During the winter months, mama croakers spew their eggs into high-salinity offshore waters, where they’re fertilized by daddy croakers, and then, in the afterglow, both mama and daddy head off to find something to eat, leaving the youngsters to fend for themselves. Maybe it’s parental malpractice, but Mother Nature shrugs. She couldn’t care less.

Along the Louisiana coast, the larval and post-larval croakers are pushed by the tides into shallow waters, where they use seagrasses and detritus to hide from predators and feast on rotifers, copepods and even the very detritus that serves as their home.

Eventually, though, the fish outgrow the marshes, and begin to migrate in the spring. That’s when they face a murderer’s row of speckled trout — and unwittingly provide anglers with some of the best fishing action of the year.

Croaker Chaos

For the growing croakers, big spring tides are both a blessing and a curse. Riding the conveyor belt of the tides is how juvenile croakers make their way into the bigger bays, but these strong currents also slam the fish into ledge walls that disorient them and make them easy prey for specks. This, in turn, makes the trout easy prey for anglers.

It happens every spring in South Louisiana, and is most consistent in brackish marshes, where juvenile croakers proliferate. Anglers who want to maximize their productivity simply ride around looking for what locals call “boiling water.” Boiling-water areas show upwellings on the surface, where hard currents hit ledge walls and are forced upward. These are most commonly found in winding bayous with 10 to 20 feet of depth. Not every ledge wall will hold fish, but a high percentage of them do, and an angler who hits enough of them will certainly find a bite that has him posting pictures on social media.

Best baits, far and away, are 3½-inch soft-plastic paddle tails that most accurately mimic the size and action of the migrating croakers. Louisiana anglers fish those on ⅜-ounce jigheads, and will sometimes add a ¼-ounce jighead-and-paddletail combo fished as a double rig when currents are particularly swift. Figuring out how fish orient at each ledge wall is part of the fun, and shrewd anglers will frequently change their angles to find feeding specks. Hooked fish regularly upchuck juvenile croakers onto the boat decks of successful anglers. Often these fish are so recently ingested, they can be thrown overboard, where they swim down, probably to be eaten by another trout.

Spring Seatrout Success

Depending on water temperature, the bite will begin around the first of March and stretch almost to the summer solstice. By then, most of the mature specks have moved offshore to spawn, leaving behind only the undersized immature fish, along with a host of pests, like hardheads and gafftops.

But during the run, the specks are shockingly large for Louisiana marsh fish. An 18-inch average is about the norm, and several fish in the schools will stretch between 20 and 24 inches. In comparison, anglers fishing marsh lakes and expansive bays during this same time of year will typically be plagued by undersized and barely legal fish.

Though specks are the primary beneficiaries of the croaker migration, other species also notice and take advantage of the easy meals. Redfish are ever present, and the pattern delivers far more bites from black drum, flounder and largemouth bass than unfamiliar anglers might expect. Given the onslaught, it defies belief that any croaker survives to reach offshore waters and complete the spawn cycle, but clearly a whole bunch do. Despite getting no help from their parents.

The post The Best Spring Seatrout Bait appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

You run offshore on a bluebird morning, hoping to score some tuna or fly a halyard full of release flags. You throttle back near a beautiful color change and break out the tackle. You’re all smiles and confidence—until you open the livewell and see a mass of floaters. Nothing ruins a fishing trip faster than a fouled-up livewell. But if you set up your system properly, you’ll minimize the chance of such a day-shortening mishap.

“The main thing in a livewell system is getting the water out,” says Capt. RT Trosset of Key West, Florida. “It’s easy to get water in, but you need to get water out to achieve maximum flow.” Trosset runs a Yellowfin 36, and says that the builder has optimized the diameter and size of its drain hoses, and has installed significant drain systems in the livewell floors, where waste and scales accumulate.

To power his 50-gallon transom and cockpit wells, he uses a sea chest with three Shurflo 2,000 gph livewell pumps screwed into the top of a splitter box. Sea chests, which generally feature clear acrylic lids and remain constantly flooded with seawater, vent air from the system. Aeration is a common issue for offshore boats that can fly off wave tops at high speeds. When air enters, it can create air locks that block water from entering the livewells.

Most sea chests, such as those used on SeaVee boats, house pumps inside to keep them cooler, but Trosset says that his pumps mount on the outside. While this helps facilitate pump replacement, he admits that all pumps are difficult to change. (And now you know why every boatyard has at least one employee with really long arms.)

High-speed pickups beneath Trosset’s boat funnel water to the sea chest through 2-inch hoses. To vent air, a 3/8-inch hose runs from the top of the chest.

Each pump, whether inside or outside the sea chest, features a valve to regulate the flow of water to the wells. Allow too much, and water might overflow and cascade into the cockpit. By contrast, not enough flow lowers the water level, which in turn makes the water slosh whenever the boat runs at speed, damaging the baits.

“In South Florida, we like to pressurize our wells,” says Capt. Eddie Juan, a SeaVee factory sales rep and tournament angler. “We have a Y valve that we can shut to close the drain so that the water fills the well, all the way to the lid.”

Typically, Trosset fills his livewells before running offshore. Based on the outing’s game plan, he either separates different bait species, or fills both wells with a single species and transfers baits throughout the day. “You can’t mix little baits with big baits, and you can’t mix ballyhoo,” he explains.

Using 2,000 gph pumps theoretically enables the water in his livewells to refresh 40 times per hour, or once every 90 seconds. However, wherever a pipe bends or rises, power and pressure drop. So, more realistically, the water in his livewells recirculates every two minutes or so.

A general rule of thumb suggests that livewells should replenish every 10 minutes. But for some captains and tournament anglers, more flow is better.

For Juan, a little less is best. “I don’t like 2,000 gph pumps. They bring in too much water and use a lot of power. In my opinion, 1,500 gph pumps are ideal,” he says. Of course, that also depends on the distance between the livewell and the pumps. “If you have to pump water from the transom to the bow, you might need a 2,000 gph pump,” he adds.

