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Teasers for billfishOK, so maybe you don't want to catch a 200 pound marlin. They're still a lot of fun to watch. We've seen a handful of them very close to the boat and always get a thrill out of it. We drag a "teaser" behind RED just about all the time we're on passages in order to attract these magnificent animals. Lots of time we're not interested in catching fish; the freezer is full, it's too rough, or we're too tired to deal with cleaning and processing a fish. It's still fun to watch marlin, though. A "teaser" is just a large, splashy object that a marlin may interpret as lunch. Chunks of 2x4, a wine bottle, a bowling pin will even work, but I use regular marlin lures without a hook (unless I want to catch one, of course). I heard of one guy who rigs his teasers with a somewhat wimpy hook; the logic is, it'll allow him to catch small fish, but the big ones straighten the hook and get away. It prevents losing his gear to the big ones, too! Great idea. If you mount a small reel with a clicker on your rail, it's easy to know when a marlin comes to visit. Just attach a large and splashy lure (any of the three big lures below work great) to the fixed reel, then run the lure between 40 and 60 feet behind your boat; it should pop up about every five seconds or so, then dive beneath the surface leaving a long trail of bubbles. Set the drag pretty tight, and engage the clicker. Sooner or later, you'll hear a screech - screech - screech; that's your marlin alert! Grab the camera or video and enjoy the show. We've had a couple of marlin that stuck around for 5 minutes or so, getting increasingly agitated as they try to eat the lure that keeps getting away. Here's a selection of lures that marlin find irresistible. I hooked (and lost) my first marlin on the blue one, third one down from the top. The top orange/yellow chugger has been struck by maybe half a dozen marlin to date. They really seem to like it!
A selection of lures suitable for attracting marlin (ranging from 9 to about 12 inches long), and a smaller lure targeting more manageable sized fish. The pink/white lure catches small (3' or less) barracuda and wahoo (which, as you can see, chew off the tail with their razor-sharp teeth).
November, 2005: Between Savusavu, Fiji and Tarawa, Kiribati. A marlin came up to take a few swipes at the teaser (usually a chugger or something else really splashy) that we almost always tow about 40 or 50 feet behind the boat. If you put it on a reel with the clicker on and the drag set fairly tight, you'll hear the clicker so you know when you have a visitor. You can clearly see the bill (submerged), the dorsal fin (above the surface), and the tail (submerged) in the top photo; the body is the dark area to the left of the orange teaser. Encounters like this are exciting. |
