Long Range DVD s

Uncle Russ · 05-20-2008, 10:54 AM

This subject began as a recommendation from gman on the “Using the Rail” thread. That thread has now died a well-deserved death after wasting God knows how much of our collective productivity. That said, on gman’s recommendation, I purchased “Big Boat Big Fish”, “Big Boat Big Fish II”, and on my own, “Deep Color”. I also bought two others which should arrive today. Having viewed the three above-named disks, (at the risk of receiving an Original Petition for Divorce from my wife,)

a few observations:

Pros:

These DVD s and others like them are invaluable for novices like me, and I highly recommend investing a hundred bucks or so, on a bunch of them. I suspect they would have little value added for a true expert on head boat fishing, but for newcomers to the sport, they are second only to actual time at the rail.

Probably their chief value is in demonstrating the level of intensity during a hot bite—in other words, convincing yourself before you climb aboard that this ain’t your grandfather’s cane-pole-in-the-lilly-pads kind of fishing. It gets you ready to move fast even when you can’t, and to obey orders from the deckhands without question.

There are numerous teaching sessions by the crew—in between action sequences. If you have done your fair share of surfing and questioning on boards like this, most of what they teach will be old hat, but not all of it—and some will present other points of view—for example, using large forged Mustad hooks instead of circle hooks.

Cons:

They have a lot of advertising—but not offensively so—of the trips—certainly not surprisingly, and this would in fact be a “pro” for someone contemplating a long-range trip in the near future. On the first two trips, Shimano was obviously a sponsor so that is the tackle you see and there is a lot of hurrahing about how great it is—again, this is to be expected.

The fish are much bigger than in the Gulf—great from an excitement point of view—not so much from getting a reality check on the type of fishing you may be engaged in if you live where God intended you to live—along the Texas coast.

Too many gaffing sequences—I am now much more expert on how to gaff cow tuna and get out of the way of a wahoo being brought on board, than I am in actual fishing.

Neutral :

So far, in about 5 hours of viewing, I did not see a single spinning reel. Nada, Zip, Nichts. I mean not one. If you didn’t know this was a west coast trip in the beginning, you would know the first time you see a guy cast to a wahoo with a Newell.

Ditto on braided line—it must have been outlawed on this trip—everything I could see in adequate detail to make an identification was mono.

There was no jigging or popping that I could see—it was all livies and chunks for the yellow fin and swimming lures for the wahoo—bombs and wahoo-hunter type lures.

Dennis Braid must be an incredibly cool person with whom to fish. He was constantly cutting up and having a good time and didn’t even ***** when he lost a huge tuna at the gaff. I would also comment that in the excitement at the rail, even he seems to abandon his own harness-fighting techniques in favor of gut-wrenching, anything goes, arm-breaking survival.

When chunking or fly lining out live bait, the participants do not put the rod in the holders and pay out line from above the tip, as we do on the Big E—rather, they hold the rod under their armpit and feed out line at the reel in free spool. I think they must not hit the fish with very heavy drag on the first run, because they do seem to hold onto the rod during that time—though out of harness and not using the rail.

All in all, I would highly recommend these DVD s as money-well-spent, to anyone who does not have a lot of head-boat fishing behind him and who plans, as I do, to make that his primary form of offshore fishing. My thanks to Glenn for having recommended them to me. Can’t wait for the next two to arrive.

Russ

etan · 05-20-2008, 01:12 PM

Big Boat, Big fish was filmed before the use of spectra backing began. With big fish then they usually had to use a backup reel and or the skiff. I think spectra use only started up around 2002 or so. West coast fishermen have only discovered the use of spinning tackle very recently. They used to make fun of them. I doubt that they will ever (maybe) use then for the large cows. I'd guess line capacity would restrict the use of a spinner for tuna over 300#.

Uncle Russ · 05-20-2008, 01:20 PM

You are probably right about huge fish like that, etan--on the other hand, I don't know how much drag some of those conventionals they are using can put out on a long run. They would hold more line than say, a Stella 20,000 but I would think they would be subject to spooling pretty quickly.

I had not realized those films went that far back--I was assuming they were more recent.

Russ

LEXPRO · 05-20-2008, 03:01 PM

I called charkbait once to order line for a stella they laughed at me when i told them the max drag on the reel. They said Tiagra doesnt even have that much drag.

d-a · 05-20-2008, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LEXPRO

I called charkbait once to order line for a stella they laughed at me when i told them the max drag on the reel. They said Tiagra doesnt even have that much drag.

