Lure Fishermen in>>>

[The Codfather]

I bought a black/purple and 'dodo' color 12" fatboy to drag this spring behind the two blue meatball bars I bought this winter. Want to fish for tuna and mahi? Just switch the chase baits. With the fatboy it looks like a tuna or mahi hunting bait. Gonna run it right behind the boat. Ill take some pics and put them up here. Might even run the bars hookless as teasers on handlines. My goal is to enter at least one tournament this summer and Im not wasting my time on anything small, so my plan was to bait+switch marlin and big dodos. Might go with two pro-bars too, later this summer.

[clt_capt]

Hard question to answer. NC waters really have a diverse group of pelagics in a tight area. Often times the gaffer bite takes us into deep water. I want to have a lure that I could put ino a bait spread that could provide a better chance of catching a blue marlin then a sea witch or naked hoo would on 50lb class tackle,(i have been at the losing end of that battle). Since the marlin aren't concentrated and meatfish is usually our catch, I wanted the lure to be able to catch meatfish as well. Does that help?

Blue/White Islander rigged with a hoo - Tuna, Hoos, sails and Blues... I haven't caught a white on an islander yet - just a matter of time... We run the islander as shotgun...

[Capt. kapoc]

Carson,

The one lure that did me good was a yummee flying fish with a hoo behind it about 10-15 ft. Had a 400lb blue one in the crash it, over 60 yft and bft plus when i told carolina lures that the eye popped out they sent me a goody bag of others an 2 replacments to send that one back.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Clt Cap,

With all due respect (and I mean that), hoo's and Islanders and such do work for the pelagics and marlin and although I've had success catching all of that good stuff with 'hoos, but with a different "hat" than Islanders, I personally had far greater success with the big, fat squids as far as catching blue and black ones than I ever did with straight 'hoos or straight any other smaller lures too.

My spreads were monochromatic (all the same size lures or baits), except for the big squid DaisyBar whenever we had folks interested in catching a variety of meat fish, but who would also be very happy with a marlin or two. In just about every case, the meat species would jump on the smaller bars in the main pattern, but if a big marlin came in after them, he came from the back, like they mostly do, and encountered what he was there for in the first place - a feeding dolphin, tuna, or whatever...and he'd nail it.

For those only interested in marlin, or any other specific species only, bait and switch fishing was by far the very best way that we ever found for catching just that species and not being "interrupted" by meat fish. Yet, as I pointed out earlier, we had a good shot at any species that showed up on the teasers, in case our clients wanted to get, say a monster dolphin, tuna, or wahoo. We always had a couple of smaller sized pitch bait rigs standing by that were appropriate for that situation. We picked off plenty of bonus fish that way, but only the ones we wanted, not another "regulation" dolphin, dink tuna, skipjack, or whatever.

Finally, although I can't "write the book" on teaser fishing the best ways that we found here (it's in the books), a couple of basics.

First, bait and switch fishing is far, far easier than most could ever imagine. It is far from some kind of exotic, pro-only, difficult way of fishing.

Second, while you can run more TeaserBars than we do if you like, our choice was just two, fifteen squid each bars, fished on the same wave off the short corners. To us, those thirty baits were more than enough to raise big numbers of fish. And I was pretty surprised to find that if you don't have lures or baits behind the TeaserBars in the pattern, the fish will come on the short bars right now. Of course, you can run a couple of ballyhoo off the long riggers if you happen to believe that the fish will only hit the longs because they are afraid of boats or something like that.

When I talk about how easy bait and switch fishing is, my crew pitched the baits for those who didn't mind "hook and hand" fishing, but we also developed a basically "automatic" pitching technique for those who wanted to do the pitching themselves. It worked like a charm. And what that boils down to is that guys with inexperienced folks in the 'pit who want to get into the pitching and catching and not just the catching can do so as easy as falling off a log, as they say. Furthermore, even boats with just a guy in the cockpit and a driver can bait and switch with ease.

Like I noted up top, bait and switch fishing isn't rocket science, nor is it the realm of big, professional crews only. It is, in fact, far from that and it's super effective and more fun than the proverbial barrel of monkies!

And those "sight bites" and schools of fish mugging the TeaserBars over and over because they aren't getting hooked and running off with the rest of the school chasing them, or getting pricked and spooked by hooks, but instead, staying right in front of your eyes and repeatedly trying to grab an "ungrab-able" meal? Oh, mercy! As in...

"Looka that! Big (fill-in-the-blank)! Look at them blasting those TeaserBars! Pitch that *****! Pitch that *****! Zzzzz! Hookup! The others are still on the bars! Stick another one, then pull the bars and [I]let's go backwards...yeehaaww!"

A blast and a half!

I sincerely hope that I talk some of you into doing this "crazy, new fangled stuff"...you will thank me, I assure you!

Over.