Lakes Entrance swordfish still eludes me

[scott__henning]

Had another crack at the swords of Lakes Entrance on saturday.

Conditions were very different to last time, with a southerly swell giving the Bar a bit of activity.

We launched at first light and headed out. While a little interesting, the Bar wasn't too bad.

After passing the last of the oil rigs, we came across a huge bust up of stripy tuna. Being the genius's we are, we had taken out almost all of our lures, but threw out the 8" ones we had on hand. Got a stripy almost immediately, a bit of a fluke as the hooks were massive.

As we were trolling, I was making up more and more bigger fish. Would've marked about 30-40 of em, and I can say with near certainty that they were Barrels (and apparently 1 cow), but we just didn't have the lure spread required to give em a crack, as swordfish was the target.

Leaving the feeding frenzy behind, we continued out to the shelf and proceeded to spend the whole day dropping baits without so much as a bite :snap: .

Ironically, another boat about 20km to our east landed a 115kg Bluefin while chasing the swords. I'm sure they were really dissapointed :banana: .

So a quiet day for us, with the fun part of the day being tackling the lively Lakes Entrance bar on the way back in, in the dark!! Not something I intend to do that often, but we made it through in one piece.

Completely spent, I'm keen to give em another crack in a few weeks time when we get another weather window, but until then some sleep is required!

[Marty.A]

Mate A+ for effort only a matter time for some success :thumbsup: . I assume you would be chewing through the fuel with those kind of trips?

[scott__henning]

Mate A+ for effort only a matter time for some success :thumbsup: . I assume you would be chewing through the fuel with those kind of trips?

200L on Saturday yeah. We use a bit haha

[ducky]

Shooting out from lakes with barrel and sword gear onboard would be sweet. Much better than a trip to Portland to chase jelly beans.

How are you targeting the swords? What's the technique?

[Nude up]

Gee scott if you used 200 lt I would only have 10 litres left. How far off the bottom were your baits suspended I have been making some deep drop rigs with 13/0 stainless tuna circles fancy giving it a crack when hopefully we have our quota of sbt onboard. I saw some great flashing strobes at hooked on bait and tackle but they were all spoken for

[ducky]

Gee scott if you used 200 lt I would only have 10 litres left. How far off the bottom were your baits suspended I have been making some deep drop rigs with 13/0 stainless tuna circles fancy giving it a crack when hopefully we have our quota of sbt onboard. I saw some great flashing strobes at hooked on bait and tackle but they were all spoken for

Electric reels or just hand cranking it up from the depths?

I've been wanting to give it a go but my mate hates the idea haha. His boat his rules at the end of the day. But apparently some awesome blue eye out there in the depths.

[Scraglor]

Mad respect for you blokes chasing the swords, wish I had a boat with the range and capability to get out there

[ecoronad]

Hey Scotty, you didn't try the devondale eco grass lure on the "cow" you sounded up. That's the best image I've seen on a sounder yet. Maybe someone should start up a thread on "the most interesting sounder images recorded." Reading your past reports, I reckon that first sword won't be too far away.

[Nude up]

Gee scott if you used 200 lt I would only have 10 litres left. How far off the bottom were your baits suspended I have been making some deep drop rigs with 13/0 stainless tuna circles fancy giving it a crack when hopefully we have our quota of sbt onboard. I saw some great flashing strobes at hooked on bait and tackle but they were all spoken for

Electric reels or just hand cranking it up from the depths?

I've been wanting to give it a go but my mate hates the idea haha. His boat his rules at the end of the day. But apparently some awesome blue eye out there in the depths.

Just hand cranking I need 2 more tiagras to replace the tld50's to make a full spread of 5 can't justify the expense but if I get a tassie trumpeter it could change priorities

[scott__henning]

Hey Scotty, you didn't try the devondale eco grass lure on the "cow" you sounded up. That's the best image I've seen on a sounder yet. Maybe someone should start up a thread on "the most interesting sounder images recorded." Reading your past reports, I reckon that first sword won't be too far away.

:rofl: unfortunately I lost my last Devondale Eco on a particularly feisty sheep that wore through the leader.



In terms of rigs and techniques, we have been trying a few different things. Having spoken to a lot of those in the know, there doesn't seem to be a perfect technique however.

We run a Talica 50 with 100m of topshot then about 1000m of 80lb braid. We've been using singles and double hook rigs, with squid, salmon or bonito. The hooks have to be stiched into the bait, as swords will whack the bait right off the hook otherwise. We also run a few strobe lights on the leader.

The last trip we caught a heap of ling as we were struggling to break the sinker off (2 bricks on 20lb dropper) once we reached the bottom in 500m. Because the bait stayed at the bottom it got smashed.

Now that we have fixed that issue, we drop it then bring it off the bottom 30-40m and let it drift for a while, until it drifts to maybe 200m down (that part is a total guess).

We also run an electric setup, but if a sword hits that we will be unlikely to get him in, they get destroyed I'm told, so it's all manual cranking on the Talica.

Bloody hard work, takes about 5-6 minutes of free spool to hit the bottom at least, and probably takes 10 minutes of winding to bring it back in, more if there is any sort of bottom fish on, and the shoulders really start to burn!