Usually, two round or ­oval-shaped wells—of at least 40 gallons each—will support plenty of live bait for most offshore anglers, Juan believes. If a well lacks a clear lid or side window, it should have interior lighting. Otherwise, complete darkness can stress the baits.

While some captains swear by livewell interior colors such as blue or black, Juan prefers his factory-white gelcoat. “To me, baits get too dark in a dark livewell. Goggle-eyes, for instance, change their color to match their environment, so they’ll lose their yellow line.”

The post Why You Need a Sea Chest appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Few other fish possess the mystique of the white seabass, especially in the minds of Southern California saltwater anglers. The bright silvery croakers rank as one of the most coveted of all ocean gamefish on the West Coast. They can reach weights in excess of 60 pounds, and catching just one in a day of fishing triggers breathless celebration among a team of anglers.

The chances of catching one white seabass (the daily bag limit per angler from March 15 to June 15) or as many as three (the daily limit during other times) increases in spring and early summer as these fish follow the biomass of opalescent squid that, in most years, visit the waters of SoCal’s offshore islands such as Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina, San Clemente, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa. Known as “candy bait,” squid become the preferred offering for these croakers in spring. In fact, on many days, squid—live, fresh dead or thawed frozen pieces—is the only bait that will elicit a bite.

Tanking Up

With squid serving as the lynchpin of a successful outing, white seabass anglers expend extraordinary efforts to fill livewells with candy bait. It’s called “tanking up,” and in years past, it often involved spending the night bobbing around on the squid-spawning grounds around one of the offshore islands.

Opalescent squid tend to spawn over sandy bottoms in about 120 feet of water, but they often rise to a light source. So boating anglers hang bright lights above and below the water to attract squid. Sometimes they form a floating school, allowing anglers to dip-net or use a crowder—a wide, flat fine-mesh net with a telescoping pole on each end. With a person on each pole, the crowder is lowered straight down, and then pivoted outward and lifted to the surface to corral the school before dip-netting the captives into the livewell.

In recent years, however, the growing popularity of this live bait has prompted a number of bait boats along the coast to net squid in purse seines and either sell it to anglers as they arrive at the islands or haul it back to ports along the coast so boaters can tank up before heading over the islands. A scoop consisting of two brails of live squid now sells for about $80.

Night Moves

An advantage of spending the night to catch squid lies in the opportunity to catch white seabass at the same time. The croakers sometimes cruise near the surface just outside the ring of lights used to attract squid, picking off stragglers that wander too far from the main school.

To catch these fish, anglers sometimes use floats to suspend a squid bait 6 to 12 feet below the surface. Using a Danielson EDF 1½ Easy Drifter foam float, attach a thin cord around the fishing line using a nail-knot to stop the line above the float presetting the depth of the bait. Tie on an Owner Aki Twist hook in a 7/0 to 8/0 size, and use a ¼- to 3/8-ounce egg sinker that slides down to the hook to keep the bait as vertical as possible below the float.

White seabass might also cruise below the schooling squid; astute anglers also drop white heavy metal jigs such as a 6-ounce Tady 4/0 with a single 8/0 Siwash hook with one or more live squid pinned to the hook. This replicates the spawning behavior of squid, and when dangled between the glow of the surface light and bottom, it can trick a croaker into attacking.

Gray Bite

Some of the best white seabass action occurs on the squid grounds in the morning twilight. During the time between the first inkling of light and sunrise, the croaker can feed heavily, often descending deeper to gobble up dead and dying squid off the ocean floor. This has led to a popular nickname for white seabass—gray ghosts.

To target fish in the gray, anglers drop their jig-and-squid combos deeper, and try to keep the jigs about 3 to 6 feet off the sandy bottom. This keeps the bait away from undesirable bottom feeders such as bat rays, guitarfish and leopard sharks.

A dropper-loop rig also works well in the gray. It consists of a 10-inch loop formed by a spider hitch about 4 feet above a torpedo sinker that’s tied to the bottom of the rig. Use the double line of the loop to tie on a 7/0 to 8/0 Owner Aki Twist with a Palomar knot and attach an 8- to 10-ounce sinker to bottom to keep the line as vertical as possible in the current.  As with a metal jig, place the sinker well above the bottom. If fishing multiple rods, stagger the lines at different depths with the goal of putting out a spread that will intercept any white seabass swimming under the boat.

Shore Patrol

Once the sun is up, white seabass often retreat to the shadows of the thick kelp beds that rim the islands. Daytime fishing these spots can pay off, especially on days when a good current sweeps the shore areas. A prime indicator is a milky-color break extending from the edge of the kelp along a sandy beach. The croakers feed along these breaks in depths from 50 to just 10 feet or less.

Anchor up to fish a nice-looking beach. Use a 3/8-ounce leadhead with a 5/0 to 7/0 hook. You can also use a ¼- or 3/8-ounce egg sinker that slides down to a 7/0 to 8/0 Aki Twist. Pin on one or more squid, cast toward the shore, and slowly work the bait back out to deeper water.

If fishing a kelp bed, the water is often deeper (40 to 60 feet). Anchor about 50 to 75 feet from the outer edge of the weeds. Using the same rigs as you would for the beaches, cast shoreward and let the current carry your bait downstream. At the same time, try to cover the water column using metal jigs and dropper loops to fish the mid-depths and bottom.

While you fish, chop up any left-over dead squid and put out a steady chum line. While this might not attract white seabass, it does draw other smaller fish, and sometimes the big croakers become curious and move in to investigate. If you do hook a seabass, toss out some live squid for chum, as these fish often travel in groups. If you can keep them around the boat, you might enjoy multiple hookups.

Read Next: Channel Islands Fishing Bonanza

Tackle Choice

In terms of tackle, serious white seabass anglers gear up with 8-foot medium-action rods and medium-size lever-drag and star-drag conventional reels spooled with 65-pound braid and a 10- to 20-foot topshot of 40- to 60-pound fluorocarbon line. The abrasion-resistant braid and fluoro better slice through the stalks of kelp should a white seabass bully its way into the weeds.