Chark bait is anti-shimano. you can see it in some of the comments that are on the site.

d-a

etan · 05-20-2008, 03:44 PM

If you want to find out about longrange fishing go to allcoast.com :: and check the longrange board and the tackle board. Wahoodad on that board just caught a 297# YFT on the 12th. He has a lot of great posts about tackle and techniques. Its funny because we were using yummy flyers here on the gulf coast long before they found them.

etan · 05-20-2008, 03:48 PM

Sorry about the address, I can't get it to come up right. www. then allcoast then .com will get you there. I am a computer idiot!

Uncle Russ · 05-20-2008, 04:26 PM

d-a: You are absolutely right on their anti-Shimano stance. I have even seen the term "Shitmano" used. The attitude is that they drum up business by "inventing" what they call "systems"--the butterfly being one example I have seen Mark use over there--I think another objection is their locked in pricing--but hell, you see that with many other brands. I suspect Shimano and Charkbait reached an impasse at some point in their corporate inter-relations, on shared business goals and encountered minor difficulties negotiating a mutual stragegic plan with shared best practices.

Either that, or they had a fight.

Russ

gman · 05-20-2008, 04:29 PM

Im really glad you enjoyed the videos, big Boat Big Fish 2 was filmed I believe last year so all the tackle and rigging is current.

With regards to spinners these are MEAT trips for trophies, honestly I wouldnt use anything under a 50W unless its a TREX30. 80W's on kites etc when you spend $4000 and live on a boat for 16 days I wouldn't use anything short of those reels

RUSS did you see how they untangle with anchor lines with one hand ... purely insane

Deep_Sea_Gull · 05-20-2008, 06:34 PM

Uncle Russ....

You are old enough to know that everything you see on your boob tube is not as it seems. THEY ONLY SHOW THE VIEWPOINT OF THE FOLKS MAKING THE FILM.

The Gulf of Mexico has some of the best fishing you'll find for the money and trip length. We do some things different. Some things are new and others came from the west coast long range vessels... It is one heck of a fishery.

None are all right nor wrong. It's still called fishing not catching...

Everybody should catch a weather window and get out on the water. Let's fish... and find out what the fish want.

05-20-2008, 10:54 AM	#1 (permalink)
Uncle Russ Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 1,049	Long Range DVD s This subject began as a recommendation from gman on the “Using the Rail” thread. That thread has now died a well-deserved death after wasting God knows how much of our collective productivity. That said, on gman’s recommendation, I purchased “Big Boat Big Fish”, “Big Boat Big Fish II”, and on my own, “Deep Color”. I also bought two others which should arrive today. Having viewed the three above-named disks, (at the risk of receiving an Original Petition for Divorce from my wife,) a few observations: Pros: These DVD s and others like them are invaluable for novices like me, and I highly recommend investing a hundred bucks or so, on a bunch of them. I suspect they would have little value added for a true expert on head boat fishing, but for newcomers to the sport, they are second only to actual time at the rail. Probably their chief value is in demonstrating the level of intensity during a hot bite—in other words, convincing yourself before you climb aboard that this ain’t your grandfather’s cane-pole-in-the-lilly-pads kind of fishing. It gets you ready to move fast even when you can’t, and to obey orders from the deckhands without question. There are numerous teaching sessions by the crew—in between action sequences. If you have done your fair share of surfing and questioning on boards like this, most of what they teach will be old hat, but not all of it—and some will present other points of view—for example, using large forged Mustad hooks instead of circle hooks. Cons: They have a lot of advertising—but not offensively so—of the trips—certainly not surprisingly, and this would in fact be a “pro” for someone contemplating a long-range trip in the near future. On the first two trips, Shimano was obviously a sponsor so that is the tackle you see and there is a lot of hurrahing about how great it is—again, this is to be expected. The fish are much bigger than in the Gulf—great from an excitement point of view—not so much from getting a reality check on the type of fishing you may be engaged in if you live where God intended you to live—along the Texas coast. Too many gaffing sequences—I am now much more expert on how to gaff cow tuna and get out of the way of a wahoo being brought on board, than I am in actual fishing. Neutral : So far, in about 5 hours of viewing, I did not see a single spinning reel. Nada, Zip, Nichts. I mean not one. If you didn’t know this was a west coast trip in the beginning, you would know the first time you see a guy cast to a wahoo with a Newell. Ditto on braided line—it must have been outlawed on this trip—everything I could see in adequate detail to make an identification was mono. There was no jigging or popping that I could see—it was all livies and chunks for the yellow fin and swimming lures for the wahoo—bombs and wahoo-hunter type lures. Dennis Braid must be an incredibly cool person with whom to fish. He was constantly cutting up and having a good time and didn’t even ***** when he lost a huge tuna at the gaff. I would also comment that in the excitement at the rail, even he seems to abandon his own harness-fighting techniques in favor of gut-wrenching, anything goes, arm-breaking survival. When chunking or fly lining out live bait, the participants do not put the rod in the holders and pay out line from above the tip, as we do on the Big E—rather, they hold the rod under their armpit and feed out line at the reel in free spool. I think they must not hit the fish with very heavy drag on the first run, because they do seem to hold onto the rod during that time—though out of harness and not using the rail. All in all, I would highly recommend these DVD s as money-well-spent, to anyone who does not have a lot of head-boat fishing behind him and who plans, as I do, to make that his primary form of offshore fishing. My thanks to Glenn for having recommended them to me. Can’t wait for the next two to arrive. Russ __________________ "Tschirhart: Helluva deal. You bait the hooks--I catch the fish!--Grimm."

