Captain PartyMarty
Crew Member
I hear a sling Shot and a 1/2" Ball bearing between the eyes does the trick. Heard it from a friend.....
Dealing with Seals stealing your fish
- Thread starter the butcher
- Start date
reeltordarius
Well-Known Member
play orca sounds on your boat stereo....specifically the sounds of them feeding....turn it up once a fish is on.....
R.S Craven has already chimed in and he has the answer. On my boat I refer to it as the Craven method, though I don’t know if he came up with the strategy or was just the person who shared it.
You’ll almost always lose to the seal and you may waste fishing time, lose gear, or in pro fishers case damage your boat or motor while doing so.
I suggest letting the seal have your fish. As craven suggested if you simply back off the tension and give the seal it’s meal instead of fighting it the seal will very quickly chomp the head off and allow you to retrieve your gear and get back to fishing.
Some days you need to feed a seal before you can feed yourself. Facts of fishing.
You’ll almost always lose to the seal and you may waste fishing time, lose gear, or in pro fishers case damage your boat or motor while doing so.
I suggest letting the seal have your fish. As craven suggested if you simply back off the tension and give the seal it’s meal instead of fighting it the seal will very quickly chomp the head off and allow you to retrieve your gear and get back to fishing.
Some days you need to feed a seal before you can feed yourself. Facts of fishing.
tubber
Well-Known Member
Here's part of a post I made from 2010 in the Ucluelet reports. Pilchard days.
Those are still the only fish I've lost to pinnipeds.
"We found a spot on the Big Bank where there were no boats and the fish were bigger (18-30). We had 3 double headers in a row and only landed 3 fish because a big blonde motherf'er of a sealion ate the other 3 and they were all on my rod. We picked up and moved at speed over a mile away and there he was shredding my 4th fish. We then ran 3 more miles and were rid of him but out of the fish so we did a slow troll back toward that spot where he once again got one side of a double header for his 5th of the morning. He would just grab the fish, peel off 200ft of line, surface, rag doll, and then a head and my big brass Titan spoon would come back to the boat."
Those are still the only fish I've lost to pinnipeds.
"We found a spot on the Big Bank where there were no boats and the fish were bigger (18-30). We had 3 double headers in a row and only landed 3 fish because a big blonde motherf'er of a sealion ate the other 3 and they were all on my rod. We picked up and moved at speed over a mile away and there he was shredding my 4th fish. We then ran 3 more miles and were rid of him but out of the fish so we did a slow troll back toward that spot where he once again got one side of a double header for his 5th of the morning. He would just grab the fish, peel off 200ft of line, surface, rag doll, and then a head and my big brass Titan spoon would come back to the boat."
I had about 5-6 seal/sea lion encounters and recovered the fish in about half of the events. Just kept good tension (65# braid, 40lb leaders) and tried to keep the boat over/near the pinniped. When he lets go, reel like hell. Sometimes it works and the fish I've recovered have mostly just had deeply bruised tails. As others have mentioned, many seem to key in on the clickers on the reels so we always turns those off immediately after hook up. Also, many have learned to follow boats and when I notice one following, I often just pick up gear and run 1/2 -1 mile away. Even then, sometimes the b@$t@rds follow. If that's the case, running past a few other boats often helps as in many cases the seal/sea lion will stop at the boats between me and my new location. (sorry not sorry to the other boats).
