A (Blue Marlin) Lure Story - Ruckus, McGoo, Jennings Gamefish, and others...
Want to get into an animated discussion?
Get a group of game fishermen together and start a conversation about lures. . . who uses what. . . how and where they run them. . . what colours do the job best. . . hooks and hooksets they use. . . what raises what at what time of year.
It will be a long, and at times illuminating conversation!
However, here's what works for us on Foreign Exchange.
Most of us have lure rolls bulging with various favourite selections, spur-of-the-moment fancies, or lures we were given as gifts or won in tournaments. I'm convinced that some lure designs and colours are intended to hook fishermen as much as fish!
But when it comes time to drop the lures for the day into the wake, most of us have half a dozen or so favourites that always end up getting a swim while the others might just as well have stayed in the garage. I have just 5 favourites - and they're favourites because they raise fish, no other reason.
Get a group of game fishermen together and start a conversation about lures. . . who uses what. . . how and where they run them. . . what colours do the job best. . . hooks and hooksets they use. . . what raises what at what time of year.
It will be a long, and at times illuminating conversation!
However, here's what works for us on Foreign Exchange.
Most of us have lure rolls bulging with various favourite selections, spur-of-the-moment fancies, or lures we were given as gifts or won in tournaments. I'm convinced that some lure designs and colours are intended to hook fishermen as much as fish!
But when it comes time to drop the lures for the day into the wake, most of us have half a dozen or so favourites that always end up getting a swim while the others might just as well have stayed in the garage. I have just 5 favourites - and they're favourites because they raise fish, no other reason.
On the Solitary Coast, we chase marlin first, and everything else second. And despite being lucky enough to have all three types of marlin here most of the year, the marlin we put at the top of pedestal and spend the most time looking for is the Indo Pacific Blue Marlin, or Makaira Mazara.
For the blues, I have a standard pattern that has two permanent positions reserved for my top two producers, and two more flexible slots that occasionally see a seasonal change. One of the two permanent pattern slots is the long corner, where the top blue marlin lure in my boat goes - that's the Marlin Magic "Ruckus". Currently called "Ruckus 4 and 5" - we had to buy two after the last loss, one to run and one backup after the occasional damage done out there. These two lures are identical in all respects. They're the great-grandsons of the original Ruckus I bought and used while living in Hawaii and first found myself fishing for blue marlin over 20 years ago. It had a light blue and dark blue skirt pattern on it then, and worked a treat in those tropical waters. One of Hawaii's best-known game fishing legends, Captain Marlin Parker designed the original Marlin Magic range of lures, and his company has gone from strength to strength producing this brand which is used by game fishermen all over the world and distributed in Australia by the well-known Black Pete game fishing tackle company.
Anyway, Ruckus was rolled out again when I lived in Vanuatu, and did an equally good job until it was lost to a very big fish that we never actually saw clearly, although the memory of it heading for the horizon in a swirl of foam as it spooled me and took that first Ruckus with it hasn't faded.
When I moved to Coffs Harbour, I was actually given a new Ruckus as a gift by the then-president of our club. This was the first one I owned that was skirted in the Wild Child colours shown in the photo - the blueish purple speckled with copper flakes inner skirt and the charcoal skirt with the red lateral stripe speckled with silver flakes as the outer. I was a bit circumspect about this very dark colour combination at first, but it's deadly in these waters.
These lures have a cut face with slightly tapered head shape which chops randomly back and forth across the surface, never dives, has an almost continuous bubbling bow wave, and a huge smoke trail. And the blue marlin agressively seek it out above all others... time after time, after time.
That Ruckus lasted 18 months or so and caught a bunch of marlin before it fell victim to a strike that resulted in a cross-over and cut line. I tried it everywhere in the pattern, but it was far and away most successful in the long corner position, which on my boat is off the starboard quarter, high on the face of the third pressure wave.
My best memory of Ruckus 2 was of a large blue marlin that had given us no indication of its presence in the pattern until it came vertically out of the water just 30ft behind the boat like a Polaris missile launched from a submarine. This was a big fish of at least 200kg, and it came out of the water going straight up with the Ruckus in its jaws, and a huge plume of white water behind it. At the top of its leap, it shook its head, dropped the lure which had obviously never managed to hook the fish, fell back in the water with an almighty splash, and was never seen again. We were all watching this, and while a few of us made choking noises and pointed completely unnecessarily, the entire sequence only took 5 seconds. . . but was something nobody who saw it could ever possibly forget.
