Drilling out lure heads to fit a ballyhoo

[BTH284]

have had good succes with a very small squid skirt behind a witch head that stretches over the ballyhoo like Capt Fred shows above. This is only for the witch heads that the flange on the back is not thick and will not let you counter sink the hole because of the thin diameter between the flange and the back of the head.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Major Mitchell & all,

HEY, WHO LOVES YA, BABY?! AND MAYBE NOT A MILLION DOLLAR TIP, BUT FOR SURE A MULTI HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR ONE!

Yes, the Ballyhoo ProSquid and ballyhoo rigged as shown makes for an excellent pitch bait. I tend to leave the skirt a little longer on the pitcher AND HERE IT COMES because we do a lot of bait and switch fishing off of our Spider Dredges in tuna tournaments, in fact, that is the ONLY way we fish tuna tournaments. That used to be a deep, dark secret that has won us lot of money over the years, but since I won't be doing any of that anymore I let the cat out of the bag in the new marlin book - which, yes, has a lot of tuna stuff in it. In the real world it is hard to separate the two, just like it is difficult and would be stupid not to mention where this information is coming from - an accursed book that I, ohmyGod, sell because that is how I make my meager living.

Like I say in the book, in "biggest fish" contests, I encourage others to do the same, good old, traditional routine that most would tell you is "the best way", which of course is blind trolling armed lures and taking the time to fight each and every tuna (or mercy no, not a marlin!) that comes along, eating up their precious trolling time messing with worthless fish and hoping that "the right one" comes along. I just love it when the competition does that.

Meantime, we never, ever waste one moment messing with anything less than a big fish that stands a good chance of being a money maker. This means that when the fish are thick and the sizes are mixed, or maybe there are albies or even marlin mixed in with yellowfin, bluefin, or bigeye, the boats around us will be hooking up right and left and fighting fish and we will just be "tuna watching and shopping" until the pod of the right kind pops up on the Spiders, the skipper hollers "pitch 'em!" and we hook two, and only two, of them - THE KIND, baby, THE KIND! (Hooking more than two increases the chance of crossed and broken lines - a chance that we skip, thank you.)

The two boats of us that did this never divulged what we were doing to anyone, ever, until now and in the book! As I noted here before, in one tournament alone, the Stars and Stripes down in Cabo, my boat swept all three places in the tuna division the first year that we were booked to fish it - on one engine for a day and a half of that two day tournament against a fleet of the top Cabo charter and private boats. They actually changed the rules after that so that one boat could only win one spot in a division. So if some clown who has never even tried this tries to tell you that it won't work, for cryin' out loud, agree with him and poke fun at the old Fredster...then go out and pitch that ***** and clean house! Go ahead and eat that thick-headed, stuck-in-a-rut traditionalist's lunch on him!

The reason for keeping the skirt a little longer is just in case a tuna crunches the 'hoo and misses the circle hook that we use exclusively in tuna tournaments and when just tuna fishing, period - no pulled hooks, ever! If one crushes a bally on us and we miss him, that particular skirt looks so much like the real deal that we almost always get a re-bite on it. Again, overkill and a half, but when we are talking fish that can be worth big money, overkill is just fine in my book (pun intended!)

I weight my pitch baits to make them easy to control in the wake turbulence and to make them stable targets for the fish. See below for how I like to do this.

There you have it, troops. I'm trying real hard to bring you new insights and approaches that work while ducking from shots taken by the Spam Posse School...I mean Site Monitors and Street...I mean, Site Crossing Guards with their little white belts. It ain't easy, but I'm sticking by my guns and hoping that at least a few of you take this ball and run with it.