What size squid do most troll on your spreader bars?

[Squidnation]

ktrain - This is just a recount of my limited experience of spreader bar fishing in NC. We have done very well using 9 and 12 inch squids out of O1. For us the perdominant color has been Blue and whatever. Which is kinda funny because I don't have the same luck with blue anywhere else. I think it maybe because of the overwelming presense of flyers their. Here are a couple shots of what I am talkng about.

The three squidnation squidbars you see in these pics are 9 inch electric blue, 12 inch blue checkerboard and 12 in blue/white shell squids. All fish were taken out of OI this spring.

[birdhunter]

squid, it looks like you are pulling meat behind those bars is that correct, I think I see an illander with a red head in one of those pictures.

[Persistence]

We're going on Saturday...some east Swell I'm sure will make it bumpy on the way out but my guess is the fishing conditions will be nice.

Anyway, I'm ready...been too long.

Glenn

[Squidnation]

squid, it looks like you are pulling meat behind those bars is that correct, I think I see an illander with a red head in one of those pictures.

Correct - that day we did pull ilander/bally combos. we also pull softhead green machines and matanza/bally combos.

[Ktrain]

Bob- I wish I could man, when I saw the weather lookin' a bit iffy earlier in the week I made some other plans. Lookin' forward to your report, Im sure you'll tear into em. Plus, I need to make a few new spreader bars so I can land that damn 100+ tuna before the year is up.

[birdhunter]

Just curious, what is the reason for pulling a bally behind a bar of sqiud? I have thought about pulling a horse bally behind a bar of 6" squid to look like the bally heading on the squid.

[Persistence]

I can't say I have a reason when I do it...other than some days they want meat and some days not. If something like a gm trailer has been hot for a while, my bars will have all gm trailers. If they have not been getting the bites, I'll start puting meat behind them. Smaller squid bars will have a witch/med hoo trailer, larger 13-15" squid bars have an Ilander/Select bally trailer.

Good luck!

[ancient mariner]

HI:
I love 6- 9 inch squids on my bars for YFT and LFT.
I love the 12-16 inch squid for Giant BFT.
I love 9 inch Squids for BIGEYE.

I also keep a 4,3/4-6inch (with a three(3) TZER setup in front of the Cedars below and behind the squid bars.

Add 6-7 inch Jets on UGLY,Sloppy weather .The bars are still good, but the bigger jets seem to outperform the bars.

Up in Canada, the small Squids aren't worth much for Tuna.

Off Norway and into the North sea, even off Ireland, the 9-11 inch squids seem to be the best.

WACKM 'N STACKM
Joseph B...aka...Ancient Mariner

[Captain Fred Archer]

I don't have any preconceived notions when it comes to the size bars the fish are going to hit best - both the teaser and the chasebait sizes - when the day starts, even if I had buds out the day before and they've told me what they are eating - not so much what they were hitting, but what they were actually eating. Naturally, in that case I start off with bars that are the same size as yesterday's main course and that usually works.

If that doesn't work, or I don't know what the fish are eating, I run a mixed size spread, then pump out the stomach of the first fish/fishes that we catch, then I match what's in their stomachs size-wise...I'm not much for color being all that important. My opinion only, of course, as is all of this.

Then, if I'm tuna fishing, I run monochromatic (bars with all the same color and size teasers), all-bar spreads. I believe that I get a lot more multiples by having a bunch of the hot pursuit scenes that spreaderbars represent so well all over my pattern, instead of a couple or a few places. I favor smaller bars like our DaisyBars with less teasers on them in order to accomplish this. At less than twenty-five bucks apiece right now, loading up a spread with bars is inexpensive, too, and makes it a lot easier on the wallet to get and carry a selection of colors and sizes.