Fishing off the ship?

[cmakin]

@captmrb;21364

I’ve done quite a bit of handlining before I got into the drillship business with no fishing allowed. It was a slow ship (8 knots) so great for catching albacore off of the west coast. We used a wire leader with a squid jig and a double pronged hook. For the handline we had a couple hundred pound test blue poly… something with substance so you could haul the fish in while remaining underway (I’ve successfully used 3/8 manila too but it’s a bit bulky). The key was a ‘snubber’ at the bulwarks to take the shock when they bit. Without it we’d just remove the lips of the fish! I’ve used bungeee cords to snub or black rubber rigs made just for that purpose purchased at commercial fishing suppliers. Nothing better for dinner offshore than fresh tuna or mahi that barely stopped bleeding before it hit the grill.

That is the rig we used to use when we fished both off of the Crowley tugs and on an ATB. I recall one trip we caught so many mahi mahi on both sides of the Panama Canal, the cook complained about having to cook fish so often. We solved that by not eating his food and cooking the fish after he had gone to bed.

We found bungee cords to be the best for snubbers, and lures made from soda cans worked as well as the commercially bought squids. . .