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Now that we sell lures designed specifically for running meat, especially ballyhoo, we have been getting a lot of PM and personal e-mail questions about how we run ours, with the most common question being, “how do you handle short bites?” I respond with the following and thought some here might be interested in how we play the short bite game...Now, this is my way, not THE way, if there is one. I'll be all ears for the tricks and tactics that others use and anyone who handles short bites the same way.
Here is an excerpt from my New Secrets of Modern Trolling and Wahoo Troller's Bible that deals with how we react to those short bites on ballyhoo. The main subject is wahoo, but as you will see as you read, everything here applies to dolphin and any other pelagics that can lop off the back of a ballyhoo on you. Sorry, but headers, footers and font styles don't show here...the ones in the book look a lot better, but the message is here...
HOW TO WIN THE SHORT STRIKE GAME
FIRST PITCH – STRIKE ONE!
You are going to get some short strikes on ballyhoo, no matter what and from all species of fish. Sometimes the slasher will be one of the little, toothy buggers, like snake kings, true bonito, needlefish and a few others, but unless you see that it is a little ripper, treat every bite as if it’s a gamefish one.
What the driver does immediately after a 'rigger knock down that doesn’t connect is to spin the wheel to the side the bite was on and chop the throttles. Either a skilled angler or crew member runs to the rod, leaves it in the rod holder with the clicker still on, drops the reel into freespool and thumbs the inside flange of the spool at the same time to prevent a backlash. Leaving the clicker on helps prevent a backlash from a fast re-biter. The rod is left in the holder to prevent some kind of a disaster from occurring while it is being picked up and the angler’s attention isn’t one hundred percent on the line and what it is telling him about the fish.
SECOND PITCH – BALL ONE!
If the fish bites right away or is already back and on by the time the angler gets to the rod (frequently the case with wahoo re-bites), he should flip the drag into strike and start reeling as fast as he can with the rod still in the holder. The captain guns the engines while this is happening and the fish is stuck. (Remember that the approach is a little different if you are using circle hooks.) If the fish isn’t there, immediately drop back on him.
THIRD PITCH – BALL TWO!
If the fish doesn’t re-bite right away, proceed as if he is still there, because he probably is. Most fish will re-bite on the forward portion of a bait, if you let them. Make the remains of the bait act natural by snapping the clicker off and dropping it back like it naturally would after getting slashed by a wahoo or other fish. Be very careful here, because any re-bite, but a wahoo one in particular, is a split second burst of acceleration that can turn into a huge backlash in a heartbeat! It will also fry the thumb of anyone who has his on top of the line, so be certain to thumb the inside edge of the spool and not the line or you will find out all about fried finger, wahoo-style! Sizzle! Yeeeoww! You won’t like it, I promise. And you will miss the fish and I will yell unflattering and unkind, likely profane things at you while you are hopping around the 'pit with flames coming off of that thumb that is burning so bad.
FOURTH PITCH – STRIKE TWO!
If you aren’t bit after dropping back about twenty feet of line, go back into gear and reel fast for three or four cranks, then stop, staying in gear. This little burst of speed is often enough to trigger a bite from a reluctant wahoo or other fish and if it does, it is going to happen right now and the engaged drag will not only prevent a backlash, it will stick it to him, or more correctly, cause him to stick himself. This should be followed up by the skipper running the engines up, finishing the hook setting and taking any sudden slack out of the line, should it occur. Gotcha!
FIFTH PITCH – BALL THREE!
If you still don’t get bit, repeat the drop back one more time and if the re-bite still doesn’t happen, don’t start reeling the bait back to the boat until after the captain has it back up to trolling speed! This is because there will be times when the fish has picked the bait off of the hat on you (a talented angler can tell if that has happened by feeling for the bait and lure with the line when this game first started), and the sight of the hat, which on its own is a good looking, small lure suddenly coming to life and “escaping” might trigger that strike that you have been working for. Gotcha again!
SIXTH PITCH – FOUL BALL!
If you don’t get a strike after fifteen seconds at trolling speed, get that rig back into the boat fast while the captain turns and runs back across the numbers where you were bit by watching the chart plotter, which had the first bite punched in as an MOB by the driver. You want a bait back out on the rigger that was bit when you get there and if you have the time and presence of mind to, run a smaller ballyhoo this time.
SEVENTH PITCH – KEERACK, HOME RUN!
He hit the 'hoo and Hat! You will get re-bites enough times while making the “pitches” that I have outlined here for you that it is well worth the effort. More than once I have had a “nibbler” turn into a massive multiple hookup when I finally got one fish to bite and I took off with the boat to hook him, only to have the other baits get instantly covered by the rest of the wahoo or dorado pack after they got turned on by the first biter taking off with a meal and the other baits coming to life and starting to run like hell. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha and gotcha!
LOOK FOR THE STREAKING GREEN BERKLEY OR OTHER FLUORESCENT LINE BEACON!
I’m talking that glowing green Solar Collector line that I prefer or whatever fluorescent line you like. It will show you the direction that the hooked wahoo is traveling so you can make a slow or even a fast turn back toward it if you have only hooked one. The belly in the line will keep the fish hooked and this maneuver might get your baits in the vicinity of the rest of the school for another couple of bites before you slow down a little to deal with the hooked fish. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha!