Ruckus 3 replaced Ruckus 2 within a couple of weeks and was racking up a similar success pattern when it was lost to a weird crimp fracture failure when it had about 100m to go to get another nice blue marlin to the boat. Up to that point it had a similar success record to its predecessor.
After an emergency text to the manager of our local tackle emporium (it was a Sunday evening), I picked up the replacement (Ruckus 4) after it had been pulled off the display, re-skirted in the same "Wild Child" skirt pattern, and rigged with my preferred single Owner Jobu 10/0 hookset.
The next morning, it went straight in the water in the long corner position and caught a nice blue marlin before midday. . . hell of a lure!
Nothing beats success, and when this lure is in the water, it draws your eye to its antics all the time. No doubt the marlin think so too, and whether it's action, position, skirt pattern, or its interaction with this boat's wake while it sits on the face of the third wave, I may never know for sure, but it just doesn't stop raising fish . . . long may Ruckus reign!
...And as a closing note on this lure, it's worth mentioning that Marlin Magic also make a scaled-down "Mini Ruckus". Similar head dimensions, similar performance and action, specifically when run on the long corner where big Ruckus excels. I have one in the same "Wild Child" skirt pattern as big Ruckus, and it's deadly with striped marlin.
For the blues, I have a standard pattern that has two permanent positions reserved for my top two producers, and two more flexible slots that occasionally see a seasonal change. One of the two permanent pattern slots is the long corner, where the top blue marlin lure in my boat goes - that's the Marlin Magic "Ruckus". Currently called "Ruckus 4 and 5" - we had to buy two after the last loss, one to run and one backup after the occasional damage done out there. These two lures are identical in all respects. They're the great-grandsons of the original Ruckus I bought and used while living in Hawaii and first found myself fishing for blue marlin over 20 years ago. It had a light blue and dark blue skirt pattern on it then, and worked a treat in those tropical waters. One of Hawaii's best-known game fishing legends, Captain Marlin Parker designed the original Marlin Magic range of lures, and his company has gone from strength to strength producing this brand which is used by game fishermen all over the world and distributed in Australia by the well-known Black Pete game fishing tackle company.
Anyway, Ruckus was rolled out again when I lived in Vanuatu, and did an equally good job until it was lost to a very big fish that we never actually saw clearly, although the memory of it heading for the horizon in a swirl of foam as it spooled me and took that first Ruckus with it hasn't faded.
When I moved to Coffs Harbour, I was actually given a new Ruckus as a gift by the then-president of our club. This was the first one I owned that was skirted in the Wild Child colours shown in the photo - the blueish purple speckled with copper flakes inner skirt and the charcoal skirt with the red lateral stripe speckled with silver flakes as the outer. I was a bit circumspect about this very dark colour combination at first, but it's deadly in these waters.
These lures have a cut face with slightly tapered head shape which chops randomly back and forth across the surface, never dives, has an almost continuous bubbling bow wave, and a huge smoke trail. And the blue marlin agressively seek it out above all others... time after time, after time.
That Ruckus lasted 18 months or so and caught a bunch of marlin before it fell victim to a strike that resulted in a cross-over and cut line. I tried it everywhere in the pattern, but it was far and away most successful in the long corner position, which on my boat is off the starboard quarter, high on the face of the third pressure wave.
My best memory of Ruckus 2 was of a large blue marlin that had given us no indication of its presence in the pattern until it came vertically out of the water just 30ft behind the boat like a Polaris missile launched from a submarine. This was a big fish of at least 200kg, and it came out of the water going straight up with the Ruckus in its jaws, and a huge plume of white water behind it. At the top of its leap, it shook its head, dropped the lure which had obviously never managed to hook the fish, fell back in the water with an almighty splash, and was never seen again. We were all watching this, and while a few of us made choking noises and pointed completely unnecessarily, the entire sequence only took 5 seconds. . . but was something nobody who saw it could ever possibly forget.
Ruckus 3 replaced Ruckus 2 within a couple of weeks and was racking up a similar success pattern when it was lost to a weird crimp fracture failure when it had about 100m to go to get another nice blue marlin to the boat. Up to that point it had a similar success record to its predecessor.
After an emergency text to the manager of our local tackle emporium (it was a Sunday evening), I picked up the replacement (Ruckus 4) after it had been pulled off the display, re-skirted in the same "Wild Child" skirt pattern, and rigged with my preferred single Owner Jobu 10/0 hookset.
