Just about every offshore angler in South Florida prefers to fish with live bait for everything from sailfish and dolphin to kingfish and tuna, but there are times when using dead bait can be just as effective.
In fact, trolling rigged ballyhoo and bonito strips can sometimes be more effective than live bait. So just because you aren’t able to catch or buy several dozen live baits for a day of fishing doesn’t mean you can’t catch fish.
One advantage of using a dead bait is that it can be fished exactly where and how it needs to be fished, whereas a live bait can swim out of the target zone or get tangled with another line.
In addition, some predators prefer an easy meal as opposed to chasing a live baitfish that’s trying to get away.
Capt. Abie Raymond of Go Hard Fishing (gohardfishing.com and @abie_raymond) trolls bonito strips for kingfish, sailfish, tuna, bonito, wahoo, and dolphin when fishing out of Bill Bird Marina in Miami Beach.
When his anglers catch a bonito, he fillets the fish and removes most of the meat from the skin with the blade of his knife until the fillet is an eighth of an inch thick, which allows a hook to penetrate a fish’s mouth more efficiently. Raymond then cuts the fillet with the blade angled to produce a beveled edge, which is hydrodynamic and yields a strip that resembles a thin baitfish.
He squares off one end of the strip and pokes a hole in that end with the knife. Then he sprinkles kosher salt over the strips to remove water from them and toughen them up, and he places them in a zip-closure plastic bag.
Raymond rigs a bonito strip on a 4- to 6-foot, 50-pound fluorocarbon leader with a perfection loop at one end that is attached to a snap swivel. The other end of the leader has a flashy, reverse-feather Mylar Sea Witch — his favorite colors are pink-and-blue and blue-and-white — above a 7/0 J hook tied to the leader with a six-turn improved clinch knot. Raymond puts a 4-inch piece of Monel wire through the hook eye, wraps it three times below the eye, and then places it back through the eye.
The Monel goes through the hole in the strip, with the meat side of the strip touching the shank of the hook. The wire is then wrapped below the tag end of the clinch knot to secure the strip, and the hook point is poked through the center of the strip. Raymond fishes bonito strips on a Penn International 16 conventional reel spooled with 20-pound line.
“I’ll put out two of those strip baits on my outriggers 80 to 120 feet behind the boat, along with a lure like a Billy Bait or Dolphin Jr. We stagger them, so a 20-foot lure, a 40-foot lure, an 80-foot strip, and a 100-foot strip would be my typical four-bait spread,” said Raymond, adding that anglers need to determine the most effective distances for their baits based on their type of boat and its engines. Strip baits might raise more fish closer to a boat with one brand of outboard motors than the same boat with a different brand of outboards.
Raymond favors bonito strips over rigged ballyhoo because strips last longer and can be cut to size to resemble a 4-, 6-, or 8-inch flying fish, with the wings imitated by the Sea Witch.
“Another huge advantage of a strip over a ballyhoo is if a sailfish grabs a ballyhoo and rips the tail off, you’re done,” Raymond said. “A bonito strip, he’ll just grab it and grab it. It might stretch and get longer and the meat might come off, but the skin’s still there swimming and looking beautiful.”
Capt. Chris Lemieux of Boynton Beach (lemieuxfishingcharters.com) also loves to troll bonito strips with Sea Witches, which is a great way to catch kingfish as well as dolphin, tuna, and bonito this time of year.
He fishes the strips behind planers on heavy, two-speed, conventional outfits spooled with 80-pound braided lines that are placed in rod-holders on each side of the stern of his 27-foot center console. A weighted, rectangular piece of metal, a planer dives to a range of depths depending on how much line is let out. One end of a planer is attached to the mainline and the other is attached to the leader. Lemieux uses 80 feet of 60-pound fluorocarbon leader, which he pulls in by hand after the planers are reeled to the rod tip.
“Some guys use a lighter leader, some guys use heavier, it just depends on your preference,” he said. “When the fish are biting good, I try to get a little heavier on them. When it’s a real slow, picky bite, you can go down to even 40-pound leader if you want to.”
Frozen ballyhoo, which are available at most tackle stores, also catch a variety of fish and are especially effective for dolphin. Raymond rigs skirted ballyhoo on a 7/0 J hook tied to a 15-foot, 50-pound, monofilament wind-on leader on a 20-pound spinning outfit.
“You fish it like a strip, 80 to 120 feet behind an outboard boat,” said Raymond, who trolls at 6 to 6½ knots.
Presented properly, dead ballyhoo and bonito strips look so real, even the most finicky fish can’t help but eat them.