Tag and Release

Hi Uwe,
My answer actualy will touch on several of the posts in this section.

I release almost all my billfish and actively tag fish whenever possible. Without people tagging fish, research becomes very difficult.

However, far more important than actually putting in a tag, is to release fish in a condition where the possibility for survival is high, and that necessitates the need to keep the fight short.

This in turn, dictates that heavy tackle is used.

I completely agree with the author of a previous post, going after marlin with 6 and 10kg line, is a joke. Unless the fish is chased down with a boat, without the angler actually having fought and beat the fish, does not in my mind justify any recognition of "angling skill" - rather reward the skipper for his boating skills.

I will never forget the first time ever we hooked a Black Marlin of about 400lbs, off Sodwana in 30m of water, by accident on a small feather set out for bait, on 10 or 15kg line, on my small 16ft ski-boat.

4 hours later, and 12 miles offshore, that fish could still not be brought 1 meter closer to the boat by the very experienced angler. Had we been on my current boat, we would have possibly been able to manoeuvre the boat onto the fish in a short time, enabling us to either gaff or T&R the fish.

Bottom line is, I do not think you can bring a billfish to submission on light tackle, so why call it "caught"

130's Rule!
Kas

hi Kas,
for those mentioned prior posts we should put a more detailed definition on what is "light tackle".
i fish only Big Game all around the year, luckily most time of the year for Billfish and i use "light tackle" and do catch and release.
i agree a 100% with you that chasing a blue or black marlin on a 10kilo line/tackle would not result in a very successful release of the fish, even if the experienced angler will be able to pull a 400+lbs fish up to the surface and the skipper brings the boat alongside the fish to grab him, it even could be a very dangerous situation to grab the bill of that sized fished which is very likely not very tired at this moment, or you fight him for several hours, he will be tired but more dead than ready to release.
when i write myself about light tackle i mean 20-30 lbs Penn Internationals for sailfish and white marlin season, averaging 50-70lbs per animal, biggest white marlin this season had 104.5lbs, so those you can fight without a boat-chase on standing up gear within 1 hrs, that fish will be rebreathed after a few minutes beside the boat and can be released with high surviving possibilities.
my light tackle for blue marlin season are penn internationals 50lbs and penn 6/0's with 50-80lbs lines on, our blue marlins averaging 200-400lbs class mostly, this years biggest blue had 590lbs caught last week, show no problem on that tackle without a boat-chase, 45-90 minutes fights don't show up with problems to prepare the fish for a successful release. of course i get several times during white marlin season smaller Blues up taking a ballyhoo on a 20-30lbs tackle, on those occassions i manoever the boat over the submerged fishes position so the angler will not face problems to pull a 150-200lbs up to surface, but also there i try to put a maximum of 90 minutes to a fight, if a fight takes less than 60 minutes is better anyways.
what average sizes and seasons do you have for billfish in your area?

take care
Mike

well, well, well... this is one of these questions, that may split a community!

first of of all, I would like to to know, if your question concerns "tag&release" or is it "kill or release"... this "tag thing" is mainly important to my mind!
I have spoken to alot of charter captains, that all assured me that it is way easier to "release" a marlin then to "t&r" her... to pull a 600lbs 14feet leader up to its limits and then "releasing" (or loosing?) a marlin...:-) but pull this leader to the range of a 6feet tag stick... set the tag, pull out the hook etc.: that`s fishing at it`s best! I am not really into the "BF" but the procedure of "tagging" assures me a at least a "gaffing range!"!

I hope you all got me
TL
MARC

Hi Mike,

Our Season is not that closely defined yet and more often than not, dictated by the weather and sea conditions.

We know that we have billfish around throughout the year, but we fish more often from Nov to May, Yet I have had good results starting as early as August, weather permitting. There is a defined peak though in Oct to Feb, especially for Blacks, and the common belief is that the Blues are more prevalent in the Tuna season from then on up to May.

As for the size of our fish, they are generally small, with the bulk of the catch on lures, being in the 90 to 150kg class for blacks and blues and about 70kg for strpeys.

However, this is as unpredictable as the weather. I think the local record for a Blue, is over 700lbs and last season one boat had a double hookup on 2 x 400lb fish and a few weeks later, lost something that first broke the chair, then several rodholders in the gunnels, and finally the rod butt!

The current SA record for a blue is over 1000lb

The bigger Blacks, are almost always caught on slow trolling live bait, rather than Lures, yet the smaller Blacks are not shy to take a lure.

I would not say that really big fish are not common, yet they are here and we tend to prepare for the eventuality. In any event, we have very big Yellowfin in the mix, which you will boat on nothing less than 50lb standup gear, and if you hook these on the troll, well several guys have been spooled out on 80 & 130lb without being able to turn the fish even once.

I hope this answers some of your questions. As time marches on and more anglers fish our relatively new fishery for Billfish more often, we will all become a little bit wizer.

Regards,
Kas