Make your own MYDO Heavy-duty Gamefish Trace

Make your own MYDO Heavy-duty Gamefish Trace: you can buy them online…or you can just build your own. With detailed, illustrated instructions – right here in this video.

Maybe “There Will Be Blood!” is a better name for the MYDO Tackle Talk show on YouTube. In this video, we finally get a wire wound, live on camera. Very funny even though the blood is mine!

The couta season has started. The spearos have been seeing and shooting them. As per usual, catch the first couta of the season, send pics and story to me, and you will get a R500 voucher to buy MYDOs with. Sean on 0793269671 or umzimkulu@gmail.com.

Back to trace making…

Nylon Leader

The video takes you through the assembly process of this heavy duty trace. And the reasons for using the rig in its current iteration. The 2024 model features 300lb as the leader. I produce these traces with about 2m of leader. But you can go right up to 4 or even 6m.

This leader will not kink and break. And only a shark will really get through it. And then only if he somehow gets that leader in its mouth somehow during the argument.

Double-wire Droppers

Putting this trace in the heavy-duty realm are the double number 6 wire droppers. Not so easy to tie. And they use a lot of wire. But the reassurance you get from taking this extreme measure is well worth the blood. When you tie your own, you need to deploy one of the three methods of breaking the wire tags off flush. They need to be flush or the telescopic function will get jammed (as subtly demonstrated in the video above).

Telescopic

Got to get that last treble right in the tail. This is a 3 dropper trace that extends from an ugly but compact 23 cm – all the way out to a delectable-looking 50cm bait. This is walla-walla (cutlassfish) territory. Although An extra dropper or even two might even be needed for those looooong guys. But a big shad or bonito – like 2kgs or more even…this is the trace to deploy.

Stealth

Firstly, as you can see in the video, with nylon, we are silent. Whereas wire resonates and makes a horrifying screaming sound under any pressure. Even a 30cm mackerel on wire number 6 leader, makes this stupid noise.

Then, the nylon is vague and blends into the ocean around it. Whereas the heavy wire you would be using in place of the 300lb nylon, would be number 11 or 12. With a big live bonito, this rig sings louder than any whale.

And then since most of the fish we are after, come in hot from the back and below, we need to drape the trace up over the back of the fish. Running past the dorsal. With the last hook exactly in the tail.

It’s that last hook that we are relying on the most. It will lodge right in the scissors at high speed and will hook up every time. Then the rest of the ugly and dangerous rig will find more purchase with the other super-sharp hooks flailing about. Often resulting in having to fight the fish a bit sideways.

Either way, the teeth are gonna be far from the nylon trace.

You can check out how to build all the other traces that MYDO produces. Individual heads are available for sure. Take the e-commerce plunge on The Sardine News. Or use the WhatsApp button on this page somewhere, for a direct line to the factory.

Check out the MYDO Tackle Talk YouTube Channel.

Dorado Strike Analysis – up close and personal

Dorado Strike Analysis – up close and personal : this might be the best experience I’ve gotten from my underwater cameras so far. I’ve got shad chowing like piranhas. Sharks tailing my boat. Couta attacking. So many cool experiences and visuals.

But this…the clean water, the lighting, the big shad live bait…and this shoal of eager Dorado…just takes the cake.

Strike 1

This first Dorado does not hesitate. She comes straight in for the kill. But even with that 8/0 hook in its lip, the shad makes a successful evasive manoeuvre?! Only visible with 60 fps footage to work with.

Strike 2

It takes a few seconds for the others to close in and investigate. These guys never went in blindly and on the charge like the couta aka king mackerel do. Well, the first dorado did just go straight in. But soon enough one of them gets driven beyond temptation and moves in for the kill shot.

To the head! Watch the full video analysis at the end of this post. Click the link to watch it on YouTube for the full interactive experience.

Every time, these fish aim for the kop, and immediately they are clear of the pack, start to turn the bait around and swallow it head first. They way they can manipulate and move that bait into swallowing position – head first – even under drag, is way impressive and clearly demonstrated in the video coming up at the end of this post.

Strike 3

The shad was free again. I pulled him right away from striker two. But striker three was right there and in half a second had gotten ahold of the shad.

Exactly the same. A lightning blow to the head. Coupled with an extreme charge to escape the pack, and then down the gullet. Except my 3 kgs of Stella drag once again came into effect and never allowed that to happen.

