I love marlin fishing. There is something about sitting in a fighting chair with a fresh cup of hot coffee in the early morning hours over a calm, glassy sea. The sun’s rays cast a warm glow to all points of the compass and you’ve got four lines properly set and ready for instant action. It’s the best.

We rarely use marlin jigs. We use ballyhoo with circle hooks. Why? Because in my humble opinion, ballyhoo gets bit more often than do jigs. Indeed, I recall fishing one fall day off Dana Point and we got five strikes on ballyhoo within 60 minutes. How many of those fish did we catch? Only one. And herein lies the subject of this column. Yes, ballyhoo will attract strikes, but it’s all about what happens in the first three to 10 seconds that will determine if the fish stays on. After many trial by error attempts, here’s what my learning curve has taught me. The following assumes you are trolling about 5 knots, are using circle hooks and have the rod in the holder, line in a release clip with just the clicker on and the drag all the way off.

On the strike and hook-set: I like to pick the rod up out of the holder, take the clicker off (I think the fish can sense the vibration of the clicker) and count to 10 before putting the lever in the full strike position. I try to take two or three seconds to move the lever so as not to move it too fast and pull the hook. Why a 10 count? Why not a five count? Because the fish, of course, will first squeeze the bait thinking it is killing it (of course the ballyhoo comes frozen and thawed for deployment).

It will then usually make a turn and when it does, it generally picks up speed after it swallows the bait. I’m still in free spool. So I find waiting to 10 makes sure the hook has time to enter into the marlin’s mouth and that marlin is not still holding the bait sideways with the hook not yet in its mouth. I have lost too many fish applying the drag too soon. Even at a 10 count, the circle hook ends up where it is supposed to be, in the corner of the mouth, but, of course, not always. The longer you wait, the more you risk gut hooking the fish, which, of course, decreases its chance of surviving after release.

Other anglers have different variations to this. I asked a few to share how they like to fish ballyhoo.

Bill DePriest (One Hot Tuna) on the strike and set: If the angler is someone without much ballyhoo experience, I tell them to set the hook with the rod in the holder. If the angler has experience, I tell them to take it out of the rod holder. The best way is to put the reel in gear once you feel the fish turn and really take off … meaning it has swallowed the bait. I would say between 3-5 seconds after the rigger pops. I then slowly put the real in gear when using a circle hook.

Chase Offield (Kelsey Lee) on the strike and set: I always take the rod out of the holder, let the fish eat for about four or five seconds then drop the rod tip down and move the lever drag to just below the stroke. Once the fish has settled, I go to strike or just on the button.

Steve Behrens (Joker) on the strike and set: Treat it like a live bait. I point the rod tip at the fish and advance the drag slowly. When using a J hook, the rod position is not as critical but the hook-set is sooner, like three seconds. For a circle hook, maybe five count.

With all the time and money you spend in pursuit of your game fish, doesn’t it make sense to have the very best kill bag onboard? Bleeding your fish immediately and keeping them on ice properly chilled can make all the difference in how the meat will taste. I use a Reliable kill bag for several reasons. First, it is very well insulated and keeps the ice from melting, especially important on overnight trips. Second, the zipper is thick and seems to last and work longer than other bags. And third, to paraphrase Donald Trump, “The bag is very, very, very strong. It is probably the strongest bag in the world.” And it is. We’ve had two guys on each end lift well over 180 pounds of fish inside the bag without the handles breaking. Buy Reliable and you’ll put the very best quality meat on the table.

Your time aboard a long-range boat isn’t like it is on a day boat. No, sir. First and best, you’ll sleep in a stateroom with one or two other anglers, not in bunk-room racks with 30 or more.

When you awake to fish will be up to you. Chefs (they’re not cooks) are up around 5 a.m. or earlier to prepare breakfast, served at your table over a period of an hour or two. You might have eggs cooked to order. Breakfast includes coffee, tea, milk, cereal (including cooked oatmeal), fruit, biscuits, toast, bacon or sausage, hash browns, pancakes, French toast or something like omelets or Eggs Benedict. It won’t be coffee, a burrito and a hustle to the rail—unless they’re biting hard, and you’re in a hurry.

