Trolling skirted lures through the ocean in search of pelagic fish ranging from small tuna to Godzilla sized marlin is easier in essence than just about any other form of fishing. The technology in electronics, rods, reels and harnesses, plus their relatively inexpensive prices has even made small boat, even as small as 12 foot (There is an 8’ game boat in Kona, appropriately named “Brain Damaged”, though I certainly don’t recommend boats that small!!!) viable platforms to hunt these fish on an even footing with the large Game Fishing battle wagons, though indeed the larger boats are certainly more comfortable and handle rougher seas with more comfort and safety.

There are few things on this planet that give as good an adrenaline rush as witnessing a rising dorsal accelerating to intercept a surface run lure. Without exception the take, and the moments following a strike are awe-inspiring and totally addictive.

As with all forms of fishing the starting point is rather technical, learning how the gear works on its own and interacts with the other equipment is essentially a technical exercise. Only when that has been understood and using it becomes second nature can you effectively start enjoying the art of lure trolling.

Somewhere on the planet a season is just ending and another just starting, anglers may have cracked their first successes, or they are just about to. The conditions and currents might have something to do with this, though I suspect that many of the marlin captures are a direct result of anglers having a better understanding of the workings of the ocean and skills of trolling artificial lures.

It is, at long last, accepted that artificial lures are not only an effective weapon for catching large game fish and the most spectacular of all. In many cases it is the most effective, being responsible for many wins against those using other methods. The best news is that trolling lures is very easy to do. Indeed a novice can be very competitive with just a basic knowledge of lure trolling.

Those who consistently miss out on success may do so for a many number of reasons, not the least of which is sheer bad luck. Though I suspect the main reason for failure is because of a misunderstanding of basic lure trolling principles that significantly decreases the chance of reasonable success.

Anglers generally experience some form of trolling before using skirted trolling lures for game fish. It might be trolling for trout along weed beds and drop-offs in a lake, or trolling around the edge of the sandbanks, circling schools of small pelagic fish or trolling for kingfish and small tuna along rocky shores and reefs.

These forms of trolling have many things in common. They all involve relatively low trolling speeds, under five knots, and often at a slow walking pace. Lures are placed a long way behind the boat so the lures will be in the ‘zone of convergence’ that is, the distance behind a moving boat where disturbed fish converge and resume normal behavior and hopefully, resume feeding. In most of these types of trolling it is assumed that the boat scares the fish. (In most cases in all forms of trolling this assumption is incorrect, however the assumption remains ingrained

Unfortunately these types of trolling have nothing whatever to do with trolling for large oceanic game fish. In fact, it’s generally just the opposite. When converting to blue water trolling, you have to abandon the idea that the lures should be as far away from the boat and its wash as possible. When trolling for the big game fish, the boat and it’s wash are actually part of the system and the trick is learning how to use it to your advantage.

THE MOVING F.A.D.
When using skirted lures, the biggest difference is the speed. In blue water skirted lures are pulled along at effective speeds from a minimum of 6.5 knots, mostly 7.5 to 8.5 and as fast as 15 knots with the accompanying noise, vibration and white water. These components actually combine to form an effective ‘Fish Attracting Device’.

Many anglers, because of their previous experience with other forms of trolling, run their lures way back out past the end of the wash, fearing that the boat noise and wash will scare the fish. In this form of fishing this is not the case. The action is concentrated in the area between the transom and the end of the prop wash and turbulence. This is known as the Strike Zone. This area is where you should run your lures.

Indeed fish do get hooked on lures a long way back, but they were probably on their way to the boat. The chance of getting a solid hookup on a fish are far better on a short line, due to less line stretch and belly.

It is possible that the wash itself may appear to be a shoal of tiny baitfish foaming the surface in a feeding frenzy, or perhaps they have come to know that the motor noise and vibration could mean a trawler dumping trash over the side resulting in an easy meal, perhaps it does attract small predators like striped tuna and frigate mackerel that search the white water for a feed or camouflage, this may in turn attract larger predators. Regardless of what we imagine the wash represents to fish the boat does not in any way scare these predators. The larger, bolder predators have even less fear and will come in so close to the transom they almost ram it as if they were attracted to it.

