12 Swordfish 150 lb. - 500 lb.

[Keith Poe]

One of the 12 swordfish was just caught 150 lb. drifting 200'

Caught 4000 makos & threshers in so cal and now turning my full attention to swordfish. Seems the Humboldt squid have made so cal one of their new homes. The commercial harpoon fishery with spotters & 40' planks are reporting Humboldt in the swordfish and makos. Humboldt are in schools up to 1200 up to 100 lb. Day time they are 660' deep to 2100' deep.
I believe they are eating market squid that are really small. The YFT seem to be in the same area as the swordfish marlin & makos. I believe the YFT are taking advantage of the Humboldt pushing up the market squid and makos swordfish are attacking the Humboldt's.
The Humboldt's come up to 230' on the full moon and to the surface on the new moon. I believe drifting for swords here where we usually have all most no drift especially compared to the gulf stream drifting for swords would be as productive as drifting for tuna marlin threshers etc.
I plan on trolling for them as with most species trolling cover much more ground and affords the potential to stay on top the optimum conditions.
The 12 swords on the banner on this post represent the swords I am aware of here that were caught as a direct target at night. I lost one at the transom in the 500 lb class and have missed 7 strikes in one night.
I baited 40 on the surface in one year 18 in three days Fox sports ISF Michael Fowlkes before I learned from Kurt Bollmann Mako minded what the deal was on the in drag deal. I all ways did the deal I all ways heard in so cal from the marlin fishermen, let them eat it that only resulted in empty hooks bait gone after the bill slap. Get this the 500 lb class was at the transom swatting at two makos there in the chum slick on a wide open mako bite that had been wide open all night at day break I watched it swallow a 9/0 with 360 wire live green mackerel in slow motion. I had a 80 STW penn and a 400 lb wind on leader I buttoned down and held the fish to the boat for about 5 minutes not letting it take any drag as I buttoned down the drag with my hands holding it to the boat till the hook went past my head at 100 MPH 2.
Most of the commercial swords here dressed are in the 187 lb class I believe.

Got an old 1970 24' skipjack fly bridge 7.4 Mercruiser 5000 watt generator 2, 1500 watt quarts halogen lights. 130 class fighting chair.
Two auto retrieve cannon unitroll down riggers.
16' Hawaiian aluminum one piece maximiser out riggers.
Simrad AP 16 auto pilot with wireless remote control to use in the fighting chair when alone. 4 UB-2 bent butts with 80-W Accurates
Plan on using a flooring gas remover syringe to inject chem. lights in to the 16" squid with 30 lb. of drag at 3 knots. with the hydroglows attached to the down riggers. 3 of the 12 swords were caught at 7 kts.
Plan on doing 100 trips to try and turn this in to a sportfishing swordfish destination. I have seen many swordfish here well over 350 500 lb.
Filmed for Fox sports captaining a harpoon boat harpooned & satellite tagging them. The owner of the boat got one 1400 lb.

I posted all of this to get any suggestions from you guys possible that might help in my quest please.

On a sportfishing related note.

Some great work being done on makos here.
Satellite tracking. DNA. life span. NOAA. CA. DFG. & my program Tagger international shark tagging data is being researched for a paper.
All this will aid in the proper management process.
Did you know next year they will know for the first time how long makos live.
They all so recently figured out there are 3 different populations of makos in the Pacific not just one like previously thought.

I have been involved with the process if you have any questions.


All most forgot, the plan is to go out and troll chum for makos then troll swordfish all night then mako threshers marlin YFT the next day in a perfect world.

[TOPPDAWG]

Wow. That's all pretty crazy stuff. If your trolling with hydroglows on downriggers and getting 7 hits a night your doin better than most guys on the east caost. -----did that 1400lb have a 10/0 in it? That could have been the freightrain i lost a year ago?

[Scallywag]

[Sword Hunter]

I rem seeing somthing on TV about The squids becoming a major problem. When they die and hit all the beaches. It deff would be a great bait source and food source for all HMS bottom and crab species to. I bet you get some new records comming out of there. What do you think.