Three meals and two snacks are served each day—standard. If you get off the boat lighter than you got on, the chefs will be disappointed. However, they’ll accommodate special diets or a request for fish or vegetables in place of meat. Soda pop, bottled water, coffee, tea and beer are handy, hot or cold. There may be a charge for beer or pop on the honor system: sign a sheet when you take one. These things are explained during the first passenger seminar, shortly after leaving port, when safety procedures and gear are also described.

Preparation& Fun

Since you’ll be fishing for days on a big comfortable boat, the pace is truly relaxed on the way to the first fishing grounds. However, if fishing is very good near port in summer or fall, the skipper may want to take a shot at fish just a few hours from the harbor.

Most often, there’s time to prepare your tackle, tie wahoo leaders, service a reel (crew members can help), read a magazine or book, watch a movie in your stateroom or on the big screen in the galley, or just relax out of the wind on the upper deck. Long rangers are big, from 80 to 126 feet, so you won’t be stepping on another angler every time you move. The reason long rangers spend so much time and effort on tackle and rigging is revealed in Toni Lo Presti’s online remark from Royal Polaris in December of 2014:

“We can only hope tuna fishing can come remotely close to what we’ve had the last few days with these wahoo. On another happy note, we should make much better time in the coming days after lightening the load a hundred pounds or so from all the jigs we lost!”

Added to that was the capper, “Well worth it!”

Formerly the tackle shop manager and now a co-owner at Fisherman’s Landing, Doug Kern suggests anglers “… must first be acutely aware that each and every trip will present different conditions. As such, different tackle, rigging, equipment and fishing methods will be needed for each trip. … It’s crucial for the long-range angler to gather as much quality and pertinent information as possible, and to plan tackle and other gear accordingly. A good long-range angler never forgets that each step leading up to a trip and the trip itself are supposed to be fun.”

On the Boat

Having a wide stern and fewer anglers means less crowding at the rail (a must for dealing with multiple hookups on big fish), with room to move.

Jigcasting on long rangers is like it is on day boats: Do it forward of the bait tank, so you don’t wind in bait fishermen on the square end. Jigcasting along the side, watch out for overhead deck lights when you swing (a lesson I learned the wrong way).

A welcome shower and fresh clothes at the end of a fishing day leads to a fancy dinner in a comfortable booth. Sleeping in your air-conditioned stateroom is heavenly for tuckered fishermen. The boat may move at night, allowing more fishing time in daylight. Waking up in a new place, where fishing possibilities start before dawn, is exciting.

Cruising during the day, you’ll be welcome in the wheelhouse when the skipper’s not busy. Don’t bother the skipper or crew when they have binoculars up to their eyes—they’re on duty then. Otherwise, they have answers for fishing inquiries and will provide assistance if needed. Most skippers are cordial to passengers in the wheelhouse when they’re just covering miles.

Long-range boats are long, wide fishing platforms carrying hundreds of scoops of live sardines and anchovies. Tackle, expert advice, a workshop, satellite phones, Wi-Fi and first aid are all available. Hundreds of gallons of fresh water are produced daily by reverse osmosis water-makers. Comfort and safety aboard are powerful reasons to fish long range.

It’s a Seasonal Game

Fishing can be broadly categorized in two types: spring and summer. Summer fishing means rod-slamming action can be less than 30 miles or as much as 300 miles south of San Diego. From Colnett to Cedros and the San Benitos Islands and offshore, you may find very good fishing for yellowtail, yellowfin and bluefin tuna. The tuna in some bluefin schools may run well over a hundred pounds, bigeye as well. In 2015, 200-pound bluefin were both caught and speared near San Diego in July, so be prepared with some heavy gear. The summer game has changed.

Multi-day boats include long rangers and larger day boats and charters that stay out for up to a week or so. Two- to eight-day trips are offered in summer, with an occasional longer run. Generally speaking, that means they’ll be making excursions of 50 to 450 miles from San Diego. Fall multi-day boats tap superior tuna fishing. Super yellowtail fishing and excellent white seabass and kelp bass fishing at the San Benitos/Cedros archipelago, The Ridge and many other spots mean a 100-pound yellowfin tuna or a 60-pound yellowtail are always possible. If tuna are biting outside, your trip may stay offshore, trolling from one school to the next.