The technique works best if you back off the drag pressure a bit, if the fish finds its way into the kelp, so that the line can saw its way through. Once the fish clears the weeds, tighten up again and don’t back off until your croaker is on the gaff.

The post Gray Ghosts: Targeting the Elusive Southern California White Seabass appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

The first cold front of the fall swept across South Florida; a few days later, Capt. Abie Raymond promised me and my buddy a mutton snapper bite.

We departed Miami Beach’s Haulover Inlet in Raymond’s 28-foot C-Hawk, running south toward Key Biscayne. He saw ballyhoo showering, so we made our first stop.

With several dozen liveys in the well, Raymond motored to a nearby patch reef in 18 feet of water, dropped the anchor and put out a chum bag. He deployed two of the live ballyhoo on 20-pound spinning outfits and set the rods into holders. While we waited, he baited some lighter spinning rods with ballyhoo strips and drifted those back into the chum slick for yellowtail snapper.

Shallow Mutton Snapper

We were so busy having fun with the yellowtails that, at first, we didn’t notice the bent mutton rod. Raymond quickly swapped outfits with my buddy, who now had a serious fish fight on his hands. The captain suggested he avoid pumping and winding the fish, because it attracts more shark and barracuda attacks.

While my companion was delighted with his 8-pound mutton, I was surprised that we’d caught such a nice fish in such shallow water. But Raymond is among the handful of locals who knows how good the post-cold-front fishing can be on patch reefs from September through November.

During those times, a major migration of ballyhoo clusters around those reefs. In addition, water clarity diminishes, caused by the wind-churned waves. “When you get a northwest wind, a little cold-front wind, and you get that north swell that creeps down and splits the gap between the coast of Florida and the Bahamas and agitates the bottom, all the way in to the first reef especially, you’ll get this milky water in there,” he says. “It’s just sediment in the water, and it makes the ballyhoo so much easier for the muttons to catch. Once that water gets dirty, they can ambush them way easier.”

Raymond typically has the patch reefs to himself because so few anglers know about that shallow-water fishery. When ballyhoo jump out of the water, chased by snapper as well as sailfish and dolphin, “most people just run right past that stuff,” he says. “It’s usually happening in 20 to 60 feet of water and most people think that’s probably bonitos in there, or mackerel. Not that time of year. Most of the big muttons I caught last year were in less than 70 feet of water in October and November.”

Catching Ballyhoo

When those “sediment days” occur, Raymond looks for showering ballyhoo to load the well. He anchors near a patch reef in 20 feet or ties up to a mooring ball and puts a block of frozen menhaden chum in a fine-mesh chum bag so as not to overfeed the ballyhoo.

He employs several methods to capture the baitfish. Using a Shakespeare Ugly Stick rod with a 2500 Penn Spinfisher reel and 8-pound monofilament, he ties on a tiny No. 20 gold hook baited with an even tinier piece of frozen shrimp. He floats the shrimp back to the baitfish, which pick the offering off the surface. With a de-hooker, he can drop the ballyhoo into the livewell without touching the delicate baitfish.

Catching ballyhoo in a hoop net takes less time. After ballyhoo appear in the chum slick, which usually takes 10 to 20 minutes, he deploys the circular hoop net with an empty water bottle at its bottom so it doesn’t sink. When the net drifts behind the baitfish, he tugs on the lines attached to the hoop, which spooks the ballyhoo into the net.

Raymond also throws a cast net with 1/4-inch mesh— bigger mesh can scrape the scales off ballyhoo—and notes that the quicker you put the baitfish in the livewell, the longer they live. “If you get them in the well pretty quickly, they’ll live six hours,” he explains. “If you catch them on hook and line, they’ll live overnight.”

Tackle and Tactics

With plenty of bait, Raymond looks for patch reefs in 10 to 30 feet of water from Cape Florida in Key Biscayne to North Key Largo. He anchors and deploys the same ground menhaden in a chum bag with larger mesh.

He rigs two ballyhoo, hooked on 1/2- or 3/4-ounce jigs. Raymond prefers Hookup Lures jigs; chartreuse is his favorite color, but he also uses pink or white jigheads.

Some anglers also do well using Troll Rite jigs.

Raymond breaks off the ballyhoo’s bill with an upward snap and runs the jig hook through both of the bait’s lips and through the front of its skull to keep the hook in place.

He fishes the ballyhoo on 7-foot, 20-pound Ugly Stick rods with 7500 Penn Spinfisher reels, spooled with 20-pound mono and 4-foot, 30-pound fluorocarbon leaders. (The dirty water and light mono allow him to use shorter leaders compared with anglers who use 30-foot leaders for wary muttons in deeper water.) Raymond ties a four-wrap spider hitch in the main line and attaches that to the leader with an eight-wrap no-name or Yucatan knot. He attaches the jigs with an improved clinch knot.

Read Next: Fishing in the Florida Keys All Year Long

He deploys one bait on either side of the boat, and unless he has patient anglers, he leaves the mutton outfits in the rod holders. “They need to be real still,” he explains. “Customers tend to want to wind and wind and wind. The rod holder doesn’t have that tendency.”

It takes patience to let the chum attract the snapper. As Raymond notes, “The longer you can sit on one of those patch reefs and wait to get a quality fish or two, the better.

“If you can allocate about two hours at one patch reef and let that chum really get established and let those fish really settle in and come running from all the other patch reefs, a lot of times you’ll do better. If you don’t have current, you give it half an hour, 40 minutes and you move on to the next one.”

The post How to Catch South Florida Mutton Snapper on Shallow Patch Reefs appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

When anglers anywhere want to catch live bait, they commonly use a gold-hook rig or throw a cast net. But there’s a third option, one that originated among South Florida captains targeting ballyhoo: a hoop net.

