Geoff Thomas: Back up plan for slow days

Mattie Peters and Ali Williams with some snapper off the long-line. Photo / Geoff Thomas

It was a calm day on the worm beds the other day. Fishing had been good but on this particular day there was little current, little bird activity and only small snapper talking to the baits.

It is a common story but one not usually told in the after-match gatherings, where details of the catch are glossed over and eventually become blurred. Not like the days when big fish attacked the baits and the fish bin was filled quickly. That was when the cellphone came out and the news spread rapidly.

So, what to do? There are several options. You can wait it out and hope that when the tide turns or the light fades the bite will spark up. Or you can up-anchor and head out over the horizon looking for action.

But there is an alternative; one which some fishermen know only too well. Get out the secret weapon, the insurance policy - the long-line.

For the fish will be there. They are just wary of the boat, sluggish on the bite when baits are hanging from a thick piece of nylon under the boat, and need prompting in a different manner.

Like all fishing, there are a few tricks to putting the long-line to good use. The rules are simple. You can have 25 hooks on the line and if there are two or more people in the boat you may have two lines. No more.

The floats must also carry the owner's name and phone number. So you first catch some jack mackerel, more commonly referred to as yellowtail. These little fish are the ones which show up on the screen of the fish finder as a vertical blob in mid-water, and savvy snapper fishermen know that when you find yellowtails you will also find snapper.

They are deadly bait for big snapper when fished whole or cut in half. And a strip of fresh fillet will deter pickers on your regular baits and hook the occasional good-sized fish.

They are easy to catch when a sabiki rig sweetened with scraps of bait is dropped among the berley, and are usually found before hitting the bottom.

You can use store-bought bait such as squid and pilchards on your long-line but the hooks will be picked clean in short order.

Fresh bait will stick on and will attract the bigger specimens also. Like yellowtails, fillets of kahawai or mullet work fine but they should be scaled before use. Cut the bait into small chunks. You do not need big baits to catch big fish in this situation.

Long-line hooks are always recurved and the bait can be applied by simply pushing the hook through it once.

The secret to their success is the way in which the bait is presented. It lies on the bottom of the sea like a piece of fish that has drifted down. There is no boat noise and nothing to scare your quarry. The snapper move along the sea bed looking for easy pickings, and even if they are not feeding hard they often can't resist picking up a juicy morsel.

When snapper in aquariums are observed feeding they always pick up their food and swim away with it in their mouth. This is why you have to let them chew on your bait when fishing with a regular rod, or let them run when straylining with unweighted baits.

The long-line system is designed so the trace can slide along the backbone until it hits a stopper, allowing the snapper to swim some distance with the bait in its mouth. Then the trace comes up hard against the stop and the hook is driven into the corner of the mouth. They are always hooked in the corner of the mouth, which is why recurved hooks are always used when fishing baits for game fish which are to be released. In fact, this is why J hooks are not allowed in the United States for game fishing with baits. A fish that has swallowed a J hook can be injured fatally, but one hooked in the corner of the jaw is released easily.

The commercial fishing industry employs recurved hooks on the super long lines which catch fish in huge quantities. A total of 160,934km of long lines with 5 million hooks are set for pelagic fish such as tuna and marlin in the oceans of the world every day.

But our 25 hooks were enough to sway the result after only one set. The crew had done it before, and in the calm conditions setting the line and retrieving it an hour later was a breeze.

There were three pannies on ice after four hours of fishing with rods, and the set line added a further six snapper of up to 4kg, which made a serious difference to the fish dinners at four homes that night.

SAFETY FIRST

It is a three-person operation - one driving the boat, one handling the main line and spool and one clipping on or removing the traces.

Extra care is needed in the wind. If a hook is caught in clothing or a finger and the boat is being driven downwind, the drag of the gear in the water can cause serious injury. Keep a sharp knife to cut the line if needed. It can always be rejoined.

When calm, the line can be set and retrieved by drifting with the current.

In strong winds, motor upwind instead so you have more control.