No Experience Required

 “An absolute novice can do well,” asserted Vagabond skipper Mike Lackey, “because the crew will help you. You don’t even have to bring your own tackle. We have loaner tackle, too.

“Other anglers will help you, too. There’s good camaraderie on the boats. Fishing is primary, but the whole experience is what it’s about. Sightseeing, enjoying the variety of the passengers; we get everything from rocket scientists to hod carriers.”

Skipper Buzz Brizendine came to San Diego from Oceanside many years ago and has been running his Prowler (Bill Poole’s first purpose-built long ranger) for decades. Buzz has fished long range and has as much experience running one- and two-day trips as any man.

“I deal with lots of new anglers,” he notes, “and for them I recommend monofilament line with a San Diego Knot to the hook. I use the John Collins Knot or the Albright to connect spectra to mono or fluorocarbon.

“I do like my anglers to use fluorocarbon, and when it’s used with mono I go for the Uni to Uni Knot to connect them.

“To flyline with bait, I suggest 25- to 40-pound line and a sardine with a 2/0 to 4/0 hook. I use the nose hook for the most part.”

All Day, All Night

You can fish at night. A particular Alijos Rocks trip was a whiz-banger for skipper Randy Toussaint and his Royal Star anglers.

“You know the fishing has been good,” noted Toussaint, “when 25- to 40-pound yellowtail are biting full speed at 0400, and only three passengers get up to try for them. With limited effort, we still landed 53 throughout the night. Tuna fishing was a little slower today, but the overall grade was better. We ended up with 65 for the day, and I would say 70 percent were 50 to 80 pounds.”

That trip’s best was a typical Alijos 100-pound yellowfin, a sardine fish. You can handle such on a 4/0 hook and 40-pound line, but 50- or 60-pound would be much better. You might need any gear from 25- to 100-pound strength on a given trip. Rods and reels used on short trips are as varied as the catch. If tuna were the only fish caught, an angler might bring a couple of rods and reels and have plenty of gear. But in spring/summer, kelp and reef species are included, and a major yellowtail bite could go off anytime, at the surface or 300 feet down.

Jig Fishing

You might need long and short jig sticks for 30- to 50-pound line class for surface and yoyo jigging. Use a trolling outfit of 60 to 100 pounds, and medium and heavy bait rigs in the 30- to 60-pound category. Most boats have plenty of rod space alongside the deckhouse and in rocket launchers forward of the tanks.

“I’ve seen a lot guys do well deep jigging yellowtail with a short rod of six or six and a half feet,” said Andy Cates, Red Rooster III skipper. “It might take a few drifts, but you can be successful on yellowtail by using the yoyo method, especially when you’re drifting over shallows.

“You can use a longer rod of seven to nine feet with the surface iron. When fish are up breezing, not biting close, you can reach ‘em with the skip jig and the surface jig. We also had this experience at Clipperton Atoll, on bigger tuna. … Rod length gets you a longer cast, and the action of the jig coming across the surface. Skip the jig for tuna, and wind it for the yellowtail, swimming the jig.

“A good skip or surface jig would be a Salas 7X or a Tady 45. The 7X is best for tuna; the 45 best for yellowtail. When you cast either, when it hits the surface, put it in gear fast.

“For yoyo jigging yellowtail, I like blue and white and scrambled eggs in the 6X Jr. size. For deep-jigging tuna I like chrome, chrome and blue jigs, and the glow in the dark Tady 15 or all-white jigs.”

Fall & Winter Fishing

During the months from October to May, boats fish the waters from Alijos Rocks and The Ridge to Cabo San Lucas, the Revillagigedos archipelago and even Clipperton Atoll on trips of 10 to 20-plus days. The fish sought are the apex of the food chain, tuna of 80 pounds up to 300 or more, and wahoo. On some trips no tuna under 100 pounds are kept.

