Bait rebate...

[Deep C]

Hey Woim,

Okay, I'll see what I can do. If they're big enough, maybe Whitey'll leave 'em alone and only the big blue girl will gobble them. Of course, if the big canyon 'hoos are around, you're on your own!

Fred
We gotta keep very hush hush about the bony ones... They're one of my secret go to sneaky baits... I worked for a fellow years back that insisted on keeping two pinned in tight to the transom on them big old plastic clips. He'd have me peel off about 100 feet or more off the rod tip and put it neatly coiled in a bucket. Fish would pull em out of the clip and have that coil for pressure free drop back... Worked like a dream...

[Captain Fred Archer]

Hah, C, I might have known you would be in on "The BoneSecret"! Not too many are, because the guys who know about it include some very serious tournament folk who make "Loose lips sink ships" look like little kid bath tub play when it comes to this sort of thing!

I learned about it from Joe Judge of Irish Rover back in my Shimano days. We got to know each other quite well because he was running our early lever drags. And yes, he did win back-to-back Bahamas Billfish Championships. I wasn't writing back then and after he swore me to secrecy (no mas, amigo, "The Statute of Fishing Secrets ran out years ago), he told me about the bonefish thing that was turning the trick for him. And Russ Johnson and I once accompanied him on a bonefish bait catching trip. After letting Russ catch one on spinning gear, we proceeded to stake out on a channel edge on the flat and chummed up lots of bones with busted up crabs in a chum pot and conch. The conch were attached to a strong line, so when a bonehead grabbed one and tried to take off of it, he hit the end of the cord, the conch popped out and he was back after it again. The best part was how we caught those fish...we lift poled them like tuna on long, strong bamboo poles!

I know that all of this is offensive to bug chucking bonefish bluebloods, some of whom saw us "lifting" bonefish in later years and expressed outright horror over what we were doing, but what the hell, they're not endangered and they sure make one helluva...oops. Never mind!

[Jared D]

Awesome.... one of the best threads on here in a while. Much thanks to those who posted info.