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Random Quote: Boats......If it isn't one thing, it's another.
Here's something I grabbed off off another board with a post by Fred Archer.
"Here's a shot or two of a Fisherman's Fleet in Mexico running what they term an UpRiggers.
They are death on the wahoos because the lure is run directly from the reel to the rod on the lower rod holder. This eliminates the flexing of the rod when it comes to setting the hook on hard-mouthed 'hoo (marlin too). What most fishermen don't realize is that a way too large percentage of wahoo bites are missed because the flex in the rod before it loads up combined with the stetch in the mono gives a striking wahoo way too much opportunity to spit the lure before they get hooked. Wahoo have incredibly strong jaws (that's why they bite baits in half so easily) and that, combined with all of those teeth digging into the lure - especially a Marauder - and keeping it from sliding through their mouths so the hooks can do their jobs.
UpRiggers eliminate the rod flex part of that equation.
I have seen this set up account for ten for ten on wahoo bites and hookups."
saw that posted before. I guess it'll work. Even with the reel pointing directly at the fish it will still miss given the attack angle of the fish. On my dad's boat 2 rods are bent butts in 90 degree holders with soft tip poles for the outside lines. The two short lines are basically reels pointing directly at the fish. Granted the back 2 have a lower miss ratio..... they still miss fish. I'd say out of 10 strikes on the short lines, 6 or 7 will come up. Nothing is guaranteed in fishing..... and thats why its not called catching.....heehee.
Like lcosta, I wouldn't put my rods in a contraption like that. I'd ratherbuy a short bent butt to do the same job.
I've never had a problem hooking up with the few Wahoo I've caught so I'll stick with what I'm doing now. Perhaps this picture will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.
This is how they solve the problem in South Africa (look behind and to the right of my buddy there). Much more practical and safer for your equipment too.
Shiiit, that little kawa kawa would make a great marlin bait...
I haven't seen that South Africa style setup in a while. I believe it's a custom machined reel clamp with a hexagonal male fitting which fits into a female fitting installed to the boat in lieu of a rod holder. It allows for adjusting the angle of the rod tip too. That's a good system, I wonder why it never caught on anywhere else?
What happens if the wahoo bites the rod on the upper rod holder? Or are they guaranteed to bite only the lower rod?
What happens if the wahoo bites the rod on the upper rod holder? Or are they guaranteed to bite only the lower rod?
Really.
This thread was for my buddy Tireless but he must be still playing hide the sausage with Adam T in the bilge.
The good points the author is making is that you need
a strong rod or shotgun system where the wahoo can't grip the lure before he spits it.. it has to slide in his mouth to set the hooks.
Dave goes for game where light rods are fun, but if he uses his ugly sticks with the TLD 50's and some spectra he won't look like a "Desperate housewife" trying to set a hook with his "Biotch" line of handcrafted marauders.
The same thing can be accomplished in a number of ways, but Archers mouth to lure observation is right on´, IMO.
Patudo - 6/15/2007 11:03 PM Shiiit, that little kawa kawa would make a great marlin bait... I haven't seen that South Africa style setup in a while. I believe it's a custom machined reel clamp with a hexagonal male fitting which fits into a female fitting installed to the boat in lieu of a rod holder. It allows for adjusting the angle of the rod tip too. That's a good system, I wonder why it never caught on anywhere else? What happens if the wahoo bites the rod on the upper rod holder? Or are they guaranteed to bite only the lower rod?
It's not that elaborate actually. Just a half tube rod holder bolted down horizontally. Here's a another view:
Captain Fred Archer has spent more time on the water than I guess any of us. He fishes some of the best waters of mexico and probably has expermented endless with this system..If he says it works, I'd bet money that it does..I can see one advantage to it right off the bat...teaser on one rod and hook bait directly behind it...like the rest of you...I'd be a little nervous hanging a high dollar set up off the end of it as well....but once it produced fish..I'd forget all about it
What happens if the wahoo bites the rod on the upper rod holder? Or are they guaranteed to bite only the lower rod?
Really.
This thread was for my buddy Tireless but he must be still playing hide the sausage with Adam T in the bilge.
The good points the author is making is that you need
a strong rod or shotgun system where the wahoo can't grip the lure before he spits it.. it has to slide in his mouth to set the hooks.
Dave goes for game where light rods are fun, but if he uses his ugly sticks with the TLD 50's and some spectra he won't look like a "Desperate housewife" trying to set a hook with his "Biotch" line of handcrafted marauders.
The same thing can be accomplished in a number of ways, but Archers mouth to lure observation is right on´, IMO.
