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Gamefishing techniques
By Tony Orton
‘Extreme tournament style’
‘Simple’
2
part
The
setup
Dredge off
transom
Dredge off
transom
cleat
Baits
on clips
from
transom
Swimming or skipping bait
2 metres behind
Dredge on pulley
system for easy
retrieval
Teaser lure
deployed from
bridge
Game on! This blue marlin, raised by the dredge,
nailed the rigged bait for a perfect hook-up.
Game boat dredge setup
Teaser
or lure
Long teaser/squid
chain two waves
back
Long swimming
bait or lure on wave
behind teaser
Trailer boat dredge setup
Last month I gave an overview on the principle of ‘dredge-style’ fishing. This month I
will share some of the basics involved with setting up for this exciting marlin fishing
method.
M
any years spent fishing with and against
other top crews have resulted in a dredge
system that works for most boat setups and
really raises fish.
Now it’s time to get a dredge setup that matches
your wallet and the size of your marlin-catching
machine. You’re dreaming if you think you can
pull two double-tier natural bait dredges from your
‘riggers, along with four swimming baits and two
other teasers, from your 16ft tinny. And, conversely,
you would not be maximising your spread if you had
a single dredge tied off the stern cleat in the prop
wash of a 15m game boat.
We now have to look at the size of our boat, the
number of crew, our budget, and how much storage
room we have once hooked up.
Simple but effective
A basic setup generally involves a single or
double-tier dredge trailing rubber baits. It’s held in
position off the stern cleat by a good length of rope
– something you can easily grip onto when pulling
the dredge in, as this helps when clearing the gear,
especially when the boat is moving forward.
A torpedo weight is used in front of the dredge to
keep it under the water. Getting the dredge to swim
right and tuned to your boat takes a bit of practice,
28
New Zealand Fishing News December 2013
and you may have to test different weights until
your dredge remains submerged (I’ll come to dredge
depth later).
Extreme with options
Now to the other side of the spectrum and budget:
if you have big, strong outriggers, you can run your
dredges off them from a pulley a third of the way up
the ‘rigger; a large electric reel winds in your ‘mobile
bait ball.’ This places the dredge into clean water and
allows more control of the placement. However, as
the dredge’s holding angle is higher, you may need
more weight to keep the dredge down (we use a
downrigger-style weight).
We have a pulley on the ‘rigger and the line goes
from the electric reel through the pulley on the
outrigger down to another pulley on the dredge, then
back up to a fixed point on the outrigger, giving us
a 2:1 pull, which is less work for the electric reel,
prolonging its life.
Dredge position
I like my dredge as high as possible in the water.
That way when I raise a marlin to the dredge I know
it’s close to the surface so will likely see my hookbait. I also run with the theory that once a billfish
pushes bait hard to the surface, the dinner gong has
been rung. Having the dredge down deep means the
fish wanders more and may not be as committed to
eat. A good way to know the dredge is in the right
spot is when the top bait on the dredge pops out
occasionally when running down-sea.
You can control the depth with different weights
and by letting the dredge in or out.
Bait placement
This is the key to the entire system: put your bait in
the right place and it will get bitten.
We run our baits about two metres behind the
dredge. We have found if they are too far back they can
be missed; too close and the fish may have to come
over the dredge to get the bait, which is not ideal.
We place our bait so it looks like a bait‑fish that’s
not keeping up with the pack – you would be amazed
how many blind strikes we get on this bait, which
tells us some billfish stay down deep, looking and
focusing on this one stray bait. On the other hand,
some marlin will come in from the side or behind,
totally focused on the dredge, and will only notice the
bait once they start looking for baitfish to come out
of the ‘bait ball’.
Longs lures or baits (less is best)
Now that you have your dredges and baits
swimming behind your vessel and doing their job,
there’s still a lot of space behind them for more gear
and hooks.
In international sailfish tournaments we go all
out: we run two teasers two waves back from our
dredge baits; then, beyond this, we have two more
swimming baits way out long. This is an extreme
spread of gear and we run it with two or three
deckhands and up to four anglers, with all rods
manned full time, waiting for a bite or a fish to rise
up.
We have found that less can sometimes be best
with marlin fishing, so taking some of the gear out
keeps the fish a little more committed and stops
them fading back from lure to lure. Also, on rough
days it may be easier to just run two loaded lures
way back from the dredge baits, or on a glassy-calm
day perhaps run two swimming baits or even just two
more teasers. We like the two-teaser option because
if a fish comes up on them, it’s very easy to drop
back a dredge bait to get the fish off the teaser, and
no time is lost stumbling around getting a bait out
from the cockpit.
A dredge loaded with
natural baits, in this
case mullet, can be
successful towed off a
stern cleat.
Angry fish
We get asked this question a lot: “Do you pull the
dredge in if you have a fish behind it?” The answer to
New Zealand Fishing News December 2013
29
Above: The dredge underwater
imitates a mass of baitfish that
billfish find hard to resist.
Right: Heavy-duty electric reels
designed for the purpose are
used to retrieve dredges when
towed off the ’riggers.
30
this is simple: “No!”
Pulling it in is the worst thing you can do. A striped
marlin will follow the dredge all the way to the boat
and up alongside the boat, so pulling it in can spook
the fish and also pull it away from the bait you’re
trying to present to it.
At times it is a waiting game before the fish spots
your hook-bait – sometimes skipping the bait will
get the fish’s attention. The longest we have had a
striped marlin behind a dredge would be around five
minutes. We drove in two full circles trying to get the
New Zealand Fishing News December 2013
Whangamata
Ocean Sports Club
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fish away from the dredge so it would take our bait,
with my crewman’s arm starting to go numb from
holding the rod high for too long! But eventually the
fish spotted the bait and we got the hook-up.
Whangamata
Total Prize Pool
New Year
Tournament
2 January 2014
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Sports
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Next month we will go into the finer points of dredgestyle fishing, as well as connections, tackle options,
baits and setting up your dredge.
Thin gauge circle hooks and
light leaders help get more bites
when fishing natural baits behind
dredges.
$20,000 Prize Pool
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Tony Orton Sport Fishing – Offshore Adventures; https:/www.facebook.com/TonyOrtonSportFishingOffshoreAdventures; www.offshoreadventures.net
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December
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