READING THE WASH
Before we put the lures out, let’s slow down to an average trolling speed of about 7 knots and have a look at the Strike Zone, the area between the transom and the end of the prop wash or turbulence created by the boat hull. You can read the wash behind a boat in a similar manner to reading the water around a headland, island, reef or beach.

The features of the wash are shown in the adjacent figure. (Fig 1. Reading the Wash) Down the center is the prop wash, a very concentrated boiling confusion of white water, or so it seems. This white water is at its deepest at the transom, with the maximum depth at the props. Perhaps it is not as deep as you might have imagined, and comes very close to the surface within a few feet of the props. Although it looks like solid white water, it is quite translucent, allowing enough light to enable even small tuna to find tiny lures in the midst of it.   

Along the side of the prop wash there are alleys of clearer water with little or no white water turbulence; a nice place to run a lure, as it would be very visible. Remember though that predators are used to chasing tiny baitfish that are very well camouflaged. No matter what size or colour your lure is, it will show up very clearly no matter where you run it, as will your leaders and rigging.

Notice the white water coming off the sides of the boat. This Side Wash is very shallow and almost transparent consisting mostly of surface bubbles. A lure that is run in this area is probably more visible than in any other area, as the frothy white surface will highlight the lure’s silhouette.

Every boat has a different wash format at every speed, in every sea condition and in every direction traveled. For example the wash is longer going into a current than it is going with it. To maintain the lures position you may lengthen a lures distance going into the current and shorten it going down current.

THE WINDOW
The next items to take note of in the Strike Zone are the waves following the boat. These are pressure waves kicked up by the boat and vary in size depending on the boat size and hull type. The distance between them is the waterline length of the boat. These waves are the most important part of the wash for trolling skirted lures, as they are run and carefully positioned or tuned on the leading face of the pressure wave.

On close examination you’ll note several things including:
They are largest at the transom and gradually get smaller further back in the wash and generally fade out around the end of the prop wash and turbulence. The top of the wave is steeper than the bottom of the wave.  The face of the wave is far more visible from behind than the back of the wave. We’ll call this the ‘window’ as shown in the adjacent figure. (Fig 2. The Window) The further down the face of the wave, the larger the ‘window’ and the more visible the lure is.

It is important to note that some boats don’t have pressure waves, in which case the positioning of lures is less critical. It is also important to note that the rougher and choppier the sea the harder it is to distinguish where the pressure waves are, though with a little experience you will get to know how properly set lures appear and behave and position them accordingly.

WHAT A LURE IS
Until we can interview a game fish we really don’t know why lures do catch fish. However over the years we have come to understand why some lures consistently catch more fish than others. It appears that they work because they trigger feeding and, or aggression responses. Basically in the world of the predator anything that moves and easily caught is possibly edible, the more like something it’s used to eating and the sicker or more wounded it appears the more likely a predator will commit its precious energy resource to an attack. This is a natural hunting response. A cat will attack anything that comes within range. A child will try and catch anything that is thrown towards it. The factors that contribute to the effectiveness of a lure are size, shape, colour, vibration, action, rigging and of course, but often overlooked fact of, using them in an area likely to produce results.

WHAT A LURE DOES
The types of lure we are specifically discussing are surface running skirted trolling lures. (Though much of the theory has relevance to other types of lures and forms of fishing). When run behind the boat, trolled, they tend to ‘work’ in a repetitive cycle. A lure that is working properly runs through the following cycle: It comes to the surface, grabs air ‘breathing’, dives down leaving a long bubble trail, ‘smoking’ and when it stops smoking, it comes up for another breath. It should not run under the water without a smoke trail for any length of time, if it does; it is called ‘lazy’. Also, it shouldn’t come out of the water, ‘blowing out’ when breathing.

All the different shapes and sizes go through these motions with different aggressions and timing. For example, for many sliced headed lures the cycle is repeated every 15 seconds, some as long as 30 between breaths, Pakula lures are at their best when they breathe every 5 seconds. Some lures come to surface and softly breathe before diving, others explode on the surface causing a sonic boom. Some dive as straight as an arrow, others may ‘swim’ off the side or dive in deep consistent arc, others shake their heads or tails as they dive. Smoke trails vary from pencil thin to almost creating their own prop wash. This mainly depends on the shape of the lure head, lure length and trolling speed. How often a lure goes through the working cycle depends on sea conditions, boat speed, lure position, line class and rigging.

