Originally Posted by
Captain Fred Archer
Good question, Dave. And good answer, Tourament Ace.
We ran wire chasebaits 100% of the time on our Spiders down south. That was because of the good numbers of wahoos, including some real monsters, that we used to catch on them. And it didn't hurt to have wire when a big, cow tuna ate one, which they did a lot of and the same applied to the really big mahi's down there. And no, the single strand didn't seem to have any negative effect on the fish, be they up top or deep.
Many anglers in those parts consider wahoo to be "crack of dawn, grey light biters". While that is true, especially on the full moon, when there is a always a great tide change at that time, it is also true that wahoo feed, mostly on tide changes, during the daytime. As I pointed out earlier, I believe that since most bait species, and especially squid but not limited to them, shun the surface water during the daytime and go deep, that makes sense. That's pretty clear when you think about the fact that the bait is very vulnerable to both fish and birds when it's up top. Nature pretty much has to have programmed it to go deep at that time. Sure, they still have to contend with the fish, but they don't have to have birds dive bombing the hell out of them too.
One thing is for sure...the wahoos and other gamefish surely do go deep with the bait much of the time and we proved that by having terrific success downrigging them on many, many days. And when it came to the tunas and dorados, we ran heavy gear on the Spiders and had our anglers crank like hell on them, then started to chunk the rest of the school that often followed that hooked fish up to the top and then finished our limits and had as much fun as our clients wanted without ever moving the boat until they decided that they wanted to try for some marlin, or whatever. At that point we almost always switched over to bait & switch fishing with the very same Spiders, only with no armed chasebaits so that we could actually avoid any more tuna or dorado's.
When it comes to wahoo, the hardest thing for most fishermen to get passed is the speed that we trolled for them at. Most believe that a lure has to be going like a bat out of hell to interest wahoo. That's true part of the time, but when it comes to fishing deep, downrigger speeds catch the bejabbers out of them.
I was lucky when it came to that downrigger speed thing. So many years ago that I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was at least forty, I experienced my first time with a downrigger and wahoo. The short version is, I was commercial fishing a weed line off of Key West with a buddy. We were moving along the weed line, sight casting to the bigger dorado that were mixed in with lots of dinks, when we started seeing some wahoos down pretty deep. We tried the "tried and true" method of the day (that all of a sudden has been making a comeback) of casting out Upperman Bucktail jigs as far as we could, letting them sink forever, then cranking them back as fast as we could on our big spinning reels.
Didn't work that day. So my partner Roger pulled out a downrigger ("what the hell is that thing??"), we dropped a ballyhoo down, and we caught something like five wahoo that way over the next hour and a half or so. It was pure revelation for me at the time and I never forgot what I learned about deep water wahoos that day. So, two things resulted. The first was that I always rigged with wire when there might be wahoo around. The second was, I started using the downrigger for them as soon as I had my boat in Cabo. And I never looked back.
Those things are GREAT fishing tools!
And wahoo follow the bait.
And if you fish where they and the bait are, you will catch the hell out of the 'hoo's.
Yes, planers work too, both with and without Spiders, but I prefer the downrigger, using my sonar, getting on the right marks, and working them over thoroughly with multiple lures, saving fuel, and giving our anglers a nice, smooth ride..
Over..
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