All three methods carry pros and cons. Catching bait on a gold-hook or sabiki rig, which typically consists of six dressed hooks, can be quite effective, but the process can be painstakingly slow, especially when you’re catching only one baitfish at a time.

Cast nets catch bulk numbers in a single throw, but they can be difficult to fully open, and they can damage baits, removing scales and gilling the fish in the mesh.

Hoop nets catch fair amounts of bait and, when used properly, they don’t gill or scale bait. On the negative side: They can be difficult to store, given the size of their circular hoop. However, recent advances in hoop-net design have resolved that and are leading to increased popularity.

How Hoops Work
Different types of hoop nets have been used for years to catch everything from bait and food fish to lobsters and crabs. Commercial anglers use long, ­conical nets deployed in the water so fish swim into them. A crab hoop net is baited to attract the crustaceans; when a crab goes in to eat, the fishermen lift the net from the water.

Most hoop nets for catching bait — traditionally homemade or custom-made — include a solid, 4-foot-diameter fiberglass hoop with a 4- or 5-foot-deep mesh net and an attached line. The standard mesh size would be ¼-inch square, or ½-inch stretched, which makes the net less likely to gill the baits.

The captain chums up bait near the boat, and then places the net in the water, drifting it back behind and beneath the fish. He then pulls the hoop to the boat, capturing the fish.

Capt. Bunky Leach of Homestead, Florida, has long used hoop nets to catch ballyhoo, speedos, cigar minnows and other baitfish for charter trips on his boat Reef Reelief out of Ocean Reef Club in north Key Largo. Storing the net on the 37-foot sport-fisherman is not a problem

“I have plenty of room,” Leach says. “On a center-console, that could become an issue. When I had a center-console, I used to stick it on top of the T-top and bungee it down.”

Capt. Tony DiGiulian (saltwater​proconsulting.com) of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, says that while storage can be a challenge, a hoop net can often make the difference between having dozens of live baitfish or just a handful.

“Hoop nets are great for cigar minnows, speedos, threadfin herring, pilchards, anything that can be spooky,” DiGiulian says. “When we’re trying to catch those baits, we see them, we mark them, and they come up in the chum, but they can be very ­reluctant to eat our sabiki rigs.

“A lot of times, when ballyhoo, ­pilchards and other bait are on top, when you start to throw your cast net, they can see it coming, and they’ll scatter or dive right before it hits the water. You can’t catch as many at one time in a hoop net, but when bait is really sketchy and scared, it’s a good way to go.”

The Ballyhoop
Always a big fan of hoop nets, Yunior Dominguez of Hialeah, Florida, saw room for improving their design. In 2015, Dominguez, the owner of Piros Bait & Tackle, built a net with a one-piece stainless-steel hoop, which he said worked better than his fiberglass one because of its thinner diameter.

The ¼-inch steel could be retrieved through the water much faster than the ½-inch fiberglass. The steel hoop also held up better, and its silver color didn’t spook baitfish like the yellow fiberglass did. But the new version was still difficult to store.

Two years later, he designed a net with a collapsible two-piece aluminum hoop with male and female connections that stores in a half-moon-shape case and fits in most consoles or large hatches. He introduced the Ballyhoop (theballyhoop.com) at the 2017 ICAST fishing-tackle trade show in Orlando, Florida.

“It was a total success,” Dominguez says, “but I still kept getting people saying it was too big for their small boat.”

So he invented another version — all of his designs are patented — with a two-piece clear-polycarbonate hoop that stores like a two-piece fly rod. It can be placed upright in a rod holder or in a rod rack under a gunwale as well as in a console. Plus, because it’s clear, Dominguez says it doesn’t spook baitfish at all. And because it’s lightweight, any angler can use it easily and efficiently.

He adds that he has sold Ballyhoops — which retail online and at tackle stores for $200 (aluminum) and $300 (polycarbonate) — from Florida to Australia to Dubai, plus Costa Rica and Mexico. However, he hasn’t sold any in California, where he says hoop nets sometimes are used to catch Pacific mackerel baits. So far, he has no dealers in the state.

Hoop-Netting Tips
Dominguez says anglers should use finely ground chum to attract bait as opposed to chunks, which can get caught in the net’s mesh, causing baitfish to feed on it from behind the net. He uses Tournament Master Blue Label Chum, which is double ground.

“You have to control your chum. If you chum too much, the bait’s going to go all over the place and be hard to net,” adds Dominguez, who says to wait until the bait is eating the chum before putting the hoop net in the water. “Once they’re in that feeding frenzy mode, they don’t care. If you put the net in first, it could spook them.”

Leach, who uses a fiberglass hoop net, adjusts the position of the chum bag on his boat, moving it toward the bow if necessary to bring baitfish closer to the boat. If there’s too much current, he’ll attach a 1- to 5-ounce lead sinker to the bottom of the net with a clip so it sinks and keeps the net open.

“If you don’t have a weight on the net, a lot of times it wants to blow back on the hoop,” he explains, adding that he sometimes ties an overhand knot in the mesh to shorten the net. “That way we don’t put the bait all the way in the back of the net. The quicker you can put them in the livewell, the less scale damage you’ll have and the better they are. They just last a lot longer.

“When we’re fishing offshore for big game or even if we’re on the reef, we like to have good, healthy baits. Typically all the baits we have in the livewell at the end of the day we put in a bait tray and salt them up for the next day.”

If the current is light or non­existent, a hoop net can sink too deeply. Dominguez, who has numerous bait-catching videos on the Ballyhoop Instagram page, attaches a half-filled clear-plastic water bottle with a rubber band to the hoop. “The bottle is buoyant enough so the net stays under the ­surface, but not way down,” he says.

The more you play with a hoop net, the more likely you’ll leave the sabikis and cast nets untouched.

“If you can get a hoop net to work, you’re going to do pretty well,” Leach says. “We went out for 30 minutes and caught 400 baits for a tournament.”