The next morning, it went straight in the water in the long corner position and caught a nice blue marlin before midday. . . hell of a lure!
Nothing beats success, and when this lure is in the water, it draws your eye to its antics all the time. No doubt the marlin think so too, and whether it's action, position, skirt pattern, or its interaction with this boat's wake while it sits on the face of the third wave, I may never know for sure, but it just doesn't stop raising fish . . . long may Ruckus reign!
...And as a closing note on this lure, it's worth mentioning that Marlin Magic also make a scaled-down "Mini Ruckus". Similar head dimensions, similar performance and action, specifically when run on the long corner where big Ruckus excels. I have one in the same "Wild Child" skirt pattern as big Ruckus, and it's deadly with striped marlin.
The next in the lineup is "Mr McGoo". This is (sadly. . .) the last of my McGoo lures, and it will be a tragic day when/if it goes to a watery grave.
NOTE: Less than ONE MONTH LATER. . . Which sadly happened all too soon, this last McGoo was seen making its exit trailing behind an excited blue marlin after a line break from some sort of damage that we apparently didn't notice.
In truth, it's (it was) a classic which is no longer being manufactured, and I've often thought about framing it and hanging it on the wall before it's lost (good idea - should have done this, but too late now!), but who'd do that when it's such a top marlin raiser?
The McGoo lure company went bust at some stage, and frankly, if I knew where the head moulds were, I'd buy them and start production again, because there's no doubt that these lures raise marlin like crazy. NOTE: See Nick's Page for the full McGoo lure story
This lure runs only on my long rigger, where it doesn't make a big fuss, diving just below the surface for about 4 out of every 5 seconds, but it has a consistent smoke trail, and is routinely whacked by marlin, particularly the juvenile blacks and striped marlin, although it still attracts a goodly proportion of the blues that come into the pattern.
Mr McGoo's colours aren't too exciting - it's a light blue cup-faced softhead with a silver and blue outer skirt with a red lateral stripe, and a mid to light green inner skirt. I've never been able to find out where the maker of these lures got his skirts from, but they all seem to be slightly different in colour and composition than the range of skirts available these days (NOTE: Research recently seems to confirm that the skirts originally used on McGoos came from the American based OLC company, but they've changed ownership and no longer make the exact same patterns or use the same materials used on the McGoo skirts). Once again, it's rigged with a single Jobu 10/0 hookset.
I know several big game anglers who swear by McGoo lures. The top charter boat on the north coast of NSW runs several McGoos, and the skipper treats them like family. He has a drawer full of them, and whenever one is lost, it's like there's been a death in the family!
My biggest dilemma, now that I'm down to the last of mine (too late) is that I know there's probably a shoebox full of McGoos on the back shelf in some dingy garage where the family that forgot about them after Grandad stopped game fishing doesn't realise that I'd happily pay fifty bucks a pop each if only I knew they were there.
NOTE: I recently voiced the opinion in a Logbook entry that there is more than a little "irrational exuberance" surrounding McGoo lures there days. Several anglers have started paying silly prices for the occasional example of these lures that comes up, and with some very good contemporary McGoo styles appearing - including a couple in the Jennings Gamefish collection of lures to mention just one manufacturer - and showing a similar success rate, maybe the fuss is overdone. Most of the old McGoo lures that are being offered on eBay and Gumtree seem to be from the smaller end of the original McGoo range, with 3" to 6" inch lures now being sold for crazy prices and good for nothing but small black marlin or sailfish. It's been a long time since a McGoo of 10-12 inches has appeared on the market. Finally, and of equal importance, with the exception of a couple of 3-inch McGoos, not one of the lures from the original brand that I've seen being offered for sale has had the original skirts... they've all been re-skirted with everyday Japanese and Chinese skirts, and given that there's little doubt that the combination of these heads plus the original OLC skirts had something to do with the magic, then the money spent buying these less than original lures would be better used heading down to the local tackle shop and buying a brand new Marlin Magic...
NOTE: Less than ONE MONTH LATER. . . Which sadly happened all too soon, this last McGoo was seen making its exit trailing behind an excited blue marlin after a line break from some sort of damage that we apparently didn't notice.
In truth, it's (it was) a classic which is no longer being manufactured, and I've often thought about framing it and hanging it on the wall before it's lost (good idea - should have done this, but too late now!), but who'd do that when it's such a top marlin raiser?
