A very different dredge

[Captain Fred Archer]

Mo,

A few more suggestions if you are going to rig your own, or even if you're buying bars...

How the rear section of a bait pod of teasers is laid out is key to both a natural presentation and eliminating or drastically cutting down on teaser bites on the ones running on the outside teaser leaders. Consideration and adjustment of the teasers must be made for both the “dry” positions (the bar when it isn’t running) and the “wet” positions (the bar when it is running) if you want on-the-water performance to be optimal. “Diamond pattern” bars that don’t adjust properly when trolled run the real risk of having fish hit the teaser in front of the chasebait.

These illustrations are from The Dorado Troller’s Bible. Hopefully they are pretty self-explanatory. It is important for the rear teasers to be lined up right on all spreaderbars, but especially on the big teaser bars because rigged right, gamefish don’t attack the teasers, but instead bluff at and boil on them to try to spook a single out of the school that they immediately zero in on and eat. That boils down to your pitchbait getting bit in a flash, the moment it appears behind the teaser bar, whether it’s a marlin or a school of tuna or dorado that has been raised. As you can see in the illustration, the same rigging parameters apply to how Spiders are rigged.

Whether you are buying bars or rigging your own, keep what we are discussing here in mind...it can make a big difference in performance and is one of the signs of true expert bar rigging, instead of merely bar making.