The post Pros Tips on Using Hoop Nets to Capture Ballyhoo, Live Bait appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

If any fishing tool is as ubiquitous as rods, reels and hooks, it might be floats. Buoyancy comes into play whether you’re using a bobber to suspend an earthworm for bluegills in a pond or a balloon to drift a butterfish chunk to yellowfin tuna in blue water. Floats can be so effective that they’re virtually omnipresent on all bodies of water.

The retail market provides a dizzying array of floats, including some shaped like shotgun shells and others with built-in night lights. But for offshore saltwater fishing specifically, floats can be homemade as often as store-bought.

Using Floats in Deep Offshore Waters

For bluewater game fish, anglers ­usually need floats that can suspend a significant amount of weight — sometimes pounds instead of ounces — at depths ranging from 10 feet to hundreds of feet, despite strong currents or fast drifts. Floats must be adjustable for various depths and set to release after a hookup so they won’t interfere with line retrieval during a fish fight.

“I’ve set floats as deep as 1,700 feet when daytime swordfishing,” says Capt. Bouncer Smith, who fished out of Miami for decades. “We use a two-liter soda bottle and attach it with a No. 64 rubber band looped around the line and back around the neck of the bottle, which is easy to remove. Longline clips work too.”

Why use a soda bottle? Store-bought offshore floats can sometimes be difficult to locate and surprisingly expensive, although online ­searching presents a few interesting options for floats that can support up to 4 pounds of lead. The key feature to look for is a quick-release mechanism that allows the float to slide freely on the fishing line after a strike.

Another option is to use in-line floats. “Rig a bead, then the float, then another bead on the line,” Smith explains, “and tie a rubber band around the line to keep the top bead from moving. When you reel in the float with a fish on, it’s easy to slide the rubber band along the leader to bring the fish in.”

Smith says that although this in-line system isn’t used as much these days, it remains an effective way to keep a bait near the surface while fishing for sailfish, and the same egg-shaped floats used for kite-fishing rigs work when you don’t need much weight on the line.

Eco-Friendly Floats for Offshore Fishing

Floats made by RediRig feature a built-in quick-release mechanism in the form of a clip at the top and a pair of spring-loaded rubber stoppers that hold the line in place at the bottom. When a fish pulls out the line from between the stoppers, the float slides freely while the line continues to run through the clip.

Balloons are another popular (and very cheap) option, but they’ve fallen out of favor due to pollution and sea-life concerns. When a fish drags them underwater on the strike, balloons commonly pop. Latex can remain on the fishing line or drift in the water. Balloons can also float free and become an ­ingestion danger for sea turtles.

That said, balloons do make ­effective floats. Angler should be sure to affix them to the line breakaway style with a thin rubber band so they can be retrieved after the fish is boated.

Hollow-foam pool noodles have increased in popularity in recent years, particularly along the mid-Atlantic coast, because they don’t drift away after a hookup. The main line runs through the center of the noodle and is temporarily secured at the desired depth by tucking the line under a ­rubber band (or several rubber bands, when used with lots of weight) on the noodle’s exterior. When a fish strikes, the line pulls out from under the ­rubber band, and the noodle slides freely on the line.

Anglers can choose how long to cut noodles, according to need (a 10-inch section is enough to support more than a pound of weight); they’re extremely inexpensive; and they allow for color-coding lines according to depth, distance set from the boat, or whatever variable you like to track.

A Float Aficionado

Just how important can a float be? Capt. Mark Sampson of Fish Finder Adventures, who operates out of Ocean City, Maryland, during summer, and the lower Florida Keys in winter, says without hesitation that he’d never leave the dock without floats aboard his boat.

“The only time I don’t use them is when trolling, and even then, I’ve stopped the boat and wished I had one,” he says. His on-the-spot solution? He digs through the trash can and pokes around the galley until he finds a drink koozie that can get the job done.

“Anytime you’re either drifting or at anchor, fishing either a live bait or a dead bait, you should have a float on at least one line. It doesn’t matter if you’re live-baiting for kings, chunking for tuna, or fishing for sharks; a float will help you place a bait at the exact depth you want. It’s also a good way to keep a bait up top when you might normally want to kite-fish but the conditions don’t allow for it,” he explains.

Sampson says his preferred tool is the pool noodle: It’s inexpensive, easy to rig, and doesn’t add to the refuse floating around in the ocean. But he cautions that whatever system you use, you shouldn’t just set out a float and ­forget about it.

“Obviously if you’re watching the float, you can react quicker if you get a bite, but you also want to watch it to make sure the line doesn’t get fouled,” he says. “Sometimes a bait will spin or a live bait will swim in circles, tying a knot or twisting the line around the float.”

Read Next: Fishing With Popping Corks

Another issue you might encounter, particularly with mako sharks, occurs when the shark attacks the float instead of the bait. Sampson says that when this happens, there’s not much you can do other than crank the float out of the danger zone, which often brings the bait within the predator’s view. If the float gets bit and severs the line, send back another bait as quickly as possible.

Having a mako eat your float might be a problem, but as far as fishing goes, it’s about as first world a problem as you can have. Besides, were it not for the float, that mako might not have attacked in the first place. Forget to bring one on your next offshore outing, and you might end up merely bobbing around on the ocean praying for a bite — or rooting around the cabin looking for a drink koozie.

The post How to Drift Baits Away From the Boat appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

On my very first trip out an inlet to fish, I rode aboard an old, single-engine charter boat running from Morehead City, North Carolina. I quickly found the downside to trolling along a beachfront (whether within casting distance of the breakers or a few miles out): You fish beam to the seas pretty much all the time.

The net result? For me, at age 7, it meant depositing my breakfast into the nearshore Atlantic Ocean, followed by lunch, followed by anything else I tried to eat or drink, until my feet were once again planted firmly on land.

No matter. I managed to tough it out long enough to take several turns in the fighting chair, cranking hard on ­footlong Spanish mackerel — my first pelagic big-game conquests.