The McGoo lure company went bust at some stage, and frankly, if I knew where the head moulds were, I'd buy them and start production again, because there's no doubt that these lures raise marlin like crazy. NOTE: See Nick's Page for the full McGoo lure story
This lure runs only on my long rigger, where it doesn't make a big fuss, diving just below the surface for about 4 out of every 5 seconds, but it has a consistent smoke trail, and is routinely whacked by marlin, particularly the juvenile blacks and striped marlin, although it still attracts a goodly proportion of the blues that come into the pattern.
Mr McGoo's colours aren't too exciting - it's a light blue cup-faced softhead with a silver and blue outer skirt with a red lateral stripe, and a mid to light green inner skirt. I've never been able to find out where the maker of these lures got his skirts from, but they all seem to be slightly different in colour and composition than the range of skirts available these days (NOTE: Research recently seems to confirm that the skirts originally used on McGoos came from the American based OLC company, but they've changed ownership and no longer make the exact same patterns or use the same materials used on the McGoo skirts). Once again, it's rigged with a single Jobu 10/0 hookset.
I know several big game anglers who swear by McGoo lures. The top charter boat on the north coast of NSW runs several McGoos, and the skipper treats them like family. He has a drawer full of them, and whenever one is lost, it's like there's been a death in the family!
My biggest dilemma, now that I'm down to the last of mine (too late) is that I know there's probably a shoebox full of McGoos on the back shelf in some dingy garage where the family that forgot about them after Grandad stopped game fishing doesn't realise that I'd happily pay fifty bucks a pop each if only I knew they were there.
NOTE: I recently voiced the opinion in a Logbook entry that there is more than a little "irrational exuberance" surrounding McGoo lures there days. Several anglers have started paying silly prices for the occasional example of these lures that comes up, and with some very good contemporary McGoo styles appearing - including a couple in the Jennings Gamefish collection of lures to mention just one manufacturer - and showing a similar success rate, maybe the fuss is overdone. Most of the old McGoo lures that are being offered on eBay and Gumtree seem to be from the smaller end of the original McGoo range, with 3" to 6" inch lures now being sold for crazy prices and good for nothing but small black marlin or sailfish. It's been a long time since a McGoo of 10-12 inches has appeared on the market. Finally, and of equal importance, with the exception of a couple of 3-inch McGoos, not one of the lures from the original brand that I've seen being offered for sale has had the original skirts... they've all been re-skirted with everyday Japanese and Chinese skirts, and given that there's little doubt that the combination of these heads plus the original OLC skirts had something to do with the magic, then the money spent buying these less than original lures would be better used heading down to the local tackle shop and buying a brand new Marlin Magic...
Next comes this truly innovative lure from one of the newest lure manufacturers in Australia - Ocean Tech Tackle. Warren Woodley lives on the Central Coast of NSW and had the idea that if he applied some basic aerodynamic principles to a range of skirted lure heads, he might be able to produce lures that did wonderful things. He was right. The deeply dimpled head on the Ocean Tech lures adds sufficient additional energy to the boundary layer of water flowing over it that it vigorously sucks along a huge pocket of air resulting in a smoke trail behind these lures that's without doubt the biggest for its size of any lure.
Everyone who fishes for blue marlin knows that these fish are always attracted to a lumo green skirt pattern at some time (more often in the spring I've found), and I run this with a double green skirt pattern, with the outer skirt having the lighter lumo green colour with a speckled metallic finish, and once again, a red lateral stripe.
This lure runs on my short rigger, but occasionally it swaps in to the short corner midway through the season. I do this because in the first half of summer, this lure raises marlin like crazy out on the short rigger, but as the summer wears on, the blues in particular seem to be more attracted to the darker colours of the Wild Child pattern out there.
The best day I've ever had raising blue marlin was one where early in the season, this lure raised 9 blues. While one or two fish hooked up on a couple of other lures I was running that day, they always came up behind this lumo Ocean Tech lure first, usually giving it a swat, and generally going no further than this lure on the short rigger when they went for a full-blooded strike.
The lure behaves much like the McGoo, not making too much fuss on the surface, and surfacing about once every 4-5 seconds; but when it does come up, it dives again with a huge bubble around the skirts, and leaves a blistering smoke trail for the whole time it's underwater.
