on the Rapalas are notorious to penetrate anything in their path...and with the rapala inside the alonga's mouth...there wasdistance travelled..even if it was a split second...the marks on your rapalas can verify that!
I had marks too on my popper and i verified with the hooks and matched perfectly. If not i think that you are still an amateur and you will never make it as big game fisherman. What i suggest is that you stick to your fishing tied to the fishfarms for vopi and sawrell :):):):)
Steve, try swinging the hooks forwards and backwards and check whether the "bite-marks" are exactly in the place where the tip of the hooks would scratch the lure's body. If yes, then your problem of how the marks got there is solved
you were probably trolling above the recomended speed.... i think rapala max limit is 6 knots... not sure though.
A drag set too hard would have still set the hook enough to hear the reel go off even if for just a few secs before ripping out of the fish's mouth.
On the other hand given the swell there was it could be the hooks were banging up against the lure and those are the marks you're seeing. Online alot of ppl recommend changing the std hooks and rings....try and do a good search.
Would be interesting for those who want to share on the privildge boards what they were using yesterday in terms of spread. I reckon that between us all we were probably running a very very diverse pattern and set of lures, speeds and distances from the boat and most of us still didn't catch.
Aw fishfinder and Bikri!
Fishfinder...why did you take your crew to the right spot to fish? ??? Did not see you amongst the winners!
Bikri...the only place where I saw you catch a few fish was next to the fishfarms..and you wanted to go again..so i recommend you keep on going there..enjoy!
Thanks Gaffer and Jonathan for your replies...that?s why, I thought it was strange that i got no activity on the rod. Will check if it might be possible that the deep hits on the side of the lure might have came from the hooks but this did not occur to me as the hooks are tied under the lure, and due to the fact that whilst trolling the hooks are always travelling straight under the lure.
It might be because of the moving action of the lure, if so its quite as let down if lures which are used for trolling get damaged by there own hooks. :(
Thanks,
I think the reason is the hooks rubbing against the lure especially with the X-rap that swims from side to side. This happens even more when you troll at higher than recommended speeds.
at least he had a strike ;D
:)...prosit....next year the organisers should make another prize for most strikes then ;)!
Benri thinking about it and the reaction i got from others the reason might be just that! will have a better look at my lures! Thanks
Steve,
apart from joking, I have all the same on my Hard lures and they are all reached by the sharp treble hooks. to be honest I prefer soft plastic lures with 1 hook so that they can swim better. until now the soft once never failed a bite.
we've tried all sorts but If there's no fish you can troll all day blaiming the lures.
one thing that we knew was that we had high winds for nearly 2 weeks and we all know that Alungi often hunts in deeper water but still we got our strike on a close to surface lure :-\
I think it's already gameover for the Alungi :'(
Yep fishfinder even me think its game over, really wish its not but after yesterday, trolling all day with out even one strike using the same spread I used 2 weeks ago when i caught a few i think that we can say bye to Alungi!
But I will consider changing all my lures to soft lures next season and see how it goes, as i believe that when Alungi are up to feed, surface lures, as opposed to other lures which are deep diving with weights (which might go only a few meters deeper with such high trolling speed) there isnt much of a difference!
Thanks
Last Thursday, we tried a new 10" soft silicone fish-shaped lure bought from the UK(you know the type with a single hook coming through near the dorsal fin). The blue /green colour looked unusual but worth in try given the sea conditions. After half an hour nothing seemed interested in the lure, so Mario retrieved it only to find that the tail (where there was no hook) had been bitten clean off. We'll try this type of lure again only this time affix another hook onto its tail.
Got same thing last year and the only conclusion was that the treble hiting the lure caused these "" Bites ""
Chris 8)
Bloody ell Dave, no tail on a 10 inch lure!!! Shit! I ordered a 10 inch Pakula Destroyer by mistake but didn't deploy that coz I thought it was too big.
Had the sea been calmer I would have tried chumming and jigging a bit over a ridge.
But I think we need to change tactics in malta, do more like the Italians do and chum and area and then chunk it.
Would have been quite funny to have all 17 boat converge on an area run one big circle kicking up a wash and chumming in the middle and then having all of us chunk and chum in the area with a few boats trolling over the top!!!
As The Gaffer said, fuel is too expensive to be doing this kind of R&D!!!
When I came back to port I was like, hmmm prefer the jigging thing at the moment :p
Are poppers any good for alunghi?
If you spot them surfacing, yes but don't think it would raise them
Ok thanks m8. Tried one for about an hour but with no results.
Steve, just check your drag settings cause you might have the drag set soft tension, if you have a strike and your drag is set to soft tension it'll be easy for the fish to split back the lure before it hook up from treble hook.
