When To Strike Tope

[warjoe]

I had i few tope runs the other night the tope took 30-40 yards before stoping and droping it each time, do i wait for the second run or do i strike during the first 30-40 yards of the run.

Edited November 7, 2005 by warjoe

[manxfisher]

FWIW, I lust let them run to begin with, slowly increasing the drag pressure (from the virtually nothing that it was orig set on) until the tope stops, then I wind down and lift into it and then hang on, grinning like an idot with wobbly legs

 

Works for me, and only rarely have I had a take and not converted it into a landed tope (big slack line bite each time, and couldn't catch up quick enough)

[Ian Burrett]

I had i few tope runs the other night the tope took 30-40 yards before stopping and dropping it each time, do i wait for the second run or do i strike during the first 30-40 yards of the run.

 

 

Hi warjoe

 

Sorry for the long answer, but I have been meaning to write something for the Save our Shark website and this seemed as good a time as any. Have you joined by the way?

 

The old text book ruling was, “wait until the start of the second run before striking” but this use to lead to a lot of gut hooked fish, which nobody wants to see these days.

 

The way the tope feeds varies from day to day depending on their mood. Some days you can have 10 runs 10 fish other days 10 runs and just a few fish. This can even change through the day. I remember one day we had 9 runs in the morning and hooked all nine. The afternoon also produced 9 runs and we only hooked a couple.

 

Over a season a 1 in 2 hook up rate is the norm, e.g., A day when we hook up 40 tope we will have approx 80 runs. This is mainly down to the skill of the anglers. Bear in mind that a good angler with a positive strike and the correct rig will have a much better conversion rate but nobody wins them all.

 

When the tope are being picky we tend to go down in bait size and fish a fillet (providing their aren’t to many dogs about) As its such a small bait you can wind down instantly into the tope. The other suggestion is to fish a live bait. This will often out fish any other method and some days is the only bait that will get touched. A live mackerel is my favorite bait but I have caught tope on Whiting, pout, dabs and even Coalie.

 

The size of the average bait is just a small “smarty” to a decent tope so you can assume the bait is in its mouth once it starts that ballistic run. On a live bait I will wait approximately 5-6 seconds from the first twitch of the rod tip. When fishing in strong tides you may well have double the depth of line out in a huge bow. It is therefore important to wind as quickly as possible until the clutch starts to slip. This is particularly important in strong tides because the tope will often swim uptide. Anglers often at this stage think they have lost the fish. The weight of the tope against the drag will set the hook so you don’t need a great strike. .

 

The reason for most dropped runs is the tope feels the resistance slowly coming on the line and realizes something is not quite right so drops the bait. I cannot stress enough the importance of winding down quickly to minimize that time between you deciding to strike and setting the hook.

 

I would strongly recommend a lever drag combined with braid because more fish are lost with anglers messing about with star drags than any other reason. A lever drag has a preset clutch so once you push the lever up you can strike with confidence knowing that your drag settings are right. The older reels like the Mitchell 624 would need about 10 turns on the star to get the necessary drag and by then it’s allover or at worst a gut hooked fish.

 

If you have had a dropped run don’t assume it’s allover. Tope are a predatory fish and are far more likely to pick up a moving bait. As soon as the fish has dropped the bait, wind it slowly back to the back in a jerking manner. You are trying to imitate the movements of a dying fish. If this doesn’t work then drop it back but keep the bait moving.

This will often result in the angry tope turning and chasing the bait. In this instance it is important to strike the fish immediately as the tope will often gulp the bait straight down and can result in gut hooked fish.

 

In the case of a gut hooked fish don't be too alarmed as the tope like other sharks can swallow their stomack again, this is a defence machanism designed to get rid of unwanted contents. I had in the region of 500 tope this year and only on three occasions did i have to leave the hook in. Over 95 per cent was hooked in the scissors.

 

If you know there are fish about but you are not getting the runs; a moving bait will often pick up more fish. When fishing in tide, I will fish a lead that is too light to hold on the bottom and keep dropping it back 6 ft at a time. Providing you are fishing with light balanced tackle you will feel when the tope hits the bait. Engage the reel and wind it back to the boat until you feel the weight of the fish. I will sometimes have well over a spool of braid out just fishing in 100 ft of water.

 

A dead bait firmly plonked on the bottom particularly when fishing with little tide doesn’t give off any signals for the tope to home in on. In this occasion we will often resort to the float (even in 150 ft of water) set a few ft. of the bottom or freelining in shallow water because it provides a moving bait.