During warm water years, some winter fishing may be on the inside, off the Baja coast, but the usual area is near Clarion Island and on the Hurricane Bank, far southwest of Cabo San Lucas. Trolling is for wahoo, but early all tuna come on bait.

When you’re fishing more than two days from San Diego, down below Cedros Island, you need stout gear. You can use 30-pound line as your lightest gear, but most of the fishing will call for at least 40-pound topshots or mainline. Many winter long rangers use 150- or 200-pound spectra mainline, topshots or leaders. Most of the fishing is with bait on hooks sized 4/0 to 8/0, but kite fishing and trolling also produce some fish, on bigger hooks.

I’m not kidding. Be prepared for tuna from 30 to 300 pounds or more. First-timers are well-advised to confer with the crew on the way south, so they’re ready when the first stop for big boys comes up.

Burned into my own memory was a first stop when I mistakenly cast a sardine on 40-pound line into a spot of boiling tuna. They were 200 pounders, I learned shortly, as the last of that full reel whizzed out and snapped off at the spool’s end. That sound and the look I got from the skipper standing next to me serve as permanent reminders of the need for proper gear.

Tip: Angles Fight Giant Yellowfin

“Use the angles, use the leverage against the big fish,” says Accurate’s Jack Nilsen as he plays a big one in my video, Driftfishing Big Tuna. “You can’t beat the fish; the fish has to beat himself. You just have to be patient, let it happen, keep your adrenalin rush down and let the fish do what it does best, and that’s fight for size.

“When the rod straightens out a little bit you get one or two turns on the reel handle. Get what you can. Let it load up and when it straightens out, get another one. You don’t have to think about it, just get one at a time, that’s plenty.

“Keep a bend in the rod, let the rod do what it’s designed to do. It’s a shock absorber.”

Jack is a firm believer in saving just a little bit of your energy for the end of the fight, when you’re gasping and the deckhand asks you to lift one more time so the prize can be gaffed. That’s smart advice.

Bill Roecker owns FishingVideos.com, where he posts daily reports from the long-range fleet and other sources, and Oceanic Productions, which published his book At The Rail: Long Range Fishing. The book, Bill’s Sportfishing Calendar and his Standup Fishing DVDs are for sale on his website and in most Southern California fishing stores.

 

Will we have fall fishing like we did last year? It might very well be better. SoCal offshore fishing in autumn of 2014 had something for everyone fishing within a day or two of San Diego:

A week later, after Hurricane Simon, Searcher skipper Aaron Remy noted, “We found a kelp that was loaded with 15- to 30-pound dorado and they were biting! I have seen lots of wide-open bites but never on this grade of dorado. It was like fishing in an aquarium–truly amazing.”

October 17 was the day Scott Meisel’s Condor, fishing on a day-and-a-half trip about 50 miles from San Diego, produced 10 wahoo hookups. That wasn’t completely surprising, but these skinnies were hooked on deep-fished jigs under kelp, not trolled up on Marauders like most other wahoo caught near San Diego last year. Scott said he hung one on a Hopkins jig and lost it when the 9/0 Siwash hook straightened out. Four of the wahoo were decked, along with a dozen yellowfin tuna and limits of big dorado up to 25 or 30 pounds.

“We had a nice surprise this morning as we pulled up to catch yellowtail and caught wahoo instead,” wrote Red Rooster III skipper Andy Cates on Sept. 30 of last year. “After the smoke settled we had 19 nice sized wahoo for the morning.”

“[A]nother excellent day featuring wahoo, tuna, yellowtail, pargo and excellent weather to work in,” wrote Independence skipper Jeff DeBuys on Oct. 1, 2014. “Things got going very early and kept going all day long for us. Tuna up to 40 pounds, some lunker yellowtail, a few ‘hoos..”

A week later, after Hurricane Simon, Searcher skipper Aaron Remy noted, we found a kelp that was loaded with 15- to 30- pound dorado and they were biting! I have seen lots of wide-open bites but never on this grade of dorado. It was like fishing in an aquarium-truly amazing.”

