Andaman Trolling

**Indian Angler** · 25-04-2006, 16:13

The main stay of my last trip to the Andaman Islands was trolling. It was one of the things we were forced to do alot of as we were in a slow local boat. It was what kept us entertained during the time we were moving from spot to another.
Upon reaching we spent the whole first session experimenting with outriggers till we got it right. We finally settled for 15ft bamboo poles, a pulley system and release clips.
Plugs proved to be the heroes on this trip, with all strikes on them. I'd rate the Halco's a tad higher than the Rapalas. On our first trip we used only Rapalas with limited success. one interesting thing Darran and I did was we fished the Rapala Blue Mackerel (CDMAG 18) and a Halco L-190 (H57) Baitfish and noticed more strikes on the Halco. If you ask me the action looks superb on the Rapala, have no idea why the fish went for the Halcos. Any help on that one would be appreciated

As we came closer to the reefs we usually hooked into GT, Blue fin Trevally, Grouper and Barracuda. The further out we went it was small tuna, Spanish Mackerel and the occasional gar that came flying in and out of the water chasing the plug.
Since we didn't have access to trolling heads here in Bangalore we had to fabricate our own. They misfired on this trip so we'll have to make a new set and modify the existing ones. One of the things we noticed was that there wasn't much of a bubble trail. Also we'll probably make the new ones a little bigger and cup faced. The first set were mostly bullet shaped.
We've returned with half the number of plugs we started with, but it was really worth it, even when we got broken.
On the next trip we'll again focus on trying to catch that marlin that eluded us this time, especially since we know they're there. 2 huge black marlin have been caught in the same general area we were fishing since we left.

**deangonsalves** · 26-04-2006, 06:17

thats quite an important insight about the preformance of the lures .. whats the approx ratio of hits betweent the Halcos & rapala ? Must say good invention with the outriggers !!
cheers
Thanks
Dean

Originally Posted by Indian Angler

The main stay of my last trip to the Andaman Islands was trolling. It was one of the things we were forced to do alot of as we were in a slow local boat. It was what kept us entertained during the time we were moving from spot to another.
Upon reaching we spent the whole first session experimenting with outriggers till we got it right. We finally settled for 15ft bamboo poles, a pulley system and release clips.
Plugs proved to be the heroes on this trip, with all strikes on them. I'd rate the Halco's a tad higher than the Rapalas. On our first trip we used only Rapalas with limited success. one interesting thing Darran and I did was we fished the Rapala Blue Mackerel (CDMAG 18) and a Halco L-190 (H57) Baitfish and noticed more strikes on the Halco. If you ask me the action looks superb on the Rapala, have no idea why the fish went for the Halcos. Any help on that one would be appreciated

As we came closer to the reefs we usually hooked into GT, Blue fin Trevally, Grouper and Barracuda. The further out we went it was small tuna, Spanish Mackerel and the occasional gar that came flying in and out of the water chasing the plug.
Since we didn't have access to trolling heads here in Bangalore we had to fabricate our own. They misfired on this trip so we'll have to make a new set and modify the existing ones. One of the things we noticed was that there wasn't much of a bubble trail. Also we'll probably make the new ones a little bigger and cup faced. The first set were mostly bullet shaped.
We've returned with half the number of plugs we started with, but it was really worth it, even when we got broken.
On the next trip we'll again focus on trying to catch that marlin that eluded us this time, especially since we know they're there. 2 huge black marlin have been caught in the same general area we were fishing since we left.

**Indian Angler** · 26-04-2006, 10:34

Hi Dean,

Well the ratio was something like 3:1. So we can say 75% of strikes/fish were on the Halco plugs.
Are you heading out this weekend?
Necessity is the mother of Invention. After our first trip with a monkey steering the boat and trying to do 90degree turns when we were trolling, we realised we had to do something this time. Hence the outriggers that look like they belong in a Mad Max film. Simple, cheap and effective.