 

Extra fish are often picked up at slack water which is the time tope go off the feed by using Pollack tactics. We drop the bait to the bottom and wind slowly back to the boat similar to redgilling. The tope don’t half go in this scenario because they are often hooked just a few feet under the boat and make a desperate dive for the bottom.

 

Hooks are matter of personal choice, I have experimented with circular hooks but didn’t find any advantage over a conventional pattern. We seem to fish smaller hooks as the years go by. By tradition a 10/0 was used. We dropped this to an 8/0 then 7/0 and now my preferred hook is a 5 or 6/0 O’shaunessy. Lighter patterns like the Mustad BNL 3261 will be fine in most occasions but we lost a couple of big fish due to the hooks straightening at the side of the boat.

 

Again the traces are down to personal choice but I believe it is impossible to purchase the perfect trace from the shops. The all wire traces kink and cause danger at the side of the boat when the skipper is handling the trace.

My favorite trace has only 1 ft. of 100-150 lb wire to a swivel and 6ft of a heavy mono. I personally prefer 150 lb. mono as it is easier for me to handle and kinder to my hands at the side of the boat. We once lost an 80lb. tope at the side of the boat because the angler had bought a shop trace with only 80lb mono instead of the 150

 

Regarding the rods and reels to use; many people over estimate the pulling power of the tope and fish with gear that’s far too heavy. This can spoil the enjoyment of the fight. A tope is a running fish that will eventually return to the boat, so line is given when the tope swims away and gained when it swims back towards the boat. Because of this you can generally fish with a 6-12 lb outfit balanced with a Penn 975 LD, Abu 6600LD or similar. In shallow water a carp rod is suffice. In deep water with strong tides it may be essential to fish a 12-20 as the lead weight will kill the action of the rod and you could be pulling the fish against the tide.

 

I generally use a 28 lb braid with a 40 lb nylon leader because I want to enjoy the feeling of fishing light without endangering the fish by loosing one because of the main line parting and having it drag booms and leads etc round the ocean.

Edited November 7, 2005 by Ian Burrett

[warjoe]

Hi warjoe

 

Sorry for the long answer, but I have been meaning to write something for the Save our Shark website and this seemed as good a time as any. Have you joined by the way?

 

The old text book ruling was, “wait until the start of the second run before striking” but this use to lead to a lot of gut hooked fish, which nobody wants to see these days.

 

The way the tope feeds varies from day to day depending on their mood. Some days you can have 10 runs 10 fish other days 10 runs and just a few fish. This can even change through the day. I remember one day we had 9 runs in the morning and hooked all nine. The afternoon also produced 9 runs and we only hooked a couple.

 

Over a season a 1 in 2 hook up rate is the norm, e.g., A day when we hook up 40 tope we will have approx 80 runs. This is mainly down to the skill of the anglers. Bear in mind that a good angler with a positive strike and the correct rig will have a much better conversion rate but nobody wins them all.

 

When the tope are being picky we tend to go down in bait size and fish a fillet (providing their aren’t to many dogs about) As its such a small bait you can wind down instantly into the tope. The other suggestion is to fish a live bait. This will often out fish any other method and some days is the only bait that will get touched. A live mackerel is my favorite bait but I have caught tope on Whiting, pout, dabs and even Coalie.

 

The size of the average bait is just a small “smarty” to a decent tope so you can assume the bait is in its mouth once it starts that ballistic run. On a live bait I will wait approximately 5-6 seconds from the first twitch of the rod tip. When fishing in strong tides you may well have double the depth of line out in a huge bow. It is therefore important to wind as quickly as possible until the clutch starts to slip. This is particularly important in strong tides because the tope will often swim uptide. Anglers often at this stage think they have lost the fish. The weight of the tope against the drag will set the hook so you don’t need a great strike. .

 

The reason for most dropped runs is the tope feels the resistance slowly coming on the line and realizes something is not quite right so drops the bait. I cannot stress enough the importance of winding down quickly to minimize that time between you deciding to strike and setting the hook.

 

I would strongly recommend a lever drag combined with braid because more fish are lost with anglers messing about with star drags than any other reason. A lever drag has a preset clutch so once you push the lever up you can strike with confidence knowing that your drag settings are right. The older reels like the Mitchell 624 would need about 10 turns on the star to get the necessary drag and by then it’s allover or at worst a gut hooked fish.

 

If you have had a dropped run don’t assume it’s allover. Tope are a predatory fish and are far more likely to pick up a moving bait. As soon as the fish has dropped the bait, wind it slowly back to the back in a jerking manner. You are trying to imitate the movements of a dying fish. If this doesn’t work then drop it back but keep the bait moving.

