By Alistair McGlashan | Bluewater trolling is often described as ‘hours of boredom, minutes of mayhem’.
Yet those minutes of mayhem, as a school of tuna strike every lure in the spread or you get the crashing strike of a striped marlin, is always worth the wait.
Lure trolling has evolved into a highly successful technique that is responsible for the downfall of more bluewater game fish than any other offshore technique.
In Tasmania tuna, (striped, yellowfin, albacore and southern bluefin) have always been the primary target, but this technique also works on the much sought after striped marlin.
Some switched on anglers are also running deep diving lures, like the ever reliable Halco Laser Pros and Tremblers in their spreads, and are catching a whole lot of bigger tuna.
Despite the effectiveness of bluewater trolling, it is a technique that is not easily mastered.
Luckily, in recent years, some of the offshore experts have begun to reveal their secrets and help anglers skip a few steps in the learning process.
However, there is no substitute for time on the water.
The more miles you cover, the more fish you will encounter and the more you will learn.
There is a steep learning curve to become proficient at bluewater trolling.
Setting up the spread
Crews that concentrate on dragging plastic (or skirted lures) really do treat it as a science.
They experiment with various lures at different speeds in each position, before the optimum spread is developed.
Each lure has a specific position in the spread and is set up in a way that should entice a strike from every marlin raised.
A spread of lures should resemble a school of fish to the predators.
Many anglers don’t think a skirted lure looks anything like a bait.
When trolled correctly though, it actually looks amazingly similar to a feeding baitfish, such as our sauries, and will easily fool a pelagic predator.
As a standard rule most boats troll four or five lures in a spread.
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