Deep Sea Fishing

Deep sea fishing is an ultimate dream of most saltwater anglers. There're more varieties of fish to be caught and different fishing methods to be applied when doing offshore fishing. Species that can be caught are tuna, wahoo, marlin, sailfish, shark, snapper, mahi-mahi and many more. Methods of fishing are bottom-fishing, trolling, drifting, popping or jigging.

My Favorite Sport

Deep sea fishing is one of my favorite in this fantastic sport. I like very much to share with you one of my many fishing trips. This trip was very special to me and my 3 fishing buddies. We caught many big fish with different fishing techniques and methods.

Fishing Equipment Used

Fishing equipment for deep sea fishing must be heavy duty and corrosion resistant. My deep sea fishing tackle consisted of 3 different outfits. A 50-80 lbs class rod with a Penn International 50 reel, a 30-50 lbs class rod with a Shimano TLD 30 reel and a Shimano Stella FA 8000 spinning reel with a matching spinning rod made out the 3 outfits.

Location

The location was in the Andaman Sea, off Thailand in the Indian Ocean. We were in a wooden charter boat of about 45 feet with a captain and 2 deckhands. The captain and deckhands were very experienced fishermen themselves. With an electronic fish-finder, a big live-bait well and enough sleeping facilities, spending 3 days and 3 nights onboard with lot of fishing actions were like in paradise.

Catching Live Squids for Baits

The trip began with the catching of live squids by the two deckhands. Live squids proofed to be very effective as bait later on in this deep sea fishing trip.

Technique for Catching Live Squids

Their technique of catching squids consisted of a big net of about 20 by 20 feet. Hanging directly above the net on a pole were 3 large color lamps like traffic light. The colors were white, yellow and red in that order. First the big net was lowered into the water of about 3 to 5 feet with the white color lamp switched on. As soon as the light was switched on the squids began to rise and congregated on the net. The second light of yellow color was switched on next and the squids formed into a school. Immediately the final light of red color was switched on the squids seem to be stunned and motionless easily for the deckhands to scoop them into the live-well. The process was repeated throughout the night until the captain was satisfied that there were enough squids as bait to last for the trip.

With enough squids as bait the skipper steered the boat into deeper water with the help of the global positioning system and electronic fish-finder in search of fish in the dark. Soon the boat was anchored and the captain instructed us to do bottom-fishing.

Bottom Fishing

Bottom-fishing can be real fun and the technique is simple. As it is fun and simple it’s the most popular method of deep sea fishing. It can be done with artificial lures, dead or live bait. Live bait is the most effective in catching most fish species. A heavy nylon or wire trace of not less than 3 feet with a size 5-0 to 8-0 hook made out the terminal tackle. I prefer Owner circle hook for bottom-fishing which is getting very popular amongst saltwater fishermen. The goodness of circle hook is that it set itself on the side of the mouth when the fish take the bait. Catch and release is easy without much injury to the fish. Hook-up rate is high, because it holds firmly when the fish is hooked. Weight or sinker for deep sea fishing must be heavy enough to hold bottom. Sometimes weight as heavy as 2 lbs is needed. The weight size depends on the strength of the tide-flow. An alert bell to be placed on the tip of the rod will be good to alert you when fish bite.

I used my 50-80 lbs class rod with the Penn International 50 reel, newly spooled with 80 lbs Power Pro braided line for this method of fishing. Braided fishing line is good for bottom-fishing because it do not stretch as much as monofilament. We caught lot of fish with this method of fishing. Snapper, grouper, wrasse, cobia and ray were some of the kinds of fish we caught.

Trolling

Deep Sea fishing on a party or charter boat, the skipper advises you on the method, gear and bait to use. Our next fishing method was trolling. Trolling was the opposite of bottom-fishing which required the lure or bait to be placed on the surface or some feet below while on a slow moving boat. Our terminal tackle consisted of a heavy nylon or wire trace with whole live or dead bait or an artificial lure. I preferred to use a lure which was clean and caught more fish than natural bait.

I used my 30-50 lbs class rod with the Shimano TLD 30 reel, spooled with 50 lbs Power Pro braided line. It hold enough line and not so heavy for stand-up fighting even big game fish. We caught barracuda, sailfish, giant trevallies and I managed to land only a small marlin on trolling.

Jigging

We had a jigging session during the night when the boat was anchored. It was the easiest method of catching fish. Jigging was done in a stationary position. First I had to free-spool the jig and let it dropped to the bottom of the sea. The next thing I had to do was start retrieving with a fast or slow motion so as to impart erratic actions to the jig. My tackle was the Shimano Stella FA 8000 with a matching Shimano jigging rod, spooled with 60 lbs braided line. I and my 3 buddies had a really bountiful jigging session that night, fishes big and small really loved our jigs.

Made of metal, jigs come in various shapes and weights. Mostly they’re shaped like a fish or squid with luminous chemical added. For deep sea fishing, depending on the tide-flow those as heavy as 100 gm and above are needed. Jig is one of the most effective fish catching lure. Hope you remember to carry some with you next time you go deep sea fishing.

During the last day of our deep sea fishing trip we done some drifting and popping.

Drifting

Drifting was done with the boat engine cut off unlike trolling with the boat moving slowly.

Our drift fishing tackle was simple. It consisted of a rod, reel, line, leader and bait. I used the same trolling outfit for drifting. The bait could be dead or live bait, usually whole. Squid, mackerel, sardine and bonito were some of the best baits. The live squids we had in the live-well were the most effective bait. We used a wire leader instead of nylon of about 3 feet. The reason was that for drift fishing the bait would be drifting with the wind and tide-flow toothy species like Mako shark, barracuda and wahoo were our likely targets. (Click here to read more about Shark Fishing.)

For drift fishing we hold onto our rods instead of placing them in the rod holders. In this manner we can let go some more line if no fish is biting. Feeling the fish bite with the rod in your hand is also very fantastic. You must try it on your deep sea fishing trip.

Popping

Popping is getting very popular these days after the introduction of braid line and tough spinning reels like the Daiwa Saltiga and Shimano Stella FA series. They’re capable to withstand even the meanest game fish and sea conditions.

We were heading back towards shore when we spotted an outcrop of land with birds diving in and out of the water. This place seems to be a perfect place for doing some popping. We were right, a big school of giant trevallies were attacking some bait fish and so were the birds. Everybody on board were very excited and so was I. The captain gunned his boat towards the target. We were standing on a strait line like line dancing only that our partners were our popping rods each with a big colorful popper. Poppers for deep sea fishing must be big enough to throw and reach the target, as well as creating much noise for the targeted fish to notice. Some of our poppers were as big as 1 foot. We managed to land more than 10 of those hard fighting fishes.

It was really a very good deep sea fishing trip considering the fun and catch we had for the whole trip. The various techniques and methods we successfully applied were valuable experience that could only be done in deep sea on a fishing boat.

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