I need my camera back every time! I have lost quite a few over the 5 years or so that I have been using them. Check out the GoFish cameras right HERE.

Since I have these cameras, there is absolutely no way I want to ever catch a fish again. I want only to film the strike and underwater action!

Watch in it all in super-slo-mo video right here…

Dorado Attack Behaviour Strike Analysis Underwater – YouTube (click to watch on YouTube or enjoy below)

Buy at https://thesardine.co.za/mydo

Learn at https://youtube.com/@mydotackletalk

Come fishing with us at Umzimkulu Adrenalin. Stay at the Umzimkulu Marina. Check out the marlin fishing at FishBazaruto.

Making up a MYDO Stripbaitswimmer and other innovative and fun fishing solutions

Making up a MYDO Stripbaitswimmer and a few other innovative and fun fishing solutions: Making this video was heaps of fun. Zero injuries. And a bunch of new innovations that feature at the end of the video. That will definitely contribute to your strike, and hook-up ratios.

We start off showcasing our last videos trace – the MYDO Telescopic Trace specifically tied with big couta aka king mackerel, in mind. And then quickly move on to today’s mission – making up a MYDO StripBaitSwimmer Trace.

Targeting

This is the most versatile and productive rig in the MYDO Couta Spread. It will catch your live bait. And your trophy fish. Sailfish jump on a well-presented and placed fillet bait. Couta and Natal Snoek love ’em. Jobfish, kingfish, snapper and even reef fish gobble ’em down.

Being a shiny, juicy surface bait – you are in the game with dorado, sailfish and little marlin.

Construction

Double-wire droppers and 4X back hook. A strong single up front holds the bait in place.

Deployment

With a thinly sliced fillet cut from a bonito belly shine draped down the length of the droppers, just chuck a couple of these rigs out the back. Staggered. But close. Just inside, and outside the propwash. Where the water is turbulent and foamy. The strike zone.

See the video for 3D depictions of these guys’ positions in the spread.

If you are gonna use a soft bait like sardine, a bit of cotton will be necessary.

New Innovations from MYDO

In development for a number of years, the MYDO BaitFlashers are now available. These flashy stickers go on the outside lower part of the gunwale. There are visuals showing more in the video.

Be the baitball you want to be!

And a special rig is demonstrated as the MYDO BuckShot which is simply a big old sailfish fly and a nicely weighted MYDO Baitswimmer Silver Bullet leading it out to the backline and beyond.

Thank you for joining us today, this MYDO Tackle Talk channel is becoming a cool place to hang out, even I am enjoying it here!

Check out our Youtube at https://youtube.com/@thesardinenews.

If it’s surfing news you are after head on over to Brucifire Surf Reports.

Use the menu above to browse our products. Get in touch to make an order. Retailers are welcome at standard industry discount rate. Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com or +27793269671.

Fantastic Vilankulos Weather and Fishing going on right now

Fantastic Vilankulos Weather and Fishing going on right now: whilst South Africa is being beaten to a pulp by hail in some places, other places are snowing, and there was even a tornado in Standerton – up north in Vilankulos – it is braai vleis, fishing, sunny skies and Chevrolet.

Almost every day!

Vilankulos Weather

In the early summer like this, the predominant airflow around the east part of Southern Africa is a huge cyclical flow of air running clockwise with its centre kind of in the Lowveld. As the monumental system turns slowly, it affects the different regions it passes through, differently.

Up north in Vilankulos, almost halfway up the sheer length of Mozambique, the wind predominantly is an offshore/sideshore that is a sheer delight to be in and around. Cools you down just when you really start to overheat in the humidity that so prevails up there in the Bazaruto Archipelago.

Down South

In KZN, South Africa, where the flow is currently predominantly howling onshore, we get rain and blasting winds as the high-pressure systems up top, battles the low-pressure guys as they traverse the country on their journeys north.

These arguments between the two winds happen every day!

The fishing

So whilst we down south here have to take our chances the minute the winds and rains give us a gap – up in Vilankulos weather conditions are firmly on your side.

This brings us to the fishing…

The fishing has been excellent off Vilankulos. And so has the flow of content from the Bazaruto fleet. Which in turn gets turned into these videos…

There are also all of Captain Duarte Rato’s marlin fishing reports, available for you to check out, on the FishBazaruto website.

More video to follow, in the meantime stay in touch with The Sardine News. Come fishing with us at Umzimkulu Adrenalin. Get properly kitted with MYDO Fishing Tackle right HERE.