Night shore fishing with hand line for conger and moray eel
We call this technique "wild line", it might be called something else in other places.
For this fishing technic, there are a few variables to consider.
Remember, I am in Southwestern part of Europe where the tide amplitude varies from 3 to 3,5 meters.
To guarantee a good fishery the stars have to be aligned. Usually the fishing window is of a couple of hours so you'll need:
(1) Low tide at dusk to enjoy ~1 hour of dead tide and 1 hour tide coming up already at night
(2) Low tide 1 to 1,5 hours before dawn and end your fishing, half to one hour after sunrise.
The fishing time can be longer then the 2 hours but your chances decrease too much to be worth the trouble.
Moon is very important.
Avoid full and new moon nights. With the lack of light in new moon nights, the phenomenon of "burning water" as we call it, happens. This phenomenon is due to bioluminescence caused by a chemical process in some kinds of zooplankton. It looks like minusculus "firefly" flashing in the water. When you step in a wet rock, you'll see your footprint clearly in green dots. In the new moon nights, as the night before and after, your chances decrease dramatically. Fish don't bite, just play around with the bait.
At full moon, as the night before and after, fish just don't eat, no fish eats with full moon. They do it during the day but not at night.
It's a perfect night, let's go fishing !!! On the beaches that expose slabs, big boulders or make some pools in the low tide, are going to be our hunting ground. Conger and moray eels are exclusive night predators and do not waste a free meal. Down in the south we use sardines but in the north arenque is the best bait.
Note: If half sardine is used as bait, remember that it is going to be eaten by the wound/cut, if a entire sardine is going to used as bait it is going to be eaten by it's head. This is important to set the hook. Since we're fishing in stirred water, it is silly to set the bait as a filet. Half or full sardine with the hook well hidden inside it's what we need.
Expect to lose a few hooks, big hooks, tie them as shown in image below to avoid max lost of hooks. The line should be around 1 mm (millimeter) because it is going to rub against rocks and loose some strength, so redundancy is essential in the line. Use lines from 1,5 to 3 meters, all depends of the holes deep you'll be fishing and in the opposite end of the hook use an anchor. It could be a 30 cm strong stick, a stone or just tie it to the rock your standing, whatever allows the line to old strong pulls.
Set one line, anchor it, go looking for a nice second hole and repeat the process and then a third. After the third, get back to the first and repeat all process. There is no point in leaving the line more then 15/20 minutes in the water, because the crabs and the shrimps will devour the bait. Even if the line have some slack, pull it out because probably you do not have any bait there.
To choose a nice fishing gap in the rock or slab to set your hook, just think like a conger "this would be a nice place to look for food".
You'll be amazed with the good size conger and moray eels you'll take out of the water, where you swim during the day.
If you live in sandy areas where beaches do not have slabs or big boulders to expose in low tide, you also can do this in stone piers or breakwaters
Remember you are going to walk during night in slippery boulders fetching of top predators that can rip you a finger with a single bite.
Conger and moray eels act like alligators, they bite and do an endless twist till they pull out a huge chunk of meat.
A small mistake can mean a lifetime of regret, or a simple slip and you can fall between a boulder and game over.
Don't do it like i do. Do it with a partner and don't be cocky, you'll need to be physically fit. The reward, believe me, are enormous, as well as the danger.
If you hesitate or have the smallest doubt you're able to do this fishing, don't go ahead, it's not a deal for you.
Other land conger and moray fishing techniques are described in this blog.
Wishes of good "wild line" fisheries.........
The white marlin puts a show of agility almost like the easy recognized sailfish, running on out of the water flapping his tale to suspend the body while the blue marlins just do jumps, not runs. Blue marlin have a stronger body while the the white is slender. Also the side flippers of the white marlin are slightly longer and round while blue are pointy.
We can recognise the differences when have them side by side, but at the distance we can not see this differences.
If you look carefully, there is no possible mistake with swordfish which have a back flipper similar to the blue marlin but much longer. White marlin back flipper is not pointy like the others, it is cut/round.
