01481 822722 Fax

3MM ELECTRICAL TAPE I know of no other electrical tape on the market as good as this, and it has a variety of uses in fishing. One extremely useful use is to tape over the reel seat before attaching the reel (stops and prevents corrosion over a long period of time) and then, once the butt and rod are attached and the reel seat has been tightened into place, wrap the whole rod from the screw fitting down over the two reel fittings with tape as well. This prevents the whole assembly from vibrating loose over time. There is nothing worse than to be fighting a big fish and feel the reel starting to come loose! WASTEBIN Rubbish of all sorts, especially loose line and paper, flys around in the cockpit of a boat if placed in the traditional ‘bucket on the back of the chair’ situation. Resolve this by finding a bucket with a lid (a 5 gallon bucket is ideal for this) and simply make a X in the lid with a sharp knife. make the cuts large and long enough that rubbish can be pushed through into the bucket and your hand can be withdrawn without difficulty. Simply remove the lid to empty the rubbish. COLOURING HOOKS An old and widely used tip is to use a water-proof marker pen to colour the tips of your hooks after you’ve sharpened them to prevent them going rusty. Take this one further and colour different size hooks in different colours. I use red for 12/0’s, black for 11/0’s, blue for 10/0’s and green for 9/0’s. With the increasing popularity of using different size hooks in double hook sets, it makes the job of identifying different hooks much easier. SUPER GLUE AND TAPE Anytime you’re using 3mm tape, whether wrapping a rod butt, a leader coil or something similar, try super-gluing the last 1/4″ as you finish. It stops that unsightly tape flapping in the breeze after a while, especially if you wrap your hook sets etc. ZAK KNIVES A Zak “fish’n deer” knife is a gaudy orange handle concealing a very sharp blade inside a curved armature. Available from Melton Tackle, it can be worn around the neck on a light length of mono or power gum and provides an additional item of security for cutting mono leaders in an emergency. Although it looks like a child’s toy, it is very effective and cuts through mono of 800lbs. It costs around $5.00, and that is cheap if it saves someone from death. BOA CONSTRICTORS I recently came across a tool from New Zealand that creates a stir wherever I take it. It’s a strap wrench of the above name with a difference. It’s a high impact plastic handle connected to a thong of thick elastic that grips filters, reel/rod fittings and propeller shafts in a vice like grip with no sharp edges as you tighten/untighten. A travelling fisherman’s dream!! I can only guide you to one source for availability, although I am sure there are others. Most good hard-ware/tool shops should have them. I get mine from Ian Blondin at a tool shop in Alderney, UK. Phone numbers and fax numbers are: Phone: 01481 822722 Fax: 01481 823547. Prices should be around £12. Two sizes are available, the larger one being the one I have. SAFETY LINES Time and time again I come across situations abroad where either the safety lines on the boat are inadequate (I once fished aboard a boat where they were made out of 130lb mono!) or there is an inadequate supply of them. For the travelling angler I would advise you to make up emergency safety lines and take them with you. If space permits, make them up with spliced 3 strand nylon rope, but if baggage allowances raise their ugly head then make them up with 800lb mono instead. They will be plenty strong enough. I use French J snaps as against standard carbine clips, since they are easier to open, do not scratch your reels and are also less likely to open if the line tangles. J snaps are available from most chandlers, but Melton Tackle also has them. They are also known as Gate Snaps. Several different sizes are available but I find the smallest size perfectly adequate for safety lines. WHITE-WINE VINEGAR Here’s a top-tip that is cheap, effective and simple. I only wished that I had known about it a long time ago. It was passed on to me by my current mate here in the Azores, Jeff Thomas, who learnt of it from his brother Greg. Most rusty implements, tools and hooks can be restored to almost their original form by simply leaving them in plain white vinegar for several hours. Find a Tupperware utensil that suits the shape of whatever it is you wish to clean, fill with vinegar and insert the rusty part in the liquid. Overnight is a normal time frame, although bad rust may take longer. Rinse off, WD40 the item, and it should be almost as good as new. As a word of warning, make sure that plastic handles are not immersed. Vinegar likes plastic too!! AFTCO BIG FOOT ROLLER GUIDES Ordering new rods? Do yourself a favour and ask for them to be wrapped with Aftco Big Foot guides and make your captain, crew and yourself happy for years. if you’re putting out $600 for a rod, add the extra $250 for these guides and know that your rollers will run for years with minimal maintenance. Aside from this advantage, Big Foots also suit wind-ons perfectly. Make sure you order the ball bearing version. FLOURESCENT LINE many anglers and crews continue to believe that coloured lines spook fish and they refuse to use them. They’re missing out on one heck of a good thing. Hi-vis lines, whether you use them from spinning to trolling make everyone’s life easier. By the time you’ve added your length of leader and a hook length your coloured mono is so far away from a fish that the likelihood of it noticing it is minimal. You and your buddies on the other hand can instantly see what line is where, what direction it is going and a good boat-driver can run down a fish in a heart beat. It is no matter of chance that almost all of the world’s top big-game crews use hi-vis line and win tournaments and break records with it. If you do not use a hi-vis line on your reels, you are putting yourself at a great disadvantage. Three brands I can personally recommend are Stren, Moimoi and Tuff-Stuff from Seafarer. MARKING REELS After you’ve spooled that new reel of yours with line, how about making the reel a tool you can really use to its full extent? By marking the reel with strips of electrical tape on the side plate, where the lever drag is situated, an angler can instantly know at what drag setting the reel is working. A lot of anglers and crews will know what I’m talking about here, but it still amazes me that so many crews do not use this system. Here’s one way I go about this, with a 130lb class reel set up for lure fishing for blue marlin as an example. Most reels, have a “strike” button. Instead of using it for that purpose, I adjust the reel’s drag until it is 35lbs ‘on the button’. This is my ‘fighting drag’ setting. Below this mark I find the two settings that reach 18lbs and 25lbs, and mark each of these with a small piece of 3mm tape. Above the button, I find another setting of 50lbs, mark that and then also mark what the full drag setting is. All of this can be done with red tape, and you can write on the tape the appropriate figures. We have also marked on the reel a setting way-down near free-spool, marked with a piece of black tape that becomes the ’emergency’ setting. If a fast and furious fish takes lots of line, an angler can reduce the drag to that level (without fear of free spooling it) whilst someone turns the boat and chases after the fish. With the reel marked in this way, an angler can feel he has reliable drag settings and can adjust it accordingly during the fight. To be truthful, a blue marlin that fights on the surface will probably be caught quickly and easily on the strike-setting of 18lbs with no adjustment! GRIPS AND ROD BUTTS From the bridge of many a boat, I have seen anglers and seasoned crews alike often struggle with heavy outfits in a pitching boat in rough and calm seas. The average angler, less seasoned to the sea and unaccustomed to handling a heavy outfit with a lively fish on the other end is even more susceptible, but I have learned a trick that may make life easier for everyone aboard. Simply measure the part of the rod-butt that your hand meets when lifting the outfit (whether it is from the covering board or the chair) and wrap it with black electrical tape. You will probably find it’s about six inches long. Lay a line of super-glue down the length of the tape and then whip over it with 200lb black dacron. You don’t need to whip it with half-hitches. When you’ve finished you’ll find that your slippery Aftco/Stuart/Penn butt has turned into something you can grip, at last!!

I will try and include more tips in forth-coming articles. If you have a tip you would like to share with fellow anglers and crew, e-mail me at marlin@alderney.net There is no payment involved so just share it out of the goodness of your heart! NEXT MONTH: MARLIN LURES Which ones and why. The champions, the losers and the theory of why some lures work so much better than others.