Here, if you remember to keep the boat moving at a good clip while you fight your fish, you might just get more bites from the rest of the school if they return to the hooked one, which some often do. Never forget that wahoo are usually school fish and a bite or hookup from one is usually an opportunity to hook a bunch. The same thing applies to just about all gamefish, including dorado, tuna and the smaller billfish. G...ah, you know!
SOLID, PRO SECRETS – THE EXTRA STEPS THAT MAKE WINNERS
“FOLLOW THAT SCHOOL!”
It is critical to get a good visual on that highly visible line because the odds are that the rest of the school, or at least a few of the fish from it are traveling with the hooked one and by knowing their exact course you will have a chance of running them down again after you land the one that you have hooked up. Go like hell on that course at first, then slow down to hi speed trolling after you catch that first one.
“PITCH THAT BITCH!”
If you have enough crew, have one pitch a live bait, or a dead one if you don’t have a livey. I actually prefer a dead pitch bait for this - you can make it "come alive" with a few rod twitches when the fish show, but you can't make a panicked live bait that's nuts with fear play dead and not run into other lines, under the boat, or whatever). Drop it back and keep it about fifty feet – no further - behind the boat on the opposite side of the fish that you are about to land. Those escorts that were following the hooked ones will often still be with them and will grab the pitch bait and you’ll be able to add another fish to the box.
This is not a job for Willy Whippersnapper, your neighbor who has only fished twice in his life; live or dead bait bites from excited wahoo and dorado are like handling aquatic lightning bolts and this job should be left to your most experienced angler. Walk a lesser experienced angler thru it the best that you can from the bridge, but the best bet for both of you is to get him to buy a copy of this book so that he has a good idea of what he’s about back there (you knew THAT was coming, right? It's true, though. Only part of a crew on the same wavelength is a formula for cockpit confusion and fish-catching failure).
Wire leaders only if wahoo are around, of course and if the bait is live, only one in the water at a time to keep a pair of them from freaking when the wahoo or other fish come (which they surely will) and tangling with a hooked fish or balling the bait lines up together. You can drop two baits back if they are dead ones. Don’t be surprised if a marlin, sail, tuna or dorado takes the pitch bait. All gamefish are attracted to others that are hooked and often follow along to investigate what’s going on. Take advantage of that...If you don't have a pitch bait out there when they do a fly by, you'll never even know that they were there.
Never forget that any stop on any species of pelagic, schooling fish is and should be an opportunity for a multiple hookup if you are playing your cards right. Sure, you want to hook that fish that lopped off the south end of your ballyhoo, but remember that where there's one (fill-in-the-blank), there's more and always be thinking about and trying to get another hookup or more out of each of these opportunities.
Work fast if they are open water fish that you must rely upon your chart plotter to return to. They won’t be sitting still in this case and so you have to get on the throttles when you hook one and the boat driver should try to relocate the school while the first fish is fought. Search up current if you don’t have a bearing on the school.
A REMINDER FROM EARLIER IN THIS BOOK
If the fish are on a floater of some kind you have more time to line up your runs, but down in Cabo as soon as a boat starts that sort of thing he is spotted and the next thing he knows, he’s got a bunch of unwelcome company. If you find yourself in a situation where others are coming, don’t screw around when you are making turns or aren’t on the fish. Get on those hammers and run, turn and return fast! Only drop back down to trolling speed when you are in the zone and you might pick off a few more fish before the other boats get there and screw things up for you, because they surely will. Wahoo in particular do not like a lot of boat pressure, but all gamefish can be put down by boats. Those are the simple facts of life when it comes to combat fishing. The only answer is not to screw around when opportunity knocks and make hay while the sun shines and you are alone on the fish.
ONE LAST TRICK IF COMPANY COMES AND BUGS YOU
Before leaving a floater where you contacted wahoo or dorado, be sure to take a few trolling runs in ever-widening circles around it. On many occasions the fish will scatter around the outside perimeter of the disturbing new arrivals and you might just pick a few more up before you give up. Sometimes I have found them as much as a quarter of a mile off the floater. The same thing applies to dorado...in spades!
Keep an eye on the sonar when you do this for fish that have gone deep. If you meter them, drop the downriggers or planers in and go for them. Down south these deep fish are often tuna.
END OF EXCERPT.
I should note here that the excerpt refers only to short bites on outriggers. The facts are that I rarely used to fish ballyhoo flat and when I did, we handled the short bites differently than we did and do on the ‘rigger fish. Before UpRiggers, which we can set up an “outrigger-like” dropback loop with, I relied on pitch baits on short, flatline ballyhoo bites. Nowadays, because of the UpRiggers, the drill on flatline bites is the same as the one on outrigger bites.
Before the UpRiggers we always had two pitch baits rigged and ready at the rear of the ‘pit. The drill was, when we got short bit on a flat, one crewmember cranked the heck out of the remainder of the ballyhoo and at the same time one of the pitch baits was lobbed back to where the original ballyhoo had been running, or to the fish if we saw it and the mate worked the fish. This frequently resulted in an instant re-bite. If the fish chopped that bait too, the rod was in the hands of a guy who knew how to do the dropback and so on game outlined above.
I run short ballyhoo, booby trapped off of a Toad and an UpRigger all of the time now. The “automatic bait and pitch” system that we use now has vastly increased the number of bites we get and the automatic drop back because of the loop we leave in the line makes dealing with short biters exactly like it is off the long ‘riggers.
That’s how we do it. I’m not saying that everyone should do it this way, but I encourage those of you who are having bad luck with short biters to give our way a try to see if it helps improve their results.
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Frank