I contacted Archer's business buddy about these holders a few months ago (Archer had a great hoo article in Sportfishing mag where he talked about this rod holder).....I am still considering buying one or two instead of bent butts. I can see how this setup would provide the strongest hook sets as it eliminates rod flex on the strike............. That's it, I just decided to give one of these rigs a shot.......if I don't catch a hoo on the first trip, or any trip for that matter, I will finally have something else to blame for my failure other than the captain being a dork.
What happens if the wahoo bites the rod on the upper rod holder? Or are they guaranteed to bite only the lower rod?
Really.
This thread was for my buddy Tireless but he must be still playing hide the sausage with Adam T in the bilge.
The good points the author is making is that you need
a strong rod or shotgun system where the wahoo can't grip the lure before he spits it.. it has to slide in his mouth to set the hooks.
Dave goes for game where light rods are fun, but if he uses his ugly sticks with the TLD 50's and some spectra he won't look like a "Desperate housewife" trying to set a hook with his "Biotch" line of handcrafted marauders.
The same thing can be accomplished in a number of ways, but Archers mouth to lure observation is right on´, IMO.
I contacted Archer's business buddy about these holders a few months ago (Archer had a great hoo article in Sportfishing mag where he talked about this rod holder).....I am still considering buying one or two instead of bent butts. I can see how this setup would provide the strongest hook sets as it eliminates rod flex on the strike............. That's it, I just decided to give one of these rigs a shot.......if I don't catch a hoo on the first trip, or any trip for that matter, I will finally have something else to blame for my failure other than the captain being a dork.
Pointing any light rod straight rod straight back with braid and drag accomplished the same thing, and a perko style rod holder tilted almost flat with a safety cord could be considered.
But if you use your heavy sticks with braid and 12 lbs of drag specifically for your wahoo maurauders, this will hook em Dave.
Captain Fred Archer has spent more time on the water than I guess any of us. He fishes some of the best waters of mexico and probably has expermented endless with this system..If he says it works, I'd bet money that it does..I can see one advantage to it right off the bat...teaser on one rod and hook bait directly behind it...like the rest of you...I'd be a little nervous hanging a high dollar set up off the end of it as well....but once it produced fish..I'd forget all about it
I've got a pair.
Well built. No worries about the nylon hangers. I wrap a safety line from the cleat to it then snap into the reel. No need for flat line clips. Definite hook sets, allows for a great spread and I can fish two rods from one holder. I can now easily fish eight lines from a twenty-three footer. I was concerned about fighting fish over them, but have not yet had a problem.
Baits can be stacked up too. Picture six spreader bars (two up, two down and two on the riggers) tight together for a giant school of bait.
I would recomend them. Just my .02.
I've got a pair.
Well built. No worries about the nylon hangers. I wrap a safety line from the cleat to it then snap into the reel. No need for flat line clips. Definite hook sets, allows for a great spread and I can fish two rods from one holder. I can now easily fish eight lines from a twenty-three footer. I was concerned about fighting fish over them, but have not yet had a problem.
Baits can be stacked up too. Picture six spreader bars (two up, two down and two on the riggers) tight together for a giant school of bait.
I would recomend them. Just my .02.
that's what I'm counting on 'Tuna - thanks for the positive comments. I can hardly wait.
Doesn't a setup like this defeat the purpose of the pole? You get no flex/ pressure on the fish at strike with it set like this, I would think there would be a higher amount of broke lines beacuse of no give.
Doesn't a setup like this defeat the purpose of the pole? You get no flex/ pressure on the fish at strike with it set like this, I would think there would be a higher amount of broke lines beacuse of no give.
Drag setting are important but with 80 lb braid and 14 lbs of drag I don't think you're risking much. I am thinking that this will also help with marlin on plastics.
Some answers to issues raised about UpRiggers here.
First, let me say that many new products initially meet with skepticism by anglers in general. Heck, an old timer, writer, author and tackle industry guy like me can remember when the reaction to downriggers in salt water was almost unanimously that they were “contraptions” and difficult to use, etc., etc. and would never be used by saltwater fishermen. Now you find them on boats all over the world. I can also clearly recall how fishermen outside of California laughed at “those short little, wimpy stand up tuna rods and them girdles they wear to fish with them” and now, of course, you find them as standard issue all over the world among the majority of anglers. Ditto for two speed reels when we first came out with them at Shimano (I’m not saying we were first with them), “Two speeds? Why in the world would I need two speed reels? Heck, I catch plenty of fish with my one speed ones” and now they are the favorites of a huge percentage of big game and even not-so-big game fishermen. And it wasn’t long ago that the new braided lines were nearly laughed off the market, with some fishermen and writers begrudgingly saying, “that stuff might be okay for deep bottom fishing, but that’s it.” Sure! You know what has happened there!
