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PAKULA
TROLLING TIPS |
THE
OBJECTIVE
of
all forms of fishing is catching fish, it is
therefore logical that the single most
important thing to achieve this goal is
finding them. No matter how good your boat,
crew and gear are, even if you’ve got lots
of Pakula Lures, if you don’t find the fish
you won’t catch any. There are a few points
that may help you find your targets. Firstly
the most important thing to look for is
baitfish either by spotting birds working or
using your sounder.. The main areas to
concentrate on are areas such as reefs,
drop-offs, current lines, water temperature
changes, ocean bed contours such as the
continental shelf and tidal trenches at
river or bay mouths. The most significant of
these is temperature change, the greater the
change of temperature range the better. The
actual temperature itself is not really
relevant nor is the colour of the water. In
fact there is far more life and food in
green and so called murky water than there
is in the cobalt blue. However it is
psychologically difficult to fish in other
than clear cobalt blue water. Once you find
your bait and have seen signs of or hooked
your target species then you should stay in
that vicinity. Experienced skippers scale
down their GPS plotters to three miles or
less and stay in that area for the rest of
the session. There are some other important
factors : you get a better hook up trolling
with or across the current and sea than you
will going against it. On certain days you
will find that all your strikes will come
when you are trolling in the same direction.
SETTING DRAGS:
When setting drags, the speed at which you
pull your line off the reel is very
critical. The faster you pull the line the
more load you place on the scales. You will
be quite surprised how much the scales vary
depending on the speed of the pull. To get a
realistic drag setting on your reel at a
third the breaking strain of the line, pull
the scales relatively slowly.
LURE LEADERS:
The lighter the leader the better your lure
works, plus the less visible the leader is
to the fish. Huge game fish are not more
stupid than little fish, yet when you fish
for little fish you try and use a light
leader. Lures may work well using a leader
of 300lbs but will catch more if you use
200lb and still more using 150lb. Using
heavy leaders will save the loss of many
fish, mainly because you hook less . A
leader should be at least as long as the
fish you expect to catch. The reason
trolling lures are designed to slide up the
leader is so that when the fish shakes its
head or jumps, the lure slips to the other
end of the leader and cannot be used as a
pendulum to throw the hooks. The shorter the
leader the better. With a 10 foot leader you
can also tag or gaff a fish straight off the
rod tip without anyone tracing the fish.
Very often the hooks are pulled, and the
fish lost as soon as the trace is grabbed.
If the fish is acting stubborn at the side
of the boat the angler can grab the double
and hold on while lifting the rod to get the
fish within range of either tag or gaff. As
long as the rod is bent the double line is
extremely difficult to break.
SETTING UP A LURE PATTERN
is quite easy if you
follow a few logical steps. It is the boat
itself, the motors noise, prop wash and
turbulence that does most of the attracting.
If the boat scared the fish what would they
be doing behind it?. Keeping this in mind,
set the spread of lures from just behind the
boat to where the prop wash white water or
turbulence ends. Depending on the boat this
distance varies considerably. On a single
diesel it is very short and on an outboard
very long relative to the size of the boat.
As the boat does most of the attracting we
try and enhance this with the selection of
lures. The closer they are to the boat the
larger and, or more aggressive the lure
should be, as the spread gets towards the
end of the pattern the lures should get
smaller and less aggressive, towards the
shot gun position which would be the
smallest and least active lure in the
spread. By spreading the lures in this
manner the fish will be drawn through the
whole spread and have a greater selection to
chose from.
SELECTING
LURE COLOURS
can be quite
daunting. We stock 50 colours that give you
2,500 possible colour combinations. To make
things a little easier we have listed both
specific lure positions and colours
throughout this catalogue. If you follow
these guides you will note that there is a
common thread throughout. The long rigger
lure is green, the short rigger purple, the
long corner blue and the short corner is
Scad, black or purple. This set of colours
matches the most common baitfish colours
found in all game fishing areas around the
world. You will also see that these colours
range from very bright to very dark, giving
maximum variation in their silhouettes. As
with all fishing, every area has its own
particular ‘hot colour’ for example black
and red or yellow around tropical reefs,
pink in the light tackle fishery in
Australia. Blue and pink in Hawaii. Indeed
you should add this colour to your pattern,
but we strongly suggest you leave the main
pattern alone and use the extra colours on
extra lures in positions such as the shot
gun or around the main spread. One thing you
may not notice is the luminous and
fluorescent additives in Pakula Skirts that
make them totally irresistible.
POSITIONING
YOUR LURES
within a
trolling pattern needs a little attention.
With lures that have a symmetrical head
shape such as all Pakula Lures, the
positioning of the hooks control which way
up the lure runs in the water. If you run a
two hook rig at the recommended 60 degrees
angle by placing two points of the hook in
the dark side of the skirt will ensure that
the dark side rides upwards. The hooks will
not spin within the skirt and they will
maintain this position.
TUNING YOUR
LURES
once you set the distance it is quite simply
a matter of running the lure on the lower
third of its closest pressure wave. In this
position the lure will work well with as
little leader dragging in the water as
possible. The lure is also in the best
position for a fish to grab it easily. If a
lure blows out of the water often you can
simply wind the lure towards you, down
towards the bottom of the pressure wave. If
it still keeps blowing out will you have to
drop it back or slow the boat down.
THE MOST
IMPORTANT POINT
to remember is the one on the end of your
hook! Remember to check the points and edges
are still sharp. Cutting down the barbs also
helps the hook up rate, particularly on
light tackle.
TROLLING
LURES ON ULTRA LIGHT TACKLE
is very
intricate. Everything must be carefully set
up and checked. Drags should be set with the
scales pulled relatively slowly. The hooks
must be razor sharp and the barbs almost non
existent. The hooks may even be oiled to aid
penetration. The release on clips and rubber
bands should be checked for release pressure
and smoothness.
THE BENEFITS
OF USING THE HEAVIER LINE CLASSES
apart from being easier to set hooks, is
that you can use a greater variety of lure
sizes. It is quite important to try and
match the size of the baitfish that are
being fed on, like matching the hatch when
fly fishing for Trout. The lighter line
classes limit the maximum sized lure you can
run, however you can certainly run a couple
of small lures on heavy tackle.
OUTRIGGERS
on a boat are
more than just somewhere to hang your
capture flags. In a perfect world all
trolling lines should be at the same angle
as they leave the rod tips and outriggers.
To set up your rigger lines you should have
them set so they do this as closely as
possible. This would mean that the line on
the long rigger would come off its top and
somewhere down from that on the short
rigger. For example the hardest boats to set
lures from have extra long riggers and run
bent butts in angled rod holders so they run
flat. This set up gives they greatest
variation of angles. This set up generally
results in the flat lines not working
aggressively enough and the rigger lures
continuously blowing out. On the subject of
outriggers, it does not seem to matter what
kind of release system you use, such as
clips or rubber bands or whether you use tag
lines or not. The governing factor of hook
ups on rigger lines is how crisp the release
is. To stiffen your riggers you can run
stays from their tips to the bow of your
boat.
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