Dropping Big Fish
OK, Just thought I would start a thread on dropping fish. Think we have all lost fish at one time or another, due to doing something wrong ( Known as the Dumb Ass Factor 
)
Over the weekend we managed to drop 2 thumpers, one was on a spot known for dig Dhu's ( 20+kg ).
Saturday - I got snagged up about 20 min earlier, and had tightened the drag to full to try and free the rig.... snapped the braid ( 80lb ). re rigged and started fishing again..... time passes and get the Dhu bite, set the hooks and it runs... but pulls the hooks as the drag was still on full lock and it could not take line. I hate that feeling you have once you loose a fish that should be on the boat. It stays with you all day as the others on the boat will keep reminding you of it for the next week!
NOTE- Check you drag settings after a snag
Sunday - We get a couple of good size KG's ( 58cm ) while fishing for Dhu's, and skipper drops a whiting rod over the side, and put the Dhu rod in the holder while holding the whiting rod, misses the first bites on the dhu rod, as he puts the whiting rod in the holder, and picks up the dhu rod, sets the hooks but ends up pulling them after a bit of a fight... Not the first time this has happened.
NOTE- If fishing 2 rods, 1 for smaller fish and one for Dhu's, place the smaller rod in the holder and focus on the dhu rod.
No one likes to lose a fish, but it does happen. Its when you have done everything right and still drop a fish... THATS FISHING
No one likes to lose a fish, but it does happen. Its when you stuffed up and drop a fish, its a... DUMB ASS FACTOR
If you have lost a good fish due to DAF why not fess up, it would be good for the people just starting. Some tips on what not to do.
Tight Lines but not too tight!
More drum lines, kill the bloody sharks!
Ollie
Posts: 506
Date Joined: 24/08/07
had that saturday, big fish
had that saturday, big fish sucked in the bait on the rod in the holder, worried it was going to get me in the bottom, tightened the drag up forgtting that i was only using 50lb rather than 100lb leader (very silly). Ate the bait like a dhu and fought like a dhu but tryed to convince myself it was just a sambo to make myself feel better. sucks even more when that happens on the lastdrop of the day. everyone has been through it, its what makes finally landing that monster that little bit better though.
Walfootrot
Posts: 1385
Date Joined: 23/07/12
Been there, now all my rigs
Been there, now all my rigs are made with 100lb mono, pre make them and have them ready on the boat.
We catch KG's, BB etc using 100lb trace no problem... so we only have 100lb trace line on the boat now.
We also snell 9-0 above a 5-0 on our rigs, hence the 100lb trace
More drum lines, kill the bloody sharks!
Ben Derecki
Posts: 1926
Date Joined: 10/10/07
I like the 5/0 - 9/0 rig idea
I like the 5/0 - 9/0 rig idea Wal. Do you find this setup helps hookup smaller or larger fish depending on what's down there?
Walfootrot
Posts: 1385
Date Joined: 23/07/12
Both, as a dhu will take the
Both, as a dhu will take the whole bait, they will normaly be hooked by the 9-0 and the 5-0 will act as a stinger hook. and we have had the dhu hooked on the 5-0 aswell with no problems.
Smaller fish will take the bait from the bottom and take the 5-0, tapper your bait ( strip bait ) so more bait is on the 9-0 and the thinner part of the bait is on the 5-0, 2-3 inch between hooks.
More drum lines, kill the bloody sharks!
Ben Derecki
Posts: 1926
Date Joined: 10/10/07
Nice. Thanks for the info.
Nice. Thanks for the info.
Bodie
Posts: 3758
Date Joined: 05/11/07
Sunday had a nice baldy at
Sunday had a nice baldy at the side of the boat, went to lift him in and the hooks pulled.
Normally fishing in 35-40m and this happens you think no worries baldies always have blown their stomach's..... well think again the little bastard small straight off back to the Bottom $%^&$&
Cant say i was overly impressed!
I'd say most trips we miss fish, and you can tell when its a dhu sucking down your bait!
Or when you bring up a wrasse, which has no scales left. This happened twice on Sunday, and the wrasse were not that small either!
Walfootrot
Posts: 1385
Date Joined: 23/07/12
Think we have all lost a fish
Think we have all lost a fish by lifting it into the boat, a net goes a long way to stopping this.
With the wrasse, if you were catching them and they can up like that, I would have taken a side of it, straight onto a 9-0 and sent it back down.
More drum lines, kill the bloody sharks!
Bodie
Posts: 3758
Date Joined: 05/11/07
Dont worry, thats exactly
Dont worry, thats exactly what happened!
Handi 1
Posts: 151
Date Joined: 27/06/11
Was out with mate on his
Was out with mate on his zodiac trolling a few days ago , south of exi , when his rod took off , big first run then went deep , fought it for ten mins or so , took it for a shark but it came into view and saw a yellow an blue colour , said thats no shark but he dropped the tip and gave too much slack and it spat the lure . Pretty sure it was a solid yellowfin , but thats fishin hey ! He was livid , would have been his first .