This will often result in the angry tope turning and chasing the bait. In this instance it is important to strike the fish immediately as the tope will often gulp the bait straight down and can result in gut hooked fish.

 

In the case of a gut hooked fish don't be too alarmed as the tope like other sharks can swallow their stomack again, this is a defence machanism designed to get rid of unwanted contents. I had in the region of 500 tope this year and only on three occasions did i have to leave the hook in. Over 95 per cent was hooked in the scissors.

 

If you know there are fish about but you are not getting the runs; a moving bait will often pick up more fish. When fishing in tide, I will fish a lead that is too light to hold on the bottom and keep dropping it back 6 ft at a time. Providing you are fishing with light balanced tackle you will feel when the tope hits the bait. Engage the reel and wind it back to the boat until you feel the weight of the fish. I will sometimes have well over a spool of braid out just fishing in 100 ft of water.

 

A dead bait firmly plonked on the bottom particularly when fishing with little tide doesn’t give off any signals for the tope to home in on. In this occasion we will often resort to the float (even in 150 ft of water) set a few ft. of the bottom or freelining in shallow water because it provides a moving bait.

 

Extra fish are often picked up at slack water which is the time tope go off the feed by using Pollack tactics. We drop the bait to the bottom and wind slowly back to the boat similar to redgilling. The tope don’t half go in this scenario because they are often hooked just a few feet under the boat and make a desperate dive for the bottom.

 

Hooks are matter of personal choice, I have experimented with circular hooks but didn’t find any advantage over a conventional pattern. We seem to fish smaller hooks as the years go by. By tradition a 10/0 was used. We dropped this to an 8/0 then 7/0 and now my preferred hook is a 5 or 6/0 O’shaunessy. Lighter patterns like the Mustad BNL 3261 will be fine in most occasions but we lost a couple of big fish due to the hooks straightening at the side of the boat.

 

Again the traces are down to personal choice but I believe it is impossible to purchase the perfect trace from the shops. The all wire traces kink and cause danger at the side of the boat when the skipper is handling the trace.

My favorite trace has only 1 ft. of 100-150 lb wire to a swivel and 6ft of a heavy mono. I personally prefer 150 lb. mono as it is easier for me to handle and kinder to my hands at the side of the boat. We once lost an 80lb. tope at the side of the boat because the angler had bought a shop trace with only 80lb mono instead of the 150

 

Regarding the rods and reels to use; many people over estimate the pulling power of the tope and fish with gear that’s far too heavy. This can spoil the enjoyment of the fight. A tope is a running fish that will eventually return to the boat, so line is given when the tope swims away and gained when it swims back towards the boat. Because of this you can generally fish with a 6-12 lb outfit balanced with a Penn 975 LD, Abu 6600LD or similar. In shallow water a carp rod is suffice. In deep water with strong tides it may be essential to fish a 12-20 as the lead weight will kill the action of the rod and you could be pulling the fish against the tide.

 

I generally use a 28 lb braid with a 40 lb nylon leader because I want to enjoy the feeling of fishing light without endangering the fish by loosing one because of the main line parting and having it drag booms and leads etc round the ocean.

All my fishing is done on the beach thanks for all that info.

Ian

[Toerag]

I don't think anyone can argue with that Ian, great advice. Interesting to note the pollacking tactics though. Everyone perceives tope as being hardened bottom dwellers, but people tell me they used to get loads when sharking with baits near the surface in deep water.

[manxfisher]

Perhaps I should add: All my tope fishing is done from the shore, and I have never had a tope that was deeply hooked.

 

Good luck warjoe - if you are getting the runs then you are more than half way there.

[sanctuary]

And when you do hook it be prepared for a second run when you think its all over like video Or this video

Edited November 7, 2005 by sanctuary

[Ian Burrett]

I don't think anyone can argue with that Ian, great advice. Interesting to note the pollacking tactics though. Everyone perceives tope as being hardened bottom dwellers, but people tell me they used to get loads when sharking with baits near the surface in deep water.

 

Apparently the tope were considered a pest in New Zealand when surface longlining for Tuna. This was in a thousand foot of water.

 

 

All my fishing is done on the beach thanks for all that info.

Ian

 

If you are fishing smallish baits then i would hit them as soon as they move off

[Gillies]

Good Post Ian - having never fished for Tope - I thourghly enjoyed reading it.

 

Gillies

[Spur-Hound]

Likewise Gillies.

 

Its my ambition to catch a tope, boat 1st but one day from the shore.That was a very informative post Ian