The bottom line is, no matter how good the product, it takes many fishermen a lot of time to accept it. But all fishermen aren’t dummies, either. The more that they understand about how a good new product performs and the values it brings, the faster some of them accept and begin to enjoy it. It’s with that in mind and not attempting to start a battle that I’ve put together the following.
There are many UpRigger owners all over the country and the world and that number is growing daily as people see them performing on other peoples’ boats and hear what they have to say about them. They really are terrific devices and here are some of the reasons why.
First, the issues raised here.
Number one...losing rods and reels. While it might look pretty weak if you aren’t familiar with the hanging system, it is not. It is the very same one that has been used for trolling big tunas (and marlin and wahoo, etc) on the San Diego long range fleet boats out of San Diego, California for decades. It is an extremely reliable and effective means of running trolling outfits. In fact, I can recall plenty of outfits lost over the side while anglers fought big fish, but have never heard of a rod and reel lost to this system. And as it is with any and all trolling tackle, only fools run any of them without safety lines, no matter what kind of holders they are trolling them out of. That’s trolling 101. So even if you doubt the safety of your gear in an UpRigger, if you are using safety lines, there is nothing to fear, just as it is with any other trolling outfit holder.
UpRiggers are superior to bent butts, admittedly another effective, but far more expensive way of running flat lines directly off the reel. First of all, and important to many, a set of UpRiggers is far less expensive than a SINGLE bent butt ROD alone – forget adding the reel or another rod and pair of reels for your short positions – you don’t need to buy new rods or reels to get bent butt performance with UpRiggers. Your regular standup rods, or your favorite rods if they aren’t stand ups and their reels will get the job done perfectly.
The outfits run on the lower arms troll even better than bents because among other things, you get an even lower line-to-lure angle and the lower rods pivot and move up and down with the lures and turn and stay pointed at the them in rough conditions and during turns, so the great hookup performance is there at all times. Now you can get (at least as good as) bent butt trolling performance without spending a dime on new rods and reels and the other, even more costly item that is usually required to fish bents – a chair. PLUS, when you pick up that “bent butt performing” trolling outfit after it’s hooked up, it’s one of those favorite standup outfits of yours that you like to fight fish on, but that make for not so hot trolling rods when fished upright.
You also don’t need a big boat to troll your flats “bent butt style”. This is a big plus for those who not only aren’t interested in installing a chair in the first place for whatever reason and for those who run smaller, right down to the ubiquitous panga size boats that the original thread that my quote came from was addressing. Here too, the fact that you can add an additional two or more rods with UpRiggers placed in your existing rod holders that run lures at different, non-tangling angles – one low and one high, with both running in the “clean lane” of most boats without drilling and screwing and making permanent changes to your boat is a real positive for many fishermen. And again, all it takes to start fishing UpRiggers is dropping them into a couple of your existing rod holders or those of any other boat you are fishing on. And as you can see in the one panga photo, they are just as easy to clear as they are to install if you chose to get them out of the way while fighting fish, another practical fishing feature.
The true bent butt, long or shorty? I have fished bent butts for many, many years aboard my Cabo charterboat and on other boats around the world and the first thing I have to say about them is, “where’s the chair?!” Spend the money on a set of bents and get ready to find out why the vast, vast majority of bent butt fish are fought out of chairs if you don’t already know! If you don’t have a chair, you better have one of those expensive, fancy harnesses with all the bells and whistles on it (and some do like that and more power to them) and an angler/anglers with skill to use it/them. And what are you going to do if you have a multiple hookup on the big stuff – or even the smaller fish that represent most multiples that we run into a lot more often? Give me a cockpit full of mobile anglers using standup gear anytime versus one guy hopping around in his harness and a couple of others trying to fight fish standing up with bent butts without the big time harnesses – or even with them...that’s the definition of cluster intercourse as far as I’m concerned. And of course, chairs have become pretty much a “no choice” to the average guy with a small to medium sized boat and matching budget. Heck, even some of the battlewagon guys are almost purely standup fans nowadays. UpRiggers make all of the sense in the world to many of these people.
And of course a chair is a permanent addition to a cockpit, even if it isn’t used often or needed and used only part of the year in many cases. Instead, it becomes an expensive “road block” in the middle of a cockpit when a multiple of the most common fish most of us catch – tunas, dorados, smaller billfish, and wahoos, etc. are hooked up. Here too, three-to-five standup anglers who can move around the cockpit with comparative ease is both more effective and more fun for the participants and the captain than one in the chair and the others trying to fight their fish off of bent butts, or even heavy IGFA rods.