Looking back, despite my illness and the size of the catch, I learned an important lesson. Beaches are structure. When baitfish congregate close to the breakers, the beach offers them at least some protection from below and from one side. Bait gathering off the beach also enjoy cover provided by underwater points, bars, and contours that follow the beach’s geography.

The Grass is Always Greener

For bay anglers, the draw of trolling along a beach can be irresistible. Not only does it give small-boat anglers a shot at oceanic predators (when the weather is hospitable, of course), the major-league change of pace can be quite attractive — and effective.

“I love trolling the beaches because it offers variety,” says Capt. John Kumiski, who guides anglers to fish the Indian River Lagoon, the Banana River, and when conditions are right, the near-coastal Atlantic waters off Florida’s Space Coast. “King mackerel are mainly what we target, but we also get into big jacks, cobia, and sharks of all kinds.” Early summer provides the best shot at large kingfish close to the beach, while the cobia are thickest in spring.

Kumiski prefers slow-trolling live baits — particularly menhaden and mullet — because it generates strikes from all of these fish. “Some of the ­commercial guys use spoons, and they catch plenty of fish,” he notes. “But I find live baits to be the best pick.”

Favored live-bait rigs include an ­octopus-style 3/0 to 5/0 hook haywired to an octopus stinger. “Lots of guys like to use a treble for the stinger,” he says. “But I hate ’em. They’re not safe, and I don’t believe they work any better anyway.”

Kumiski spools 6000-series reels with 30-pound braid, but notes that anglers focused solely on kingfish often prefer monofilament since its stretch helps prevent hooks from tearing.

He recommends trolling as slowly as possible when targeting kings, even trimming up the motor to reduce forward thrust, if necessary. He also feels an electric trolling motor can be advantageous when prowling the coastline for kingfish.

Beach Town

From the Space Coast to North Carolina, southern species remain the main target for many beachfront trollers. But once you move north of that dramatic, geographic protrusion known as the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the game changes ­significantly during late fall and winter.

“The fish we might troll for along the beaches include everything from Spanish mackerel and bluefish during the warmer months of the year to striped bass in late fall and winter,” says Capt. Nick Clemente of Get Sum Charters in Ocean City, Maryland. “Close in, during summer, along our beaches, most of the fish you catch are relatively small. Trolling small spoons is the best way to catch them, and it’s a fairly simple fishery.”

But when there’s a chill in the air and stripers begin moving down the coast, it triggers a radical change.

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“If stripers come down the coast close to the beach, fishing can be really good for very big fish,” Clemente explains. “But it all depends on how close to shore they stay. If they go outside 3 miles, they’re in federal waters, and you can’t legally fish for them. You want to locate shoals or lumps off the beach in 20 to 60 feet of water, within that distance, and you need to find bait around them. Find the bait, and then you’ll find the fish by trolling lures like Mojos, parachutes, and umbrella rigs.”

Clemente points out that those lures are the same ones guys use for stripers in the nearby Chesapeake Bay. However, trolling off the beach involves a lot more current. Depending on how deep the fish are holding, that means running lures below the 5- to 15-foot depths targeted in the bay. Anglers must add anywhere from 6 to 20 ounces of weight or choose heavy lures such as Mojos, which are readily available with heavy 16-, 24- or even 32-ounce heads.

Clemente says that most recently — in late December and early January — the entire season for this fishery lasted only about 14 days. Some years it doesn’t happen at all, if the fish migrate south while farther out to sea. But when the bite is on, it can mean constant action hooking into 40-plus-inch ­stripers through February.

California Dreaming

Although the beaches are quite ­different on the West Coast, according to Capt. Ben Florentino, who guides out of the Los Angeles area, trolling within a stone’s throw of the sand is still a great way to put fish such as yellowtail and white seabass in the boat.

“For us, the kelp can create quite a challenge,” he says. “You need to be right on the leading edge, which, because of the snags if you get into the kelp itself, is like trolling along the forbidden zone. Plus in some areas, like off Catalina, it can get crowded. But if you watch the meter and watch for birds, then find the zone where the drop-off, kelp and bait correlate — and if you can stay on that line — trolling off the beach can be very productive.”

Florentino says deep-diving lures and lipped crankbaits trolled at 4 to 5 knots can be effective. These lures dig down to specified depths, and can be selected for wherever the fish happen to be holding.

Otherwise, he likes slow-trolling live baits. “Sometimes depth isn’t so much of a player because of where the bait is found,” he explains. “When that ­happens, I like to troll live baits, and on a strike, drop back the other lines. Often that leads to multiple hookups.”

The bottom line on prowling any beach: The water’s point of contact with land creates a firm barrier where game fish and prey meet.

Beachfront Tactics

At first glance, it might seem like a beach reduces an angler’s options, but trolling along one is still a three-dimensional game, just like trolling in open water. To maximize the catch, many of the same lessons apply.

• Once you locate an effective depth, stick with it. Often this means shadowing contours in the shoreline.
• Points, outcroppings, sloughs and other inter­ruptions in the beach are like structure within the structure. Consider any ­variation that continues out into deeper water as a ­potential fish magnet.
• Most seasoned beach trollers agree that slow-trolling live baits results in more strikes, regardless of target species. However, you have to know where and how deep the fish are holding.

Trolling lures fast often helps locate fish because you can cover a lot more ground. Once you’ve found the fish, you can switch to liveys.

The post Trolling Outside the Breakers: Strategies, Lures and Baits appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Live bait is the life blood of many fishing trips, and a number of those trips start before daylight. That’s why most livewells now feature illumination so you can see how your liveys are faring. A light also helps keep the bait from bumping into the walls of the well. But what happens when the light malfunctions? First thing, turn it off, because a corroded connection or loose terminal can lead to an overheated wire and a possible fire. To illuminate the livewell in the meantime, carry a handful of Cyalume 6-inch chemical light sticks (about $0.40 per stick in bulk). Sharply bend the stick until it makes a snapping sound to activate the chemical inside. Shake the Cyalume, and drop it in the well. It floats and casts a soft glow into the water. Blue is the preferred color for livewell lights, but any color you have on board will work in a pinch.

