funny I leave the rods in the holders too. I also much prefer the horizontal rod holders in the port and starboard holders. if you read Charlie's book he says always hold the rods so to each his own . I need to drive the boat and fish 3 rods at once most times so that isn't going to happen. I very rarely miss any fish once they find the tube. I do really well fishing fresh sand eels on the tubes too. IMO I don't think the fish hit the tube very often, although I talked to a Montauk charter capt once and he told me they don't use anything but the bare tube so until a camera is mounted on the tube i really don't know what is going on down there but they certainly work, especially on large fish. IMO if you are obsessed with catching a big fish this would be my best advise to use, other than live bait.

I really don't know what they're doing to it on those bumps - I think about it all the time. I wonder if they tail slap it, and then come back around to eat.

I like the Tube-Cam idea - anybody that builds one can come field test on my boat. I'd love to know what's actually happening down there.

I always keep the rods in the holders parallel to the surface of the water and perpendicular to the side of the boat... Like this:
Attachment 37217


I have seen them slap the tube with their tail on several occasions, but I think most of the misses are just that, misses at the tail end of the tube.

anyone ever use a chartreuse tube and worm??

Find someone that is about to undergo one of those medical test wherein they swallow a mini-cam to get a few view of the digestive tract. Upon retrieval (somewhat messy) tell the Doc you accidentally flushed before finding the camera. Take the camera and insert into a tube.....have fun!

BTW: Niko gave me the idea from his comment: "pain in the azz"

The PillCam, about the right size for most tubes. You might also need the $26 image grabbing software used by the Taliban/Al-Qaeda to intercept the drone-cam?

yes. never got much on them. i have pretty much every color, size and style you can imagine. Must be 30 or 40 tubes down my cellar. I pretty much now use red in the day and black at nite in the 16" range. Got a few special tricks with them but I ain't sayin.


maybe I will ask around WHOI if they aren't using any of the underwater sonar, cameras that i may borrow one for some research:)

sounds like u all troll in a straight line....goin to fast? try makin "S" turns, every time u change your heading in the s you'll make the worn slow to a crawl ....as with wire, lot of big girls hit the jig when the line is slowing down going into the curve.

Has anyone here used down riggers for trolling tube and worm? seems like it would work real well....

where i fish i don't go deeper than 25ft... downriggers would be overkill. weighted keel with a big weight if you need it.

last year we put a 4oz egg sinker on the keel... went pretty much straight down. good for when your fishing lobster pots.

full disclosure... didn't catch anything that day. but looked like it should work :)