A MILLION DOLLAR FISHING TIP, FOR FREE!

[obxfish]

Somewhere in ther I think I saw use 11 oz egg sinker. Anyone know a source to buy 6-10? Only place I found sell in 10# tubs; don't need quite that many Thanks.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Tyson,

My books are available exclusively thru RNRBOB@SBCGLOBAL.NET He can send you our 100 page e-catalog with all of our lures, spreaderbars and light weight Spider dredges too.

fred

[Dick_Formula233]

I've been following this thread and find myself infected with enthusiasm, so I threw together a pair made of 4"X14" Attwoods. (less than $6 each at Academy) I thought I'd try two colors and see what happens if I don't mess with painting them.

I rigged them with 400lb mono and three 6 oz egg sinkers. I "tested" them by tossing one in the saltwater. 18 oz of lead only submerges about half the fender, but when I pull it, it appears it wants to dive. I'll just have to take them offshore and "tune up" with the right amount of weight by trial and error. I think I want them to swim in the clear blue water just below my prop wash.

I positioned the blue/white chugger about four feet in front of the blue fender, and the green/yellow about two feet in front of the white fender.

Both are fitted with Cannon downrigger release clips.

Does anyone see any obvious "bad ideas" in this setup?

What do you think Captain Archer?

[t bird]

I ‘m running 16 oz up front .
and the lure behind the fender….36”
the thing really squirms!!!
you might want more length to your clip.
.02
T

[Dick_Formula233]

Originally Posted by t bird

the thing really squirms!!! you might want more length to your clip.
T

That's probably a good idea, how long do you think it should be? I believe Captain Archer recommends pulling the lure about 8 feet behind the fender.

I occurs to me that these things might be a real problem if there's much sargassum around. It looks like they might be a weed magnet. Anyone have experience with weed and toads

[Tyson]

Question. So you run the teaser in front of the toad, correct? Then that goes to the main rod. Then, you run the trap off of the release clip 8ft behind the toad, which goes to a completely separate rod?

And the wieghts are also positioned in front of the toad, to make it dive, or point the nose downward so it can dive?

[Captain Fred Archer]

Tyson,

I'd shorten up the distance to the teaser in front of the Toad to only 2-3 feet. Teasers of all kinds should be placed quite close to whatever is supposed to be chasing them. If the teaser is too far out in front it becomes its own separate lure, the "chasing and about to catch" illusion is lost, and the teaser itself becomes a target, which does not happen if it is placed close to the back teaser.

I hope I didn't mislead anyone on "booby trapping" a Toad wrong. The booby trap lure or bait (I love ballyhoo on our Hats for this) should also be quite close to the Toad, again to complete the illusion we are trying to create, a baitfish that has been hit and crippled by The Toad, which every natural instinct in the world of fish says, it (The Toad) will wheel and eat that bait in a heartbeat. That is an enormous stimulus to a gamefish that has been attracted by the vibrations and site of that darting Toad and most of the time their competitive natures take over and they hammer the bait "before the Toad turns and comes back for it".

I call booby trapping a Toad "a lazy man's bait and switch" because it sure as hell is. I love bait and switch fishing billfish and know of no other surer way of getting very high hookup and landing ratios, but the facts are that you do need a decent sized crew that is all on the same page, at least knowledge wise, and hopefully they are all experienced in the game, to do it right. If you rarely fishing neighbor Harvey is along, or somebody's best friend or brother who also isn't familiar with the game is down in the 'pit, you are bound for all sorts of disasters, with the first freaked out whitey, or worse yet, big blue with murder and mayhem on his tiny, little mind being only the first exercise in crew panic and consequent, plain stupid moves, or sometimes that "deer in the headlights" thing (blue fever?). And to think, this is just the beginning!