05-20-2008, 01:20 PM	#3 (permalink)
Uncle Russ Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 1,049	You are probably right about huge fish like that, etan--on the other hand, I don't know how much drag some of those conventionals they are using can put out on a long run. They would hold more line than say, a Stella 20,000 but I would think they would be subject to spooling pretty quickly. I had not realized those films went that far back--I was assuming they were more recent. Russ __________________ "Tschirhart: Helluva deal. You bait the hooks--I catch the fish!--Grimm."

05-20-2008, 04:26 PM	#8 (permalink)
Uncle Russ Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 1,049	d-a: You are absolutely right on their anti-Shimano stance. I have even seen the term "Shitmano" used. The attitude is that they drum up business by "inventing" what they call "systems"--the butterfly being one example I have seen Mark use over there--I think another objection is their locked in pricing--but hell, you see that with many other brands. I suspect Shimano and Charkbait reached an impasse at some point in their corporate inter-relations, on shared business goals and encountered minor difficulties negotiating a mutual stragegic plan with shared best practices. Either that, or they had a fight. Russ __________________ "Tschirhart: Helluva deal. You bait the hooks--I catch the fish!--Grimm."

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05-20-2008, 01:12 PM	#2 (permalink)
etan Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 182	Big Boat, Big fish was filmed before the use of spectra backing began. With big fish then they usually had to use a backup reel and or the skiff. I think spectra use only started up around 2002 or so. West coast fishermen have only discovered the use of spinning tackle very recently. They used to make fun of them. I doubt that they will ever (maybe) use then for the large cows. I'd guess line capacity would restrict the use of a spinner for tuna over 300#.

05-20-2008, 03:01 PM	#4 (permalink)
LEXPRO Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 188	I called charkbait once to order line for a stella they laughed at me when i told them the max drag on the reel. They said Tiagra doesnt even have that much drag.

05-20-2008, 03:44 PM	#6 (permalink)
etan Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 182	If you want to find out about longrange fishing go to allcoast.com :: and check the longrange board and the tackle board. Wahoodad on that board just caught a 297# YFT on the 12th. He has a lot of great posts about tackle and techniques. Its funny because we were using yummy flyers here on the gulf coast long before they found them.

05-20-2008, 03:48 PM	#7 (permalink)
etan Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 182	Sorry about the address, I can't get it to come up right. www. then allcoast then .com will get you there. I am a computer idiot!

05-20-2008, 04:29 PM	#9 (permalink)
gman Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 977	Im really glad you enjoyed the videos, big Boat Big Fish 2 was filmed I believe last year so all the tackle and rigging is current. With regards to spinners these are MEAT trips for trophies, honestly I wouldnt use anything under a 50W unless its a TREX30. 80W's on kites etc when you spend $4000 and live on a boat for 16 days I wouldn't use anything short of those reels RUSS did you see how they untangle with anchor lines with one hand ... purely insane

05-20-2008, 06:34 PM	#10 (permalink)
Deep_Sea_Gull Moderator Join Date: May 2006 Location: GA Posts: 586	Uncle Russ.... You are old enough to know that everything you see on your boob tube is not as it seems. THEY ONLY SHOW THE VIEWPOINT OF THE FOLKS MAKING THE FILM. The Gulf of Mexico has some of the best fishing you'll find for the money and trip length. We do some things different. Some things are new and others came from the west coast long range vessels... It is one heck of a fishery. None are all right nor wrong. It's still called fishing not catching... Everybody should catch a weather window and get out on the water. Let's fish... and find out what the fish want.

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