If your lure have bites on it, so you are doing nothing wrong except to check the drag setting which is a crucial thing in trolling. Steve work on drag and you be happy.
Hi all
The middle treble hook on all rapalas and yozuri or hard bait fish make the scar mark on both sides of the fish no matter what speed you are going as for changing the treble hooks to a different size on hard bait lures is not very recommendable because it will change the way the fish swims and that is important for every type of fish you fish for,what l have found from my experience is that if l buy four of the same identical lure same colour and everything, one of them is a champ and the other three nothing what l am trying to say is that one swims differently than the others and you get more catches from this one lure, even if you fish with 4 identical lures that one gets all the bites this has happened to me many times ,l have one great lure catching lots of fish and in the end l lose it to a fish so l buy another two and l don't get a single bite on neither of them ,it's crazy but true l couldn't believe it at first but after it happened to me on many rapalas and yozuri lures then l had to believe ,it is happening to me now last year l caught 3 alungi in the competition on the same Yozuri lure this year on the same one l caught 4 and another 5 on different lures and if you see it it has a 2 to 3 mm deep scares because of the middle hook scratching it and a lot of teeth marks all over ?
Thanks Joe (Farfett)
thats very true, some lues perform way better than others of the same model and colour
Hi guys, how exactly can one check that his drag settings are correct?
Well that is a hard one just pull the line up from the reel and it must not be hard to pull but it must not be easy either ?
l hope you under stood?
Thanks Joe.
Yes yes that's what I usually do, read something somewhere mentioning 1/3 of line strength or something like that. That's the part I couldn't understand :)
It is always suggested that you set your drag around 1/3 of the line break strength of the main line or of your leader (in case you are using one i.e. no leader - set 1/3 of main line, with leader - set 1/3 of leader). You can either do it manually or by using a scale like the one shown here: http://fishingnoob.com/126/how-to-set-the-drag-on-a-spinning-reel/
@kenken do u have star or level drags........
This is what I do. Lets say the line is 60lbs then 1/3 of it is 20lbs
so ur strike drag is 9kg (sorry to switch to kg u will see why later).
Fill bottles of water 1ltr is 1kg (reason for above) and so u can have 4 bottles of water in a bucket. thats 8kilos (safety margin for knots and make of line).
attach your line to the bucket and lift, if u can lift it and it starts to slip down a bit then u are set, thats ur full strike, with a lever drag its better as then u can move the lever drag back a bit and ur trolling tension will be set at approx 4kilos. then when u catch the fish u put it on full strike and give two sharp pulls to set the hook (u never know whats on the other end. if its an alunga u dont need the tow jerks if its a swordfish then u need them badely) and u will have a 8kg drag.
With star drag I would try to do the same thing at home but u feel the tension by pulling on the line and u have an approx estimation of the 4 kg drag and the 8 kg drag u cannot set the drags on both as the star is either tightened or loosened there is no set setting.
I hope I have made myself clear if not when we have an outing which is way due we have not met for ages u can bring ur things and we can discuss.
Does loading a line to its max damage it? I mean if you lift a 55lb weight on the 60lb line, does that damage the line in any way?
if you have a knot involved only very few lines can ever tak up near 100% of their breaking strain. it would probably fail much before reaching the 55lb mark, depends on the line and the knot used.
comming to the point, if you pull a line very close to its breaking strain it would loose a lot of its elasticity and remain permanently extended thus reducing its performance
Thanks. So what is the max safety limit for testing a line without damaging it?
I believe that the only way to know that is by testing the line yourself or there are some well known manufacturers that on their products state the breaking limit of the line, try to look on their web sites for such information.
if you want to test it you need to break the line to know its limits. as regards to drag i try not to exceed 1/4 if trolling at good speed, the initial stike and the first run of the fish may be enought to cut your line even at 1/3 drag... from physices F = m a so if a is high (as in the case of a tuna) it can easily cut your line during its first run, especially if you are using braid that has no stretch
to test a line just take a sample length and test it then just throw it away. The rest of the line will be similar to that test. I dont think u need to lift with the whole line let out yes......so take a 2 mtr length and test that.
What I mean is when tying braid to line and line to lure - how much pulling is safe to test that knots hold without damaging the line?
just put some good pressure, if the knot wasn't done propperly it should give way immediately
if the line is say 100 lbs (for the sake of percentages) I would try 70lbs pressure and see if it gives.
there is another way Julian how much is the lbs(kgs) that the drag can cope with. If its a miya epoch its approx 30kg (if i am not mistaken) then use that as a max breaking strain or just above it.
always wet the line especially mono before making the knot it will make a better knot,