FRESH FISH EVERY OTHER DAY...........

For all you guys outward bound, here's a few fishing tips. We caught hundreds of fish with our two hand trolling lines with rubber shock cords on them. 500 lb. test mono filament works great, so does 1/8" braided nylon line. The shock cords are attached to the line so they will be visible to the helmsman on woman. Your after shrouds will work great and the helmsman won't have to be constantly looking behind the boat to see if the shock cord is streached out. A good pair of heavy leather gloves is a good idea and also having a gaff with a good long handle will be of use. We mainly used Jap heads with large double hooks and feathers of various colors. Fish up to about 20 pounds you can just heave over the life lines and onto the deck. We found a short line attached to the boat and a quick clove hitch around the tail of the thrashing fish was a good idea because quite often the fish would manage to jump back over the side of the boat. A winch handle works great at giving your wahoo a couple of taps on the head. We were sailing a large boat in the trade winds that had preventers and vang tackles in place. We were usually doing 7 or 8 knots and made no attempt to slow the boat for the smaller fish. The larger fish we would attempt to luff up a bit if it wasn't blowing too hard. Quite often, a monster fish would hit our lines and break everything or tear the hook out of his mouth. We found day break was usually the best time to catch fish and also a day or two out from what ever land fall we were heading to. Fresh fish made up a big part of our diets. We would only eat deep water fish such as tuna or dorado. Reef fish have been known poison people.... After wrapping our trolling lines in our taffrail log spinner a few times we found it best to bring in the log while we were fishing. A little money spent on some trolling gear will provide you with dozens of great fish dinners.....