The post Instant Illumination for Your Livewell appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Scripps’ David Checkley, a marine biologist, was at a loss for words when trying to describe why there were millions of anchovies — each only 3 to 4 inches long — at this particular place and so close to shore.

The school of fish measured about 50 feet wide and 325 feet long, and could have contained as many as 100 million fish, Checkley said.

The fish typically prefer cool water, and San Diego’s surf hit 74 degrees Fahrenheit this week. Anchovy eat small zooplankton, and Checkley said it’s unlikely they were searching for food. The sheer size of the group also means the fish would have quickly gobbled through any food, he added in the report.

“Schools like this exist throughout the region, but I don’t know why they butted up right against the surf,” he said. “A school this size and this immensity, it’s rather difficult to know why.”

The dense schooling also caught the attention of curious surfers, along with seals and sharks, who feasted on the silvery fish, the report stated.

California’s anchovy population, which has been low for the past 20 years, is finally on the rise, thanks to cooling ocean temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. A natural climate phenomenon known as Pacific Decadal Oscillation is swinging much of the Pacific toward colder temperatures, which the anchovies prefer. “They like a cool regime,” Checkley said. “The population is on the way up right now.”

In May, a school of anchovies turned up in Southern California’s Marina del Rey. But the stopover did not turn out well for the fish. The anchovies all suffocated and died after becoming trapped in the harbor.

The post Millions of Baitfish Turn Waters Black Off a California Beach appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

A pair of “tailers” — striped marlin at the surface

As we closed on a noisy flock of wheeling terns, I spied our target: striped marlin jumping clear of the water as they pummeled a school of baitfish below. Adrenaline sent tremors to my hands as I pinned on a live mackerel and lobbed it into the middle of the melee. Within seconds I was bit. With a count to five, I threw the reel in gear and set the hook. A 120-pound striped marlin went ballistic. We were on.

This is sight-fishing for striped marlin off Southern California — one of the most specialized, equipment-intensive and exciting styles of angling. It’s not always easy. Yet, when executed well, it can also spell the difference between success and failure, particularly when fish are not responding to trolled lures.

Keys to successfully sight-fishing for these beautiful, acrobatic billfish include teamwork, discipline, good eyes, polarized sunglasses, stabilized binoculars, an offshore boat with a flybridge or tower, specialized tackle, strong casting skills and live bait.

On the Hunt

Sight-fishing for striped marlin builds to a crescendo in the warm-water months of September and October off Southern California when this Pacific species often hunts, feeds, and relaxes near the surface. Yet there are tricks to finding these fish, which average between 100 and 150 pounds.

“We’re always on the hunt,” says Greg Stotesbury, who is national sales manager for California-based Aftco. He has fished Southern California offshore banks from his boat, Kawakawa [ITALICS], a 25-foot Skipjack convertible, for decades. No one knows the technique better than he and his brother, Michael Stotesbury; together, they won the Balboa Angling Club’s Master Angler Billfish Tournament twice (2006 and 2009). The all-release event is one of Southern California’s most prestigious marlin tournaments.

In this winning team, Michael devotes his time to scanning the distant waters with a pair of gyro-stabilized binoculars (see sidebar) for the tell-tale signs of marlin, while Greg usually mans the wheel and looks for fish closer to the boat. They usually have another angler in the boat, whose job is to watch the trolling lures and drop back a live bait if a marlin attacks the spread.

For the person using binoculars, comfort plays a critical role to minimize fatigue and lapses of concentration — factors than can allow marlin to slip by unnoticed. “Michael gets a bunch of pillows on the bridge to brace himself,” Greg explains. “And we have special elevated bucket seats with armrests to support his arms while he’s using the binocs.”

Maintaining an unobstructed view from the bridge or tower is also an important, but often neglected, element. For example, the Stotesburys keep all of the casting rods on the bow lying down with the rail-mount rod holders, angled horizontally so as not to block the forward view.

For anglers using their naked eyes, polarized sunglasses play a critical role, with top anglers carrying at least two pairs: one with amber lenses for cloudy skies and another with gray tint for sunny conditions. These help pierce the glare and allow anglers to see underwater, for not all marlin signs occur above the surface.

Sometimes you see a subsurface color spot such as a streak of blue, flash of silver or just a dark shadow, according to Gerg These are usually marlin that have turned and given away their locations.

Still, gyro-stabilized binoculars are more effective than the naked eye, particularly with marlin far from the boat. “My brother finds twice as many fish as I do,” Greg admits. “He’s seen fish as far as 3 miles away, and at 18 knots it takes only three minutes to get there — half the time, the fish is still up.”

Boat Tactics

When searching for striped marlin, the way you skipper the boat can improve your ability to find fish. The idea is to tack down-sea and down-glare, according to Greg “Tack back and forth down-sea as you’re trolling about 9 knots with sun behind you,” he explains. “This allows you to clearly see the backs of the waves, and that’s where the marlin often show themselves, tailing down-sea, especially in the afternoon.” Avoid trolling straight down-sea, as that causes the boat to go too fast, decreasing the chances that you will see a fish, he advises.

The Stotesburys network extensively with other marlin anglers in the days leading up to a trip to pinpoint the best offshore areas to focus their efforts. This might lead them to areas as close as an area known as “The 279,” 12 nautical miles off Dana Point, or the Mackerel Bank near San Clemente Island, 48 nautical miles off the coast.

Once they reach an area, they’re looking for more than just marlin. They’re also looking for signs of marine life — indicators that give them the confidence of finding striped marlin in the area.