October 17 was the day Scott Meisel’s Condor, fishing on a day-and-a half trip about 50 miles from San Diego, produced 10 wahoo hookups. That wasn’t completely surprising, but these skinnies were hooked on deep-fished jigs under kelp, not trolled up on Marauders like most other wahoo caught near San Diego last year. Scott said he hung one on a Hopkins jig and lost it when the 9/0 Siwash hook straightened out. Four of the wahoo were decked, along with a dozen yellow fin tuna and limits of big dorado up to 25 or 30 pounds. Even so, most anglers quit fishing about then, and local sportboats couldn’t get out.

On Oct. 30, I fished aboard the New Lo-An of Point Loma Sportfishing. Our skipper was John Bell, a nice feller with his work cut out for him, trying to locate tuna and the good-sized dorado known to be in the area. But with only our boat and the Condor fishing, we had to find our own fish, and kelp paddies proved to be almost extinct in the waters just south. We picked up a dorado trolling, with nary a paddy to be seen. Mindful of recent wahoo catches, we kept a couple of Marauders going in the spread, along with the normal skirted Zukers and smaller hootchies.

We picked up a few mixed fish trolling and found a paddy with dorado on it. They bit well but not long, and we were on our way. Around mid-afternoon we had a stop for some yellowfin, more schoolies, but they wouldn’t stay with the boat. We picked some and motored on.

Late in the afternoon we found our El Dorado, the magic paddy, well marked by a pole with blue and orange ribbons fluttering. It was a big kelp, with so many dorado nearby they could cover a football field. When the school turned down light, a huge patch of water lit up, flashing in the sun. They came to the boat and the ensuing chaos prompted me to land one quickly in the corner and then to lead my next fish up toward the bow to avoid the crowd.

There were only 12 of us on the boat, but with ravenous dorado trying to eat the paint off the stern, the back end was very busy, with all the whooping, hollering, cussing, running, and over and under tricks a dozen anglers could muster. So I enjoyed playing this fish without distraction. I got a half-dozen high jumps out of my mahi, which proved to be about a 15 pounder, big enough to make some good eating.

Not far from our stern, under a cloud of birds, the Condor was enjoying the same wide-open bite. Skipper John was directing the action on Lo-An’s stern.

“I’ve got my two dorado,” I said to him. “I’m thinking I should quit.”

“No, don’t quit yet,” he said. “I marked some tuna here, and somebody just got one.”

So I went back forward, and cast a sardine as far as I could, opposite the main action on the stern. I got a bite right away as the sardine took off, and moments later my third tuna came aboard, gaffed for me by deck tech Dominic Calo, who nailed it in the head, saving the meat. I complimented him for that and put my rod up to take photos as the sun went low and the light began to fade. It was a memorable dorado bite. I felt fortunate to be there.

Fall fishing tends to be good like that. The weather’s nice and fish are feeding hard, at least at times, and they often bite in frenzies. You don’t need to use fluorocarbon then, though the abrasion resistance of fluoro may help prevent dorado chew-offs. You can get by just fine with plain old (cheap) monofilament, preferably 30 or 40 pound.

Expensive hooks aren’t necessary, either. Standard J hooks from any good maker will do the trick on interested biters. You can fish them like circle hooks, letting the fish set the hook as you wind down on a taker. Like circles, the J hooks will also find the corner of the fish’s mouth most of the time. Dorado have surprisingly big mouths lined with teeth, so a 3/0 or 4/0 hook is appropriate.

Willing fish trademark fall fishing, and they don’t require any more stealth than getting a swimming bait into the bite zone, which may be right next to the boat. When you look over the side and see those brown backs zipping past the corner, you’re on fall yellowfin.

October of last year was a fine month for fishing, from Los Angeles south to the Hurricane Bank and the southern banks off lower Baja. There’s little reason to think this year won’t be sweet as well, and the warm water may well last into December, with great fishing on a tide of tuna that lifts all boats.

Bill Roecker owns FishingVideos.com, where he posts daily reports from the long-range fleet and other sources, and Oceanic Productions, which published his book At The Rail: Long Range Fishing. The book, Bill’s Sportfishing Calendar and his Standup Fishing DVDs are for sale on his website and in most Southern California fishing stores. ■