NZ Fishing World

Going Hands-Free

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Andrew Spear headed out to White Island to discover the benefits of using electric reels to fish for deepwater species.

Electric reels are one of those things that are either loved or hated, there doesn't seem to be much middle ground here. Many fishermen who regularly head out wide to pull big beasts from the depths love these things as it means they can go deeper without having to worry about reeling back in. On the other hand you've got those who look at this a 'lazy' form of fishing. I had no view of these reels whatsoever as I had never used one, until recently. And I have to say that I can definitely see the benefits of having one of these puppies onboard.

Both Mat Hewetson and I had never used these reels before, so we hatched a plan to get hold of a couple and head out to a possie where we knew hapuka, bass and bluenose were caught frequently. So we got hold of a Shimano Dendou-Maru on a Shimano T-Curve Deep Jig 400 rod and a Daiwa Tanacom Bull 1000 on a very cool Daiwa Grandwave Dendoh rod. This rod was supposedly the very first one of its kind here so we were very interested in giving it a crack.

WHITE ISLAND

White Island was the place we had decided to head to so we got in touch with Lionel Korach from Memory Makers charters who, as well as kingfish jigging, really specialises in this kind of fishing. He has many visitors from Japan come and test new gear, including electric reels, on his boat Memory Maker so had a fair idea about them and what they are and aren't capable of.

We arrived down at Ohope Beach, which is just past Whakatane, late on a Saturday night and readied our gear. One of the great things about this charter is that there is the option to stay at Lionel's place in a purpose-built flat underneath his house. This means there is no messing around in the morning, just hop in his wagon and head off to launch the boat.

So after a beautiful omelette and a couple of crucial cups of coffee we made our way out through the Whakatane Bar and headed towards White Island, which is a couple of hours haul from the shore. We had some jigging gear with us that we wanted to test as well so we stopped near the 10-mile reef and dropped some jigs for kingfish. It didn't take long before we were all hooked up on reasonable fish, which we then released and continued on our way. You can read more about this little jigging session in the next article.

Unfortunately, contrary to the weather forecast, a pretty fierce southerly wind had picked up considerably, as had the swell which was now breaking in white caps around us. But we had a job to do so we put the jigging rods away and got the electric stuff ready. There are many people who wire these reels directly into the boats battery, but this isn't the best option as any power spikes can upset the reels and it can drain the boat's supply pretty quickly. Instead, we had three 12 volt batteries with us that could remain out of the way in the gunwales below us.

DROPPING DEEP

With the reels mounted on the reels we attached the Kilwell Deep Water Puka rigs and attached 20oz puka bomb sinkers on breakaway leaders. We would be fishing over a pretty gnarly sea floor 360m deep, so using a light breakaway leader to attach the sinker is a great idea if you don't want to lose a lot of line and your puka rig.

With the rig set we baited up with a whole dead yellowtail mackerel on the top hooks and a big squid on the lower hooks.

We had arrived at White Island by this stage and the weather had really packed in, it was miserable stuff as we dropped the sinkers over the side and watched the baits disappear into the depths. The first really cool thing about these reels was that you could follow the depth of your baits down on the little LCD screens. Once they hit the bottom we wound up a metre or so to avoid any snags and settled in to wait.

I was using the Daiwa set while Mat was giving the Shimano a go. Because the Daiwa rod had a bent butt I was able to place it in the rod holder and put my hands, which were now turning blue, into my jacket pockets. Perhaps the most interesting and special feature of the Daiwa rod was its swivelling AFTCO roller tip that followed the movement of the line. This allows the angler to leave the rod in the holder knowing it was out from the boat with the tip swivelling to follow whichever direction it moved. Great idea!

THAT"S FISHING...

Unfortunately the wind had become so strong that it was pretty much impossible to stay on a decent drift. So the call was made to reel in, well –press a button and watch the line reel in. Mat has no difficulty with the Shimano Dendou-Maru that is very simplistic in its design, all he needed to do was push a button and in it came. I thought it would be much the same for me on the Daiwa Tanacom Bull, but met some difficulties straight away. Being a typical male, I had decided not to read the instructions before dropping and soon found out I didn't actually know how to program the reel to wind the line back in. It is not as simple as it sounds as there is a jigging mode and various timing functions to understand. I spent around 20 freezing minutes trying to figure it out and was just about to manually reel the bloody thing in before I gave it one last shot and somehow managed to set a timer that would wait one minute before it wound the line back in. After 60 anxious seconds the reel beeped twice and the line started to wind in. I was able to control the speed of the retrieve with the Power Lever and was surprised at just how quick it could go.

After both lines were fully wound in we quickly discovered our baits hadn't been touched, but weren't surprised as the speed the wind was pushing us had made it impossible to keep the baits near the seafloor.

But we had tested these reels out nonetheless and realised that they can be very simple to use, just make sure you read the instructions first boys. I know, catching no fish on a tackle test is pretty poor, but it really was out of our hands and 30 knot southerlies and a two metre swell really does make fishing quite difficult. We'll be giving them another go soon though, rest assured.

Reel Specs:

Daiwa Tanacom Bull 1000

Maximum drag pressure: 22kg
Line Counter and Depth Memory
Automated jigging function
Gear Ratio: 2.3:1 (Manual wind)
Bearings: 4
Line Capacity: PE 6/1000m, 8/800m
Weight: 1490g

RRP: $1399

Shimano Dendou-Maru
Maximum drag pressure: 15kg
Line counter
Gear Ratio: 3.1:1 (Manual wind)
Bearings: 2
Line Capacity: PE6/500m, 8/300m
Weight: 1200g

RRP: $1299