“We’re looking for things like a flash, a swirl, a bird that dips suddenly, or a spray of baitfish,” Greg reveals. Another prime indicator is a sea lion that jumps in a tight arc known as “rainbow jumping.” This means the sea lion is feeding a tightly packed school of bait that California anglers call a meatball, and there could be marlin feeding on the bait as well.

As in most offshore fishing, birds serve as key indicators of fish. Off Southern California during marlin season (July through October), three species closely associate with striped marlin: terns, black gulls and jaegers. A dipping jaeger, in particular, is an almost-certain indicator of marlin.

“If I see any sign, you can bet I’m running straight for it,” Greg says. At this point, sight-fishing for marlin becomes a run-and-gun affair, as it is imperative to get to the action as quickly as possible. Often, the trolling lines are left out, the lures skipping behind, as the boat hustles to the action at 18 to 20 knots.

Greg is emphatic about turning and running on any sign, even something as small as single jumping baitfish, and then casting a bait to it. Sometimes it pays off with a blind strike from a marlin. If not, Greg marks each spot of activity on his Simrad GPS/chart plotter; this helps graphically define what he calls an “area of events.”

Once Greg finds such an area, he likes to stick with it, even if he hasn’t actually seen a marlin, betting on the assumption that the stripers will eventually show themselves. So after tacking through the area, he turns the boat up-sea and charges back to where they started, then spins the boat around and resumes the search. “Marlin cycle through the area in the same way,” Greg believes. “They turn around and swim back underwater, then begin tailing again once they’re in the life zone.”

Marlin Modes

Of course, sometimes you actually see marlin. In the gray light and calm waters of early morning, for example, fish are sometimes found hovering near the surface with their back and upper lobe of their tail out of the water. These are known as sleepers, and they often react negatively when presented with a live bait, as if perturbed that you woke them for breakfast.

Later in the day, when the breeze picks up, striped marlin like to surf the waves while hunting. It’s known as tailing, as you often see the upper lobe of the tail slicing through the backside of a wind wave. This behavior allows them to conserve energy while looking for prey. Tailers usually respond well to a frisky live bait such as a Pacific mackerel.

You also might see a free-jumping marlin, sometimes unleashing four or more jumps in a row. Jumpers, as they are known, move fast, and it’s tough to catch up and present them a bait, though sometimes they settle down and begin tailing.

Every once in a while, you’ll come across one or more marlin, as described earlier, attacking a school of baitfish. You can usually spot feeders from afar, as the lit-up fish often jump out of the water to pounce on the meatball from above. The commotion generates white water and usually attracts a bunch of birds. These fish rank as the most aggressive of all. Usually, casting a live bait anywhere close to feeders is like rolling a wine bottle through a jail cell — it gets picked up quickly.

The most common surface behavior is tailing, and different anglers have different methods for presenting baits to these marlin. The traditional method is to parallel the fish, placing the boat to right side of the marlin (assuming a right-handed angler). With the fish in the 9 o’clock position, an angler on the bow casts a live bait underhand so it lands just in front of the marlin.

Greg however, likes to split the difference. For both tailers and sleepers, he tries to place the fish in the 10 o’ clock position (2 o’ clock for left-handers) with the fish a boat’s length away. “All of my ‘castaleros’ throw the bait underhand for minimum splash on sleepers and flat-water tailers,” he explains.

“I keep the boat moving as the cast is happening; I don’t stop the boat,” Greg says. “We always double-bait a fish, as marlin almost always travel in groups, and double hookups are not uncommon.” If they don’t get bit, the casters walk back to cockpit to slow-troll the bait.

Live Act

This kind of fishing requires lots of live bait, but not just any bait. A 6- to 8-inch Pacific mackerel (known locally as a greenie or greenback) ranks as the most effective live bait for Southern California marlin. Second choice is a live Pacific jack mackerel (known locally as a Spanish).

Most marlin fishermen catch their own live bait using Sabiki rigs, sometimes stoking cavernous, cockpit-mounted livewells days ahead of time. It’s not unusual to find a big sport-fisher carrying 100 or more live mackerel for a long weekend of fishing. Most marlin boats also have a smaller livewell on the foredeck, as many anglers cast to marlin from the bow.

The Stotesburys bridle their baits through the nose ahead of time for casting. Bridling helps keep the bait as lively as possible, a key factor in attracting the attention of striped marlin. Their favorite light-tackle hooks are 6/0 to 8/0 Owner Aki nonoffset J hooks. Greg says they almost always hook marlin in the roof of the mouth.

Light tackle is the order of the day for the Stotesbury team, which casts with 12-, 16- and 20-pound-test monofilament main line with 60- to 80-pound-test fluorocarbon leaders. A Bimini twist to a Uni-knot splice connects the main line to the leader, with a Spro barrel swivel tied in with Uni-knots about three feet above the hook to keep the leader from twisting as the bridled bait swims in the livewell.

Live-bait rods for marlin possess distinctive traits. Most are 7 to 8 feet in length, with a parabolic action and Fuji 18- or 20-size ring guides and an Aftco Roller ring tiptop that allows knots to pass through unfettered when casting. Greg prefers a Shimano Torsa 16N for light-tackle marlin fishing.

Setting the hook on a marlin when fishing live bait is also a unique experience — a collaboration between angler and skipper. Once a marlin grabs the bait, the angler notifies the skipper that he’s bit, but keeps the reel in free-spool. After a five-count, the angler puts the reel in gear and points the rod at the fish, while the skipper briefly accelerates the boat. If all goes right, the line draws tight and begins peeling off the reel, indicating he fish is hooked.

Marlin anglers in Southern California rarely back down on fish. Instead, the angler usually stands up to fight the fish from the bow pulpit, while the boat follows it going forward. Alternately, the angler may stay in the cockpit, but remains standing, while the skipper keeps the fish at the 10 to 11 o’clock position and follows bow first.

For the end of the fight, an angler on the bow often makes his way aft to make it easier to leader and tag the fish, and get one final sighting — and a few photos — before the release.

The post Sight-Fishing for Southern California Striped Marlin appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.