Need To Know How

[reallost]

What I am needing to know is the best way to catch a sword is. I live in the panhandle but do alot of blue water fishing. We go to what is called Desoto canyon alot and have now decided we want to catch a sword. Have already bought the hydroglow and electralumes and everything else listed in the rigging section. What I want is for someone who catches these regularly to give me some pointers, such as bait. Is dead bait good to use? we always have plenty of flying fish and balyho. How about frozen squid? And how do you bait them. My plan was to take a cast net and try to catch some live bait at night around the hydroglow. If someone could help it would be greatly appreciated.

[Mike]

We will all try to help and hopefully someone from your area will chime in. I'm not sure if you had a chance to read the rigging section of this site yet?

For bait, try a spread of live and dead. Dead squid are always a favorite. When you pick your live baits, pick a good sized bait that is hardy.

Try to put out 4 lines if you can, usually 3 on floats and 1 tip line, depending on your boat size.

Keep watching the site to learn with us!

Mike

[reallost]

The boat is a 42' Silverton Conv. When we go out we stay for 3 days and 2 nights. Alot of marlin, wahoo, tunas, and dolphin.
We tried some last year at nite but had no luck at all. All we had was light sticks tho and dead squid. No hydroglow or anything. Now we have gone crazy buying everything we read about and from the articles ive read id call myself an expert by the books. What I want is actual input from people who actualy do it and catch fish.
A few questions i have is.
1. Water color? Does it have to be clear blue water? seems as tho last year we would troll all day at whats loyds ridge catching marlin wahoo and dolphin. The water was always blue there. yet at dark we would head on to desoto canyon where people say the swords are. we would get there after dark and not be able to tell true water color. yet a daylight we would see it was kinda green. Luckily we always found the yellowfin there and would have a blast.
2. will the genset on the boat spook them?
3. what is the ideal water temp for them?

anyhelp would be greatly apreciated
also if anyone is kind enough to let someone tag along one weekend let me know. More than happy to help pay for the trip. have car will travel.lol

[CAPTINMITCH]

First thing you need to keep in mind is swordfish are basically catfish with long, pointy noses. I cut open the stomachs on all of them and about the only thing I haven't found inside is a distributor cap from a 57 T-bird. Seriously, they eat shrimp, squid, flyers, tinker mackeral, filefish and whatever else they can get their lips around. Ask any of these guys, there is some weird stuff that comes out of them.

That being said, I don't think the water color is as important as the bait supply. Down here we work a ledge that runs from the Keys to Boca Raton. With all the current, valleys and peaks you get a reasonably good food chain started. From there it's only a matter of luck and technique.

If I were you, I'd get my hands on the bathy charts for the area you fish and identify zones that have some current and decent bottom structure in the 1,000 to 1,500 foot range.

Second, start a spreadsheet. Track moon phase, tides, sea state, water temps, baits used, missed fish, etc. Once you have 30+ fish on it, you will start to see some definite trends. Once you're over 100 fish, you'll be able to accurately predict not only where the fish will be, but when they will hit. I'm down to about a 15 minute window at this point and have called the exact bite numerous times. You should see the look on peoples faces when you say, "The bite is at 8:25 tonight" and at 8:24 the rod doubles over starts screaming. Of course fish can't run an Excel program so it doesn't always work, but it does most of the time.

Lastly, stick with it. It just takes time to get things figured out and if you have yellowfins to keep you busy, great!

[Anonymous]

I have been fishing the cayons of the northeast since the early 70's. When we head out to fish the cayons we fish 2 days with a one night lay over. We chunk up tuna all night, but we always set a line or 2 out for Mr. Swordy. I have read alot of reports on the Desoto Canyon and it is very simular to the cayons of the northeast. I would set lines out like Mike told you to, 4 if your going sword specific, there is no reason why there wouldn't be Swordfish there unless the water is to warm.

Try and fish the edge/drop-offs, if the tuna are present chunk them up and set 1-2 lines down for swordies. If you don't get a sword you may get a nice tuna or mako. Post how you did when you go out. Now tracking the moon phase and all that, that is all fine and dandy if you want to do it prior to your trip. There isn't the info on how good and where the bite was like over here on this coast, since noone is fishing for them over there.

If you do or don't catch a fish I would add the following info to your exsisting fishing log, or start a new log book specific for swordfishing and record GPS #'s, date, time, depths of water fished, depth/bait the fish was caught on, water temp, wind direction, moon rise/set, moon and tide phase that the hook up occured on and start your own sword log then cross ref. it as you accumulate more info as you fish for them.

Tight Lines,

Scott
SwordSlasher

[reallost]

Thanks for all the input, and please bare with me. One of you said if the water wasnt to warm? what is the ideal water temp? Also what are you using to chum with? Ive never chumed before. We have always trolled and spot fished. The depth at desoto canyon ranges fromm about 700 to around 2500 feet. And keep in mind we have never seriously tried to catch a swordfish. But we have decided that that is our goal this year. Also you have to realize that it is 130 mile run for us to the canyon, so when we go we stay for a while. now as far as what we have done last year for them is we simply set out lines and hoped for the best, just drifted all night. Not enough rope to anchor lol. Raytheon electronics and our bottom machine goes crazy out there. So its hard to tell where the ledges are. hey keep the comments coming they are apreciated.

[Anonymous]

Swords can tolerate water temp between 68-84 degrees F. 84 degrees F is the extreme high end. the colder and cleaner the water the better. Chum you can use any of the brands out there, Capt. Marcs Chum is one of the best chums on the market, or you can use a chum churn and make your own as you fish. You can stick Pilchard, Ballyhoo, Bluerunners, Bonita and Tinker Mackeral in the churn and chum away. Again like Capt. Mitch said get a good chart and look for good structure to fish. You can catch swords in 800-2000 + feet, again I belive structure is key, it causes upwellings which cause up flows of plankten which attract bait which brings in the fish.

[LuNaSeA]

Ive caught swords on a big viriarty of live baits. I have caught them on tinkers, blue runners, goggle eys, jack cravell virmillian snapper, mullet, bullet bonita, and even a big lady fish. So whatever live baits you can find over there should work. In my opinion size does matter. My baits are anywhere from 8 inches to over a foot. The biggger the bait the bigger the fish usualy but there are times when a 40lb sword eats my 5lb live jack. I don't know what kind of bait fish u got swiming up there but any live bait up there u can find should work. Dead squid works good but i have caught more fish on live baits then dead baits. I would like to hear from u if u get any luck up there.