“What about the upper rod? Are all bites guaranteed off the lower ones?”, or whatever someone commented? We never said that UpRiggers produced bent butt performance on both rods that they hold (although actual bent butts can be run out of the upper holder and are by some of our customers). Instead, considering the fact that a very large percentage of fishermen run a pair of flat lines, a short and long flat corner, they help optimize the performance of those outfits and closer-to-the-boat lures. The upper rods, if they are conventional ones, don’t get that kind of performance improvement, but the important point about them is that they are the ones that allow you to add two more rods to your spread that perform no differently than the other rods that you run with no permanent changes to your boat. That and gaining bent butt performance on at least two outfits without all of the cost, space, installation cost and time required to do it the old way is nothing but good and a big advance in the trolling game for many.
Speaking of permanent obstructions that also require a lot of drilling and mounting, etc. and things that make sense, those “inverted U-shaped” devices shown here sure look like they fall in that category a lot more than UpRiggers ever could, but I won’t call them “contraptions” because I am a gentleman and gentlemen don’t call other peoples’ ideas that sort of thing.
There are actually a lot more good things that UpRiggers bring to offshore fishermen on all boats, big and small. They include a clean, efficient way of making spreaderbars IGFA legal tools, a method that we call “the lazy man’s bait and switch”, running “booby trapped” teasers and they also serve as great swordfish and shark drift rod holders when fished out of forward, “cocked out” rod holders, but all of that is explained in our catalog for those who are interested. No sense taking up any more space here for those who aren’t.
Here are just a few of the e-mails and quotes about UpRiggers from fishermen who are using them from Internet sites that have been posted or received within the last few days. I will include some pictures if I can figure out how.
“Went fishing for Wahoo with Scott Adkins, Bass Fisherman Extraordinaire and loyal Lodi liver, and Captain Martin.
Scott caught a nice fish on a blue Mirrorlure.
I caught one on a purple squided Archer spreader bar, with a purple chase bait. My first Hoo in about 3 years, and my first fish on the spreader bars...
Saw about 15 marlin, none were hungry.
Team 'Hoo!?”
Another Internet site posting “Due to the theme of one of the other threads, I would like to add that the Upriggers work flawlessly. There is no better way to troll 4 rods in a panga, unless it has outriggers, and as most of us know, "they aint got none." No tangles, no huge mess after hooking a fish.”
David
Another “I used the Melville/Archer Upriggers for the second time and it has changed panga fishing for the better....especially on wahoo and tuna....2/3 of our wahoo were taken within 40 feet of the boat on Marauders.....trolled on flat lines from Uprigger....”
Verne
A posting from a Baja California fleet owner “I would echo Vernons' kudos to the Melville/Archer system. After you get used to the new drill, they provide a lot more flexibility than the standard two rod set up in pangas, you can actually get a spread out of different lures, and at different depths. Not just limited to pangas, we use them on our cruisers upon occasion and they offer a lot more flexibility in setting up the spread.
These are, by my way of thinking, the best kind of design,
simple
effective
they work.
David Jones, owner Sportfisherman Fleet, La Paz”
Another posting by a top northern California angler “Excellent report David... wish I was there. Cool to see other people using the Upriggers... they are a staple on my boat for tuna (and shark) trolling.
Here some pics from my boat
__________________
Matt
Noyo Harbor”
A posting of mine “UpRiggers eliminate the rod flex part of that equation and if you want to hook wahoo like you never imagined, spool up a short little topshot of about 30 yards of 80# Dacron on a wahoo rig, set the drag lower than you would think, about ten pounds (the no-stretch factor in Dacron transmits strike pressure immediately and you can actually pop the line or rip a hoo's face off if you set it much higher than that). Forget missing wahoo on this rig and UpRiggers.
I have seen this set up account for ten for ten on wahoo bites and hookups and brother, that's saying something when it comes to 'hoo dogs!
Captain Fred Archer”
That’s it on UpRiggers. I hope that it made it clear to some why so many of us consider them the best thing to come along in big game fishing since, well, two speed reels, standup rods and braided line. Bad mouth them all that you want without having seen or used them, but don’t be surprised when they show up on boats all around you, because they will.
I can't find the "attach a file before posting" button, so can't include some photos that I would like to have included. I'm a newbie here, but I'll learn.
Upriggers for Wahoo- A tip from Fred Archer 