Dhui on river to sea jig a few years back , 16 kg ! PB for me .
Walfootrot
Posts: 1385
Date Joined: 23/07/12
Think we have all had a fish
Think we have all had a fish throw the hooks because we didnt maintain pressure, shame as it sounds like it would have been a cracker Yellowfin.
More drum lines, kill the bloody sharks!
grayzeee
Posts: 2283
Date Joined: 09/07/09
I sent down some fresh sgt
I sent down some fresh sgt baker fillets, on sat , that came up scaled to perfection.
Then sent down a live wrasse, waited a short while until i felt it get taken , waited a little longer to feel a solid surge , but it never came.
When i did set the hooks , I came up tight ... . into Australia.
If I spent half as long fishing , as I do reading this bloody forum , I'd be twice the fisherman I am.
Walfootrot
Posts: 1385
Date Joined: 23/07/12
IMO, scale the fish ( sgt
IMO, scale the fish ( sgt baker, wrasse etc ) then fillet, better hookup rate.
Dont know about the live bait, they tend to try and hide in a hole and you end up snagged... think you would need at least 1m of line between the sinker and the hook to keep the bait away from places it could hide. never realy used live baits for dhu's. Always just use the wrasse if we get 1 , then scale, fillet and send it down.
More drum lines, kill the bloody sharks!
Spence
Posts: 302
Date Joined: 09/08/10
a mutual friend hooked a big
a mutual friend hooked a big dhu on a livey. Can ask him about that one, lost it orginally on a KG rig that hooked a rock cod, so spun around and sent the rock cod down on the heavy gear and 10.5kg dhu.
-Spence
Insta: @wafishingofficial
BOOMER
Posts: 179
Date Joined: 24/01/11
Happens to all of us. Last
Happens to all of us.
Last trip out, took a farmer mate out for a fish a self proclaimed jona he had never caught a fish bigger than a chopper tailor, any way off we went i thought we catch some live bait to up his chances, found a nice bait school marking on the sounded and i dropped down the sabiki jig to be rewared with a full house couple more drops and we were off to a area known to hold good numbers of sambos and it didn`t disapointed we landed and released 15 or so old mate was more than happy we called it a day and went in.
Couple days later weather still glamour i thought i`d go out solo, to a similar spot known for good sambos using exclusively big gear and big jigs, arriving at the spot and good fish marking on the sounded, i dropped down and hooked up followed by a blistering run and got bricked in no time. having a laugh to my self i re rigged swung the boat around and idled back over the spot dropping down again after giving the drag a bit of a 'tweek' same again this time i pumped and wind a little faster hoping to hook up a bit further off the bottom to give me a chance, crunch again and hooked another unstoppable it bricked me again two drops two jigs, this happened 6 more times, without me landing a fish, running out of leader was the only thing that stopped me as i was not going to give up without a fish.
Then when got home 2 hours after i was supposed too take over the baby sitting dutys copped an earfull from the hugs and hisses who didn`t careless about my eventfull morning.
Not one of my better days out there, the fish definately won that battle 8 drops 8 jigs = 0 fish
I was using 80lb braid and 100lb leader approx 15kg drag- i probably could of backed the drag off and romanced one to the top. But wheres the fun in that !!!!!
Cheers Boomer
Big hook,
Big bait,
BIG FISH !!!!!
Willlo
Posts: 1490
Date Joined: 07/10/11
Had a classic a few years ago
Had a classic a few years ago at the Montes,a greenhorn mate of mine was using a 150pnd hand line.We were into a school of reds when he locked up on something considerably bigger pretty sure it was an XO cod as we had had a few descaled and crushed fish come up already. Anyway being a greenhorn he wasnt sure how to handle it so proceeded to just hang on ,not giving any line.The line didnt break but the strain was to much for him and he let go the caster, it hit the water spun until all line was gone then rapidly took of down to the depths.Now that was excusable as it was his first big fish on a handline.The funny part was that he then borrowed another handline and did exactly the same thing next drop.He was then banned from handlines given a lighter rod to fish with and only lost a few rigs after that. He still to this day gets the p@#$ taken about his lack of fishing style.
Call Sign - BZ785
Haynes Hunter Prowler CC
trymyluck
Posts: 908
Date Joined: 06/05/12
My big stuff up was on a big
My big stuff up was on a big barra on the Fitzroy River. It had been a long night casting fizzers for no result and somehow I managed to get a small loop in the line 30m or so from the lure. I showed my mate and said to him .."you watch.. now I will hook up !! " But at the time was just too tired to retie the rig...Sure enough straight after that a big hookup at the boat and off went the fish headed for the snags. Right on cue the loop wrapped around the level wind and that was the end of that. fishing in the north is like that ,fish come ,fish go ...but in Southern waters the opportunities can come a lot slower and to lose such a fish would be unforgiveable.. Me and my mate just laughed and shrugged our shoulders... thats fishing. We got a 1m + later in the night so all good.
sunshine
Posts: 2620
Date Joined: 03/03/09
My PB Dhuie was a "lost" fish
My mate dropped what was clearly a great dhuie on the drift before I hooked up - lost due to a poor hook knot which slipped and pulled leaving the hook firmly implanted in the dhuie ...........next drift I hook up and call it for a snag as it simply will not budge but my mate calls it for a big fish, sure enough as the boat drifts further away and the angle of the line changes the fish finally moves under constant pressure and after a good fight my 20kg (actually 18.9 on certified scales) surfaces with the other hook still firmly implanted
So a lost and caught all on the same trip and shows even a lost fish will bite again when on the chew
e
Walfootrot
Posts: 1385
Date Joined: 23/07/12
Yep, the old knot slipping.
