Billfish
August and September are two of my favorite months for Texas Offshore fishing. It is in the heat of the summer that the spring breezes have blown through and there are days offshore where there is not so much as a ripple on the water. Though it may, at times, look like the world’s biggest lake, it is important to remember that the Gulf can turn on you at anytime, so it is important to make smart decisions when venturing offshore in small craft.
This season has already started out with a bang, and the Port Aransas fleet has been catching piles of billfish since the first calm weekend in June. There were lots of billfish caught during the Port Aransas Masters Tournament, as well as the Deep Sea Roundup, as well as Poco Bueno, held out of Port O’Connor. Congratulations to the Captain and crew of the Hot Rod, as they weighed in two fish this year and took first place in Poco Bueno.
If you venture offshore this time of year, you are likely to find nice inshore rips or weedlines anywhere from twelve to twenty miles out. Many people mistakenly call any patch of grass or weeds they see floating, a weedline. While it is not a bad idea to fish large patches of grass, true weedlines are generally formed by what is called a rip. A rip is simply where two different ocean currents meet. Often times this will be accompanied by a color change i.e. the water will be a different color on one side of the rip, than it is on the other. Baitfish usually congregate at rips because the shifting currents often create an upwelling effect, bringing nutrient rich subcurrents to the surface. Iron is often the limiting resource in ocean environments, and when Iron rich waters reach the surface, plankton begin to bloom. This plankton bloom is what attracts the baitfish, and the baitfish, in turn, attract the predatory species such as dolphin, wahoo, tuna, sailfish and marlin. It is these predatory species that attract hordes of far more aquatically inferior creatures who are completely reliant on their machinery to take them back to their precious dry land.
These inshore rips and weedlines are generally loaded to the gills with chicken dolphin, kingfish, ling, Atlantic sharpnose sharks and the occasional sailfish. Drifting a weedline, or trolling a weedline are two basic ways to fish. Most people prefer to troll a weedline because you can cover more ground. Skirted ballyhoo and smaller billfish lures such as Softheads, Softhead little hookers, Carolina Gentlemen, Boone Chrome Jets, Green Machines, topwater lures, and smaller Black Bart lures are what most people prefer to pull on an inshore weedline.
Continuing farther offshore, from around thirty nautical miles, all the way to Mexico, anglers will do well to look for any kind of structure or significantly large junk floating on the surface, as well as any rips or weedline. In early June of this year, Paul Snow, owner of Incommunicado, out of Port Aransas, caught a 54-pound wahoo, a 48-pound dolphin, and a blue marlin by trolling around a lawn chair that he found about eighty miles offshore of the Port Aransas jetties.
The floating debris works much like grass on the surface, providing a shelter for smaller baitfish, which are always at the bottom of the predatory food chain. Anglers trolling offshore rips and weedlines are likely to encounter tuna, wahoo, dolphin, sailfish, white marlin, and the ever elusive blue marlin.
Trolling the offshore weedlines, rips, and rocks is one of my favorite pastimes and jobs, for that matter. Most skippers prefer to troll five to seven natural baits, depending on sea conditions. The all time tried and true ballyhoo topper is the Hawaiian eye, or islander. You would be hard pressed to find a boat that trolls in Texas or just about anywhere else, that doesn’t have an islander of one color or another. Trolling natural baits, you want to troll anywhere from 4-7 knots. Often times, a billfish will enter the spread, and simply follow behind a bait. When this happens, if you are paying attention, you can either reel the bait away from him to try and tease him up, or drop the bait back to him and let him eat it, or both. From what I have seen and been told, billfish and most fish for that matter, eat other fish headfirst. If this doesn’t make sense to you, the next time you catch a pin perch, or fresh water perch, run your hand from his head back to his tail, and then run your hand from his tail to his head and see what happens.
Regardless, in natural bait situations, you want to make sure the fish has eaten the bait before you set the hook. Many anglers do a hook set with the rod after dumping the bait to the fish. While this is not always necessary, it is important to reel the line tight before setting hook. Reeling helps get rid of the belly that is put in the line, as the fish swims rapidly away. A lot of skippers will gun the boat forward on the strike to help straighten the line.
Another common tactic of deepwater trolling is to drag and snag, or pull lures. For every billfish in the ocean, there are at least five lures on the market. Every boat has their favorite top-secret lure that works “every time”. The lure that has changed the least since it came out and has probably held more records at one time, and is just about anyone’s all time reliable is the Softhead Wide Range by Moldcraft. You can never go wrong pulling this lure, or a whole spread of these lures in a variety of colors. Though it is a larger lure, I have caught everything from chicken dolphin to blue marlin on it. Other lures that work well are those made by Pakula, Black Bart, Jo Yee, Zuker’s, Williamson, Marlin Magic, Sevenstrand, Sumo and countless others. The important thing is to pull a variety of sizes and colors, until you find something that works for you. Most skippers will generally pull about seven lines when lure fishing. Two larger lures on the flatlines, two medium large lures on the short riggers, two medium small or smaller lures on the long riggers, and something small or different on the shotgun. Most of the time, when a fish hits a lure, you will hook him up. Sometimes they will follow it, like a bait, and must be teased into eating the lure. It is never a bad idea to have a pitch bait ready, in case you have a stingy fish in your spread that won’t take a lure, you can simply drop back ballyhoo to him.
As always, it is advisable to check and double check the weather before ever leaving the dock, good luck, have fun, and don’t forget to take a kid fishing.
Capt. Peter Young