A marine biologist friend talked to me once at length about this colour. He called it chartreuse, but most game fishermen call it lumo green. Either way, apparently, the theory goes that the colour is highly visible to marlin eyes at considerable range, and it is a colour they find very attractive, at least at first. Even if they subsequently strike different lures, the lumo green lure is often what initially catches their eye and brings them into your lure spread, so unless you've got an entire spread of never-fail favourites, the marine biologist had a theory that as long as you had a "chartreuse" skirted lure somewhere in the pattern, that would bring the fish up in the first place, and after that, if they switched to another lure, no problem.
Everyone who fishes for blue marlin knows that these fish are always attracted to a lumo green skirt pattern at some time (more often in the spring I've found), and I run this with a double green skirt pattern, with the outer skirt having the lighter lumo green colour with a speckled metallic finish, and once again, a red lateral stripe.
This lure runs on my short rigger, but occasionally it swaps in to the short corner midway through the season. I do this because in the first half of summer, this lure raises marlin like crazy out on the short rigger, but as the summer wears on, the blues in particular seem to be more attracted to the darker colours of the Wild Child pattern out there.
The best day I've ever had raising blue marlin was one where early in the season, this lure raised 9 blues. While one or two fish hooked up on a couple of other lures I was running that day, they always came up behind this lumo Ocean Tech lure first, usually giving it a swat, and generally going no further than this lure on the short rigger when they went for a full-blooded strike.
The lure behaves much like the McGoo, not making too much fuss on the surface, and surfacing about once every 4-5 seconds; but when it does come up, it dives again with a huge bubble around the skirts, and leaves a blistering smoke trail for the whole time it's underwater.
A marine biologist friend talked to me once at length about this colour. He called it chartreuse, but most game fishermen call it lumo green. Either way, apparently, the theory goes that the colour is highly visible to marlin eyes at considerable range, and it is a colour they find very attractive, at least at first. Even if they subsequently strike different lures, the lumo green lure is often what initially catches their eye and brings them into your lure spread, so unless you've got an entire spread of never-fail favourites, the marine biologist had a theory that as long as you had a "chartreuse" skirted lure somewhere in the pattern, that would bring the fish up in the first place, and after that, if they switched to another lure, no problem.
My fourth pattern lure is a Top Gun "Nightmare" with the rotating ball-bearing head. The head shape is not unlike the Ruckus, with a cut face and a very aerodynamic look.
You'll notice that this lure is also skirted in the Wild Child colours, which as the photo shows also blend perfectly with the lateral red stripe on the lure head.
This lure swaps around with the Ocean Tech lumo green lure, and in the early part of the season it runs on the short corner, then moves back to the short rigger as the season goes into the last half of summer.
The action is a lot like the Ruckus, although not as vigorous, and the lure doesn't raise as many fish as the Ruckus. It's a top lure though, and it has a beautiful smooth action with great skirt vibration that brings a lot of fish in for a look.
You'll notice that this lure is also skirted in the Wild Child colours, which as the photo shows also blend perfectly with the lateral red stripe on the lure head.
This lure swaps around with the Ocean Tech lumo green lure, and in the early part of the season it runs on the short corner, then moves back to the short rigger as the season goes into the last half of summer.
The action is a lot like the Ruckus, although not as vigorous, and the lure doesn't raise as many fish as the Ruckus. It's a top lure though, and it has a beautiful smooth action with great skirt vibration that brings a lot of fish in for a look.
The Spread Pattern
Being an ex-fighter pilot, I have a soft spot for good formations. . . and I run my lures the same way.
I use a slight variation on the common 4-ship fighter formation called "Right Hand Finger Four". This has the "lead" lure in the short corner, and the rest laid out as you would see looking down at the top of your right hand with your thumb tucked out of sight.
Some people aren't keen on this, and want the short lures mixed up with the long lures, but this way, all the short stuff is on the port side of the wake, and the long gear on the starboard. . . and it works for me.
If you look at the two photos below, you will see my lure pattern as it would look if you were in the air up above the wake looking down, with the short rigger Ocean Tech on the left, then moving to the right, the short corner Nightmare closest to the boat on the right of the Ocean Tech, then further right to Ruckus 3 in the long corner slot, with Mr McGoo out in the long rigger slot at the extreme right of the formation.
Then, if you look at the photo of the F-15 formation below, this is what the marlin sees looking up from under the surface with the boat just passing over the top.
I use a slight variation on the common 4-ship fighter formation called "Right Hand Finger Four". This has the "lead" lure in the short corner, and the rest laid out as you would see looking down at the top of your right hand with your thumb tucked out of sight.