Yep, the old knot slipping. lost one a few weeks ago due to a weak knot, load test all knots now,.
Have a plate ( stainless ) with a 4mm dia hook welded in the center that I hook the hook into, and a handle with the same size hook, that the swivel hooks into, stand on the plate and load up the knots by pulling on the handle, works great.
More drum lines, kill the bloody sharks!
dodgy
Posts: 4578
Date Joined: 01/02/10
Had a crew member drop 6
Had a crew member drop 6 marlin in a row on livies a couple of weeks ago. Couldn't get used to the circle hooks and not striking.
Does anyone know where the love of god goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
carnarvonite
Posts: 8672
Date Joined: 24/07/07
Dobbing in
Time to dob in my son for his stuff up at Exmouths Ultra Light comp a week back. Young grandson Alex had spent about an hour landing an 8.5kg YFT on 6 and was in line for another state record to go with his 14 kg wahoo on 10. That is until it came to measuring the length of the leader---2cm too long, it had stretched during the fight and was now not elegible for a record. Sent young Alex a message ---to buy Dad a tape measure for either his birthday on the 26th or for fathers day. Alex went on to win the junior comp with a 30kg sailfish.
When Deepwater [Jeff] was younger he went out with one of his mates to get a dhuey or two. Jeff got one that went about 14kg and prompty gilled and gutted it and stuffed it in to a wet hessian bag to keep it cold. About a half hour later he picked the bag up to dunk it over the side to wet it only to find that there ws no bottom in the bag. The fish went straight down and into the drink, his mate reckons he could see a silver shape and a bigger one chasing it towards the bottom and the silver one winning with Jeff returning to the surface empty handed. Bugger!!!!
Leemo
Posts: 3712
Date Joined: 22/02/07
The guy i went to quobba
The guy i went to quobba with last week (dion), lost a good trev at the base of Camp rock, couldnt get him up. lost lure. He also missed the strike on a big mackie after the lure dropped out of its mouth on the first hit, because he didnt keep pressure. was absolutely gutted. Luckily, he managed to get one of them onto the cliff, went close to 18kg!
bludgin' since 94'
Ben82
Posts: 95
Date Joined: 01/11/11
Ok I'll have a crack at this
Ok I'll have a crack at this one! Back in April I had a week up in Shark Bay with my old man and brother. We had spent a night a DHI then the next morning out we went on a Macky mission after a fair few hours of no action we spot a huge bust-up and proceed to work the edges. Then finaly we get a double hook up, after a shork run my fish bites through the 80lb single strand, not to worry my bro still had his fish on and before long had a nice sized mack boat side. This is where things went downhill, gaff in had I took a swing at the fish then THUD! I managed to completely miss gaffing the the fish and just club it in the head instead. All was still good the fish was still boatside at this stage. I then took a second swing this time I not only missed the gaff shot but in the proces hook the lazerpro and pull it from the fishes mouth. The fish then slowly rolls to starboard and floats away......
Not much I can say to that other than sorry bro! Would have been his fish of the trip and the only Mack.
Oh well there's always next year.
Walfootrot
Posts: 1385
Date Joined: 23/07/12
Is he speaking to you yet?I
Is he speaking to you yet?
I missed a few fish, back when I worked on a pro boat due to me swinging the gaff and hitting the fish, skipper showed me how to gaff a fish in the mouth or gills. If gaffing a mac go for the gills and place the gaff point just inside the outer gill cover, near the underside of the fish, then a quick lift. found that a nice short gaff works best, as you can position or move it easer to place it in the gills or mouth
One thing I will say is that we all maintain sharp hooks ( You should ) the gaff should be as sharp.
More drum lines, kill the bloody sharks!
Ben82
Posts: 95
Date Joined: 01/11/11
Yeah we still talk sometimes
Yeah we still talk sometimes but I feel the bond has been some what strained.
Luckly I had one in the bank by getting him on to his first Dolly at the start of the year.
TheJettyRat
Posts: 733
Date Joined: 02/03/12
Lost a couple of big tailor
Lost a couple of big tailor this year due to stoopid mistakes, it happens to all of us at one time or another.
snappermiles
Posts: 2100
Date Joined: 05/11/10
dropping fish
i find the best way to drop them is into the esky and onto ice!
ALL FISHERMEN ARE LIARS EXCEPT YOU AND ME! AND IM NOT SO SURE ABOUT YOU!