LURE THEORY
Now that we understand the basic idea of where our lures are to be run and what they are supposed to do we can now move onto the lure selection. This is generally based on the level of information you’ve got, varying from getting a set of lures recommended by your local tackle store or from anglers fishing in the same areas, or perhaps chosen by recommendations from manufacturers, web forums, and indeed from personal preferences based on your own experiences.

Care should be taken if you incorporate individual lure recommendations to form a lure pattern. Think of it as getting advice for car parts, you could end up with an economical 1200cc motor, 4wd diffs, balloon tyres, comfortable LTD body etc, all great as separate items but when they’re put together it’s a bit of a disaster.

When choosing lures we tend to specify them according to the species of fish we most desire to catch, such as Blue Marlin Lures, Sailfish Lures, Tuna Lures, Wahoo Lures etc. Unfortunately this method of classification is not only incorrect, it is often misleading.

A lure pattern should imitate a selection of wounded or fleeing bait species that are likely to be in the area at the time you’re fishing. As most predators will feed on any available food source over any given period, if you get this right and you’ll target whatever predatory species are around from small tuna to monster billfish.

“Matching the hatch” is actually quite easy, as the species of blue water bait are very similar throughout the world’s game fishing areas, though it is very important to note that the food types change as they migrate through an area at certain times of the year. By following this system through you’ll also notice that through any given period there are many available food species. By working out which food is most likely to be in the area you can more accurately select a lure that “matches the hatch” in action, colour and size. There is no doubt that if you get this system right you’ll even catch the fish you’re after out side the period considered to be a normal season.

NB: There may also be an argument for trolling a pattern of identical lures if you think that there is only one dominant bait species that you can imitate it successfully.)

SELECTING LURES FOR THE PATTERN
There are several considerations in choosing lures to form a pattern:

Number of Lures
The next step is to decide how many lures you wish to run and the line classes involved. The number of lures run varies greatly. In areas where the fish are in great numbers, or there is a small crew to handle the gear the number of lures is less than in areas where there are less fish or more crew on board to handle the gear. For example in Cairns many boats troll only two lures and no teasers. In other areas up to ten lures and a brace of up to six teasers are used. In the following we’ll assume that we’ll use five rods which is not too many for an amateur crew of three or four to handle if you hook up to a hot fish.

Size
Each line class has a maximum sized lure that can be effectively trolled due to the drag setting used. There is however no minimum sized lure for any line class. Nor is there any minimum sized lure for any species or size of fish you are chasing. Granders have and will eat lures as small as five inches long, however as they are rarely rigged to catch fish of this size they are normally lost on smaller lures. As a guideline most predatory fish, particularly billfish can swallow a meal of twenty percent of their own weight. The largest lures that are readily available are eighteen inches long that is equivalent to a bait of around four to six pound, so even the largest lure you’ll use is not out of the question for a small sixty pound marlin.

As discussed earlier the Strike Zone is from the back of the boat to the end of the wash or turbulence. To enhance this we select lures from highly aggressive and large near the back of the boat to more sedate and smaller as we get to the end of the prop wash which is also the end of the strike zone. The greater the range of sizes used the more species of fish you are likely to target. For example a five lure spread would consist of one fourteen inch, one twelve inch, two ten inch and an eight inch lure. There may be times when you may wish to eliminate smaller species such as Skipjack or Bonito, in which case you wouldn’t run lures under eight inches.(Fig 1. Reading the Wash)

Shape
The chosen set of lures should be compatible with each other in action, vibration and effective trolling speed. The simplest way to do this is run lures that are all similar in type, i.e. all Scoop Faced Chuggers such as the Pakula Range, or all Sliced Head Lures such as Black Barts and Hollowpoints. Mixing lures types when your just starting out is really making the sport far more difficult and unsuccessful than it could be. Each lure developer designs their lures to run in specific positions within a pattern. Knowing where this position is just by looking at the lure without a great deal of experience can be quite difficult.

To make things more difficult the standard terminology used to describe the lures position ie long corner etc is not appropriate, as it does not convey the relevant information. Whether a lure works in a certain position in a pattern relative to the others depends to great extent on the angle at which the lure hits the water. As shown in the figures below they vary considerably. (Fig 3 and 4. Angle of Entry)