Some people aren't keen on this, and want the short lures mixed up with the long lures, but this way, all the short stuff is on the port side of the wake, and the long gear on the starboard. . . and it works for me.
If you look at the two photos below, you will see my lure pattern as it would look if you were in the air up above the wake looking down, with the short rigger Ocean Tech on the left, then moving to the right, the short corner Nightmare closest to the boat on the right of the Ocean Tech, then further right to Ruckus 3 in the long corner slot, with Mr McGoo out in the long rigger slot at the extreme right of the formation.
Then, if you look at the photo of the F-15 formation below, this is what the marlin sees looking up from under the surface with the boat just passing over the top.
And just for the hell of it, can any reader tell me why the wingman in the No.2 slot in this right hand finger four formation of F-15s is trailing those ectoplasm vortices from his wingtips...? I've got a new Jennings Gamefish Lures marlin lure for the first angler to send me the correct answer via the Contact Form.
An Update... Spring 2015
The preceding blurb was written back in 2011, and as with all things, some of the lures that make up our pattern and my thoughts on this have changed a little since then. In fact, the only lure still regularly featuring in my standard blue marlin trolling pattern is the Marlin Magic "Ruckus" in the "Wild Child" colours - in its usual place at the long corner.
The McGoo at the long rigger position was eaten by a large blue marlin during the hottest blue marlin bite I've ever seen that featured here off the Solitary Islands for about three weeks last March around the time of the Solitary Islands GFC's Heavy Tackle Challenge tournament.
The marlin grabbed McGoo when the lure slowed down during a sharp turn when I was going back to a spot where the fish had first appeared in the wake. It hooked up immediately, and then after some great histrionics and a lot of white water, the damned thing did a 360, turned back over the line and ran hard, cutting the line with a friction burn in a matter of seconds. The big blue, McGoo, and about 100 metres of line all disappeared, and we were left there dumbfounded.
Of course, despite cruising Ebay and other websites since then, i've been unable to find another McGoo to replace this lure with (...does your uncle the ex-gamefisherman have a few gathering dust in a drawer?? Let me know if he does...Please...!) . I know the love affair with these old McGoos probably leaves many readers cold, and I've made a recent comment about this in both a Logbook entry, and in blue in the article above. What's more, I'll be the first to admit that with all the other lures out there, it's probably not logical to believe that these old lures are really magic, but... the anecdotal evidence says otherwise.
Anyway, the McGoo has now been replaced on the long rigger by a Jennings Gamefish Lures rather revolutionary Vuaki Flyer flying fish pattern in pink and blue. This new lure is pretty radical as you can see in the photo on the left, having a set of shiny translucent plastic film wings in addition to the usual skirts. It also features a head with an unusual offset trace tube which has the heavy mono trace coming out of the head on one edge rather than in the centre of the face. This promotes some pretty unusual behaviour, but also makes the lure difficult to set up, as exact distance behind the boat and leader angle becomes fairly critical. Once you crack the code on this, the theory is that the lure behaves just like a flying fish trying to escape and getting ready to launch itself out of the water. Regardless, the fact is that one of the production prototypes of of this lure recently caught the only blue marlin in recent history (and anyone's memory or logbooks here...) to be tagged in June, so that speaks volumes about this new design. And we recently ran one of these pink lures and a yellow blue and green dollie patter Vuaki Flyer on both riggers where they got smashed by striped marlin this spring, so there's definitely something about this radical flying fish design
The short rigger also now features a custom Jennings Gamefish plunger in dark blue, while the short corner often has a large blue and silver Fathom lure that was recently offered as a limited special edition anniversary lure to members of the IGFA. It runs beautifully up close to the boat, and looks like great marlin candy as it thrashes around on the second pressure wave.
Still another update... As spring turned into summer in December 2015, the blue marlin suddenly started hitting their stride, and we ran another Jennings Gamefish plunger lure on the short rigger - see the photo below. This time, it was another lumo pattern, very much like the all green OceanTech lure featured in the original story above. However, the Jennings lure had a blue inner skirt, and a set of red eyes that the blue marlin started going for immediately the calendar page flipped over to December. The blues even started swimming past the Ruckus on the long corner, which has always been the consistent performer and "go to" lure on the boat, to get to the new green/blue Jennings. Interestingly, the striped marlin were bashing the big Ruckus through spring, even though it was the biggest lure in the spread, and the first blues predictably went for it as well. But as soon as we threw the lumo green/blue/red eye Jennings lure out on the short rigger, it turned into a fish magnet. Frankly, I'm not expecting that colour to be a big performer as the water warms up in January, but as usual, the marlin are bound to surprise us...
