ARTIFICIAL BALLYHOO vs. REAL BALLYHOO

[HOT PURSUIT CHARTERS]

Which to you prefer? A little of both or strictly artificial or strictly dead rigged up?
I carry both. I carry the artificial for back-up if I run out of dead that are rigged. I will throw out a couple of artificials with the dead and have more or less equal results. Any thoughts ?

[HOLWACHAGOT]

I would rather go carp fishing than go offshore with a bunch of rubber ballyhoo. If god forbid I ran out of ballyhoo offshore...I would start jigging...or put out a bunch of spreader bars and feathers or perhaps even plugs. Rubber ballyhoo are kept with the bananas.
That said...I was fishing one day with a captain who wanted to deploy some god awful secret weapon into a stealthy sread of naturals behind seawitches. When this secret weapon came out I begged for it not to be deployed. The ugliest friggin thing I ever saw. A bullyhoo behind a pink chugger. Come to find out....the previous weekend the same captain had a "bighole bentpole" blue marlin on the same lure. It did not get a sniff the day we fished it. Regardless, No rubber ballyhoo for me! For each his own though.
Holwachagot

[frankypettolina]

Given my "druthers" I'd go with natural.

BUT, I have pulled rubber fish on dredges, and teaser chains with success. I also have experimented with rubber fish on J- hooks behind chuggers and what not to skirt the circle hook rule- BFT will hit them on a wwwwb. I have not had the oppurtunity to feed them to a billfish, yet.

[Fish Hard Fear Nothing]

Always used the real thing..... Obviously somebody is using them because they are everywhere in tackle shops but I just don't know any of them....so all natural for me.

Chris

[Patudo]

Rubber ballyhoo behind an Ilander could be a way around the circle hook rule - has anyone tried this, and with what results?

[HOLWACHAGOT]

Always used the real thing..... Obviously somebody is using them because they are everywhere in tackle shops but I just don't know any of them....so all natural for me.

Chris

I'll bet about 90% of the fisherman use them. By the way, Marlin are bycatch...hence my opinion of the rubberfish.
Holwachagot

[calebw]

I used some of the mann's ultimate hoo in a dredge. They swam great and raised fish but I pull all meat on the hooks.

[Capt Lindsay]

If we run out of ballyhoo that we buy in North Carolina and bring north with us each season, we need an alternative to the lousy natural bait offered by the bait shops in New Jersey.

So, we decided to conduct a fish-off back a few years ago. We had excellent Bionic ballyhoo plus a supply of 5 different artificial ballyhoo for testing. We started by fishing the Bionics on one side and a half hour while pulling a selected brand of artificial ballys on the other. After switching sides for another half hour, we switched articial brands.

This went on for two days off Oregon Inlet in April. Our boat trolls best at 6.5 knots. Each day had different sea conditions ranging form 2' to 3' on one day and then 4' to 6' on the next. We had two super mates on board neither of whom were initially keen on pulling artificials.

The result, two brands of artificial ballyhoo outfished the naturals. The small ballys from Bass Pro Shops, http://www.basspro.com, and Chewy Hoos from Head Start Lures, http://www.wanabe.com, were the flat out winners. We give the grand Prize to the Chewy Hoos since they come at a better price and we averaged 3 Yellowfins on each of them before having to replace the bait.

Something else showed up in the results of this test. The two winning artificials didn't catch the number of shorts that the naturals caught. The ratio was not close. The naturals caught over 10 short Yellowfin to 1 caught by the artificial baits. On days when all sizes of fish were in the area, this was a big deal from a conservation standpoint. We caught over 60 fish in 2 days during this test. It was one of the few days we outfished the local charter boats.

These two brands also look as good if not better than naturals in the water. Several of the other brands, the Mann Ballyhoo and the Mold Craft models had serious problems. The Mann bait had a big flipper tail that broke off after 5 minutes of being trolled at 6.5 knots. The remains trolled like a stick in the water. The Mold Craft model was stiff and trolled like a stuck in the water from the get go.

Capt. Lindsay Fuller
609-685-2839
http://www.Fish-JuneBug.com

[Fishin-N-Wishin]

Honestly, I've had equal success with live, frozen and rubber when trolling. It's what happened to me

[Hardtail Hunter]

Great thread ...
Any favorite brands of plastics?
paddle tail or straight?