Bait rebate...

[Deep C]

During our trip south we had a great time and a solid catch but not without first loading up on bait... When I say load I mean just that. We didn't "try" to but a byproduct of the trip was an entire seasons worth of hoos that I just packed away in the freezer... Even after tossing live chum, losing baits to birds or cudas, triggerfish raids, wearing them out we still managed to pack away 60 dozen of them or enough to fill a 5 cu.ft. freezer...
Imagine three wells looking like this every day for a week...

[Robja]

Nice looking bait.

[clt_capt]

I could use 20 dozen....


That's a pretty good load of bait.

[Deep C]

Go get your own...

[dunn6253]

Deep, im sure you can keep some frozen for me untill about June or July, ill just let you know when I need them. Im sure you won't be using all of those.

[clt_capt]

Go get your own...

Fine - I have a secret place in Miami to order them

[Deep C]

Now as a side note... If you look hard at this picture you can learn a lot about ballyhoos... Go ahead... Look close... Tell me what you notice... Still havn't got it?
I see a load of guys talk about how great they make their ballyhoos "Swim"... How the get them to swim like a snake. Take a look again. You see that? They swim almost straight as a board... Something to think about next time you want to have a "natural" looking spread...

Now what do you see in their color? You hear the shops and supplies talk about how they just got a special supply of "green back ones in... Take note... In this well they're all "green"... I'll try to dig up a shot from our third well which doesn't have a clear lid... They are all blue backed... When they are in the sun they are green when not they turn blue. Same hoos same place... If some shop is trying to stick you for extra for "green" ones... This ought to serve as your buyers guide...

[clt_capt]

All you need to do is go to an area with a decent concentration of ballyhoo and watch a school swim - from underneath - either snorkeling or diving...

Only the last 1/3rd of the 'hoo actually moves (maybe less).

To my eyes in the water (with a mask on) they look like shadows - not much there - the dark topside is barely visible...

It changed the way I rig baits...

[dunn6253]

All you need to do is go to an area with a decent concentration of ballyhoo and watch a school swim - from underneath - either snorkeling or diving...

Only the last 1/3rd of the 'hoo actually moves (maybe less).

To my eyes in the water (with a mask on) they look like shadows - not much there - the dark topside is barely visible...

It changed the way I rig baits...

Did this help you catch more fish capt.?(Im not trying to be a smart ass either, serious question.)

[Captain Fred Archer]

Absolutely dead on on the swimming thing with the ballyhoo, C! It is interesting how many fishermen get all turned on by how a certain lure or rigged bait wiggles, when pretty much the only critters among the real deals out there that do that are eels!

The fact of the matter is that baitfish that had bodies that wiggled along their length would be slow swimmers and would die real fast when the gamefish came. It's all about hydro - not aero - dynamics, with water being a far denser medium than air. And so a whole different set of rules apply, such as predatory fish fins folding into their bodies and tuna actually closing their mouths and gills when they go to catch up to a speeding baitfish.

The way that most bait actually swims is why I'm so fond of certain hollow squids, either ones that represent ballyhoo or ones that mimic squid in shape, where the front two thirds of the body swim straight and the multi stranded tail section "swims".

As far as color is concerned, I totally buy into the theory that a baitfish's top color is intended to make it invisible to birds looking down and the bottom color is white to make it invisible to the fish from below. I'm sure that is why I have found that inshore ballyhoo down in Cabo have greenish backs to match the bottom and offshore ones have dark blue backs to match the color of the deep water that they are in. Of course, this is obviously the "bird from above" side of the equation, so that top color doesn't really matter much to the fish - or at least I for one don't think so. That dark color doesn't matter unless the predator fish can see it, that is.

And those markings on the sides of many baitfish? They are obviously for the same reason, to help make baitfish "invisible" from fish on top and looking just under the surface for prey. Disruption of those color positions, like when a fish swims "out of kilter", indicates an injured or sick baitfish and that is the signal to the predator fish to zero in on and kill it.

I have put the following in every book that I have ever written..."I want my lures and baits to die, so I get rid of that invisible stuff and make them stand out like sore thumbs", or something to that effect.

A Cabo Tiger lure (that I don't sell) and some ballyhoo-looking hollow squids. The ones on that Spider are rigged at different angles so that even the bait pod stands out and of course, the straggling chasebait is a different color.

Website FredArchersWorldofFishing.com