A boody trapped Toad is an unemotional, automatic "pitch baiter" that eliminates all of the human weaknesses caused by surging adrenaline and eye-popping sights, or lack of attention and not even seeing those sights. It just does its great job of teasing gamefish with its darting, dodging, vibration sending, feeding like mad wiggle and on top of that, when it's booby trapped, it presents the "pitch bait" right where you want it when a fish raises, and then it, again with no human emotion or nervousness, makes what I call a perfect drop back when the fish takes. That sudden clicker going off on a reel that is in near freespool is almost always a surprise because the "pitch bait" is already in place the moment a fish shows up and they usually go for it right now and this adds up to more bites than you could imagine from fish that only the hardest core, most intent wake watcher can spot before the fish is munching on that bally or mullet.

If your crew isn't intent on watching the spread and also knowing what to look for when they do, short of a big blue with his dorsal, tail and back out of the water and throwing spray all over the place, they are going to miss seeing some, maybe a lot of incomers and a bait never gets pitched and those fish never even get a chance to take a bait. This happens a lot more than many people think, especially on smaller boats without towers or big ones with rooky or partying crews. Start booby trapping a Toad and you will see for yourself exactly what I mean.

How many of these unseen fish will a booby trapped Toad catch? I don't know for sure, but I will tell you this - if several of those unseen fish are hungry, and many if not most of them are, there is no reason in this world why they won't come up and pop that chasebait a good, sincere, hungry one. And you know what? That's exactly what they do! What percentage of them bite, I don't know, but I'll tell you this - most of them do and there is no amped-up human in the way to screw things up and that right there should tell you that the Lazy Man's Bait and Switch has been misnamed by the guy who I'm pretty sure was its papa. The way it works, it should be called, "The Smart Man's Bait and Switch". No matter how sharp my crew, I wouldn't dream of marlin fishing, especially for the smaller guys, without one going for me. Give it a chance and see what it catches for you and I figure you'll wind up doing the same exact thing.

THE perfect way to put this system to work is off of an UpRigger. In fact, it was UpRiggers that gave me the idea in the first place and I'd hate to think of trying to jerry rig something else up to do the job of running both The Toad and the booby trapped bait out of a single rod holder (or two Toads and two ballyhoos off of two of them - helloooo double!) so efficiently, with the bait lined up straight behind the Toad with it's line running high and straight over it with a built-in drop back loop and zero chance of a tangle. Perfect!

I haven't run in sargasso for a lot of years now, but I remember that stuff well. From way out here, I don't think that I would worry to much about a Toad being a big weed trap. Remember, it runs down deep, where there is very little weed for it to collect. That's not to say that it won't happen once in a while, but I don't think it will be anywhere near as common as weed on surface lures, especially if someone is keeping an eye out for any weed clumps that might slide down the line from the Toad rod. And finally, just like a Rapala or other swimming plug, it doesn't take much to cut down on the action of the Toad, which usually causes it to trip and pop up and while doing that, shake the weed. You Toad guys, please let me know if that's right, or if my favorite froggy is a sargassum harvester.

I leave you with GraveDigger. He may well be the first lure ever designed specifically for fishing the corners for big marlin, big tuna, and the kind of wahoo that make me double up on my heart meds. You can see from the side view what GraveDigger is designed to do. We had the help of a hydrodynamics professor friend and customer from a major west coast university come up with the design to do the job we wanted for us. A look at Digger's "face" should also leave no doubt about what he does and where he's going to spend his much of his time.

Don't let the fact that this lure is skirted "upside down" by most peoples' standards fool you into thinking that the picture is upside down. This DitchDigger and a bunch of others from the first production run have been intentionally skirted this way (my style, so it really sticks out to the fish) for the Bisbee Black and Blue tournament this fall. No, I am not fishing it, but a lot of people who I know are and so far, every one who was lent a GraveDigger to try has ordered them for the tournament. Now, if I can get EVERYONE to run 'Digger, it'd just have to win if the big fish was caught on a lure...hmmm. Wouldn't that be nice?!

That last pict is a DaisyBar TowBar. I have a special surprise for SF members coming soon that will tell you more about it. (Some of you already know, don'tcha?)

RRrribbit!