The McGoo at the long rigger position was eaten by a large blue marlin during the hottest blue marlin bite I've ever seen that featured here off the Solitary Islands for about three weeks last March around the time of the Solitary Islands GFC's Heavy Tackle Challenge tournament.
The marlin grabbed McGoo when the lure slowed down during a sharp turn when I was going back to a spot where the fish had first appeared in the wake. It hooked up immediately, and then after some great histrionics and a lot of white water, the damned thing did a 360, turned back over the line and ran hard, cutting the line with a friction burn in a matter of seconds. The big blue, McGoo, and about 100 metres of line all disappeared, and we were left there dumbfounded.
Of course, despite cruising Ebay and other websites since then, i've been unable to find another McGoo to replace this lure with (...does your uncle the ex-gamefisherman have a few gathering dust in a drawer?? Let me know if he does...Please...!) . I know the love affair with these old McGoos probably leaves many readers cold, and I've made a recent comment about this in both a Logbook entry, and in blue in the article above. What's more, I'll be the first to admit that with all the other lures out there, it's probably not logical to believe that these old lures are really magic, but... the anecdotal evidence says otherwise.
Anyway, the McGoo has now been replaced on the long rigger by a Jennings Gamefish Lures rather revolutionary Vuaki Flyer flying fish pattern in pink and blue. This new lure is pretty radical as you can see in the photo on the left, having a set of shiny translucent plastic film wings in addition to the usual skirts. It also features a head with an unusual offset trace tube which has the heavy mono trace coming out of the head on one edge rather than in the centre of the face. This promotes some pretty unusual behaviour, but also makes the lure difficult to set up, as exact distance behind the boat and leader angle becomes fairly critical. Once you crack the code on this, the theory is that the lure behaves just like a flying fish trying to escape and getting ready to launch itself out of the water. Regardless, the fact is that one of the production prototypes of of this lure recently caught the only blue marlin in recent history (and anyone's memory or logbooks here...) to be tagged in June, so that speaks volumes about this new design. And we recently ran one of these pink lures and a yellow blue and green dollie patter Vuaki Flyer on both riggers where they got smashed by striped marlin this spring, so there's definitely something about this radical flying fish design
The short rigger also now features a custom Jennings Gamefish plunger in dark blue, while the short corner often has a large blue and silver Fathom lure that was recently offered as a limited special edition anniversary lure to members of the IGFA. It runs beautifully up close to the boat, and looks like great marlin candy as it thrashes around on the second pressure wave.
Still another update... As spring turned into summer in December 2015, the blue marlin suddenly started hitting their stride, and we ran another Jennings Gamefish plunger lure on the short rigger - see the photo below. This time, it was another lumo pattern, very much like the all green OceanTech lure featured in the original story above. However, the Jennings lure had a blue inner skirt, and a set of red eyes that the blue marlin started going for immediately the calendar page flipped over to December. The blues even started swimming past the Ruckus on the long corner, which has always been the consistent performer and "go to" lure on the boat, to get to the new green/blue Jennings. Interestingly, the striped marlin were bashing the big Ruckus through spring, even though it was the biggest lure in the spread, and the first blues predictably went for it as well. But as soon as we threw the lumo green/blue/red eye Jennings lure out on the short rigger, it turned into a fish magnet. Frankly, I'm not expecting that colour to be a big performer as the water warms up in January, but as usual, the marlin are bound to surprise us...
Final Thoughts...
You'll notice that all these lures have several things in common. Firstly, they all have eyes. Secondly, the corner lures use single hook rigs, nothing over 10/0, although when the bite gets tentative early or late in the season, we occasionally use a 2-hook setup of 8/0 Jobus. The single hook rig was plenty on the 315kg blue marlin which was the biggest fish caught on my boat to date. Third, the further from the boat, the smaller the lure. The Short corner is a 14-inch model, the long corner is 12.5-inches, the short rigger is 11.5 inches, and the long rigger Flyer is only a 10.5-inch lure. Finally, the dark lures all have a red stripe on both sides of the skirt.
So. . . That should be good for a few more arguments at the Marlin Bar !
So. . . That should be good for a few more arguments at the Marlin Bar !