Night Moves

The weather's warming up and it's time to start thinking about night fishing once again, and here on the mid Atlantic coast, if you can get in a night offshore you could be in for an encounter with the ultimate predator of the darkness: swordfish!

The one you see here was caught at the Washington Canyon, in 1,500 feet of water, at about 2:00AM. He ate a standard sword bait: a whole rigged squid. And on this trip I learned a heck of a lot from the guys I was with, who regularly target swordfish in the Mid-Atlantic canyons. If you get a chance to go night fishing offshore for these beasts, make sure you:

• Sew the mantle of the squid to the tenticals with rigging thread. Otherwise, the swords often slash the squid in half and eat one chunk. They may or may not find the other chunk, which means you'll only have a 50-50 shot at getting the bite if your squid wasn't sewn together.
• Set out a Hydroglow (or similar brand) green light stick. The one on our boat attracted hordes of squid, tinker mackerel, and countless other oceanic critters.
• Use a circle hook. Swords bite surprisingly lightly, and often you won't even notice there's a fish playing with the bait until it's eaten it and starts swimming away. If you have a circle hook, at this point the fish will hook itself.
• Use wind-on leaders. In the confusion of darkness, wiring is REALLY tough! With a wind-on, you eliminate the need. 200-pound test is about right, but many anglers up the ante to 300 pound test. (Main line ranges from 50 to 120 pound test, depending on whether you have braid or mono on the reel. Generally speaking, stronger is better.)
• While you drift along with sword baits set at staggered depths (try 100', 200', and 300'; this sword came on the line at 200'), also toss butterfish chunks over the side as you drift back surface lines. This will often produce tunas, mahi-mahi, and sharks. Run your drift lines from the cockpit, and run your sword lines off of rigger release clips placed forward on the boat. Tying the clips to a fore cleats, bow rail, and spring cleat works well and keeps the lines well-seperated.
• When you bring a sword over the gunwales, be prepared for the REAL battle to begin. It three of us to hold this fish down, and we couldn't let up on it for about 15 minutes.