Master fishing with Bait: Part 1 Bluewater

There is nothing better than good bait. If you are a fisherman you have likely spent thousands of dollars and hours through the years making sure only the best is in your cooler or livewell when you leave the dock.
As Spearfisherman somehow we forget everything we learned from fishing when we should be using it to our advantage.
Fish are going to be where there is bait and you can adjust your tactics as the time of year and conditions allow to maximize your chances and capitalize on what is going on beneath the surface.
We’ll start with two scenarios:
You are offshore working a weedline and want to shoot dolphin or Wahoo but don’t know where to start. If you aren’t seeing any flying fish or little baitfish under the weeds I’d run down the line a few hundred yards and see if I could find anything floating like a bucket or Pallet. Check for bait there and if there is some jump in and spend 15 minutes in the water watching their reactions as you swim around and look for the larger predators. If there bait comes out and swims with you chances are there isn’t much around and they are overly brave from lack of predators. I’ll give it a few more minutes then run further offshore in search of the next weedline and start working that one.
If once in the water the bait is acting shy and won’t leave the shelter of the debris I’m on high alert and will usually spend a little more time then at the last spot. If the Dolphin are there sometimes you can shoot them straight away but there are times when they roam up to a few hundred yards away and have to wait for them to come back. Be patient, look up along the surface no matter how bad it hurts your neck and be constantly looking behind you for the ones that sneak up. Make a few dives to 30 then 50 feet deep below the structure if your cojones will let you and keep an eye out below for Wahoo and tunas. More often then not a school of Dolphin will have a few Wahoo with them even if it is just the summer snakes of Weehoos. My first wahoo was about 4 lbs and I could not have been happier having shot him out of a school of equally miniscule peanut dolphin while bouncing around from weed patch to weed patch off the Florida Keys.
For bluewater paddy hopping or Bluewater hunting for Dolphin in Wahoo like this anywhere in the world where you are in and out of the water constantly I use an easy rig that I can shoot almost anything that comes by from 20lb Dolphin to 100+lb tunas and the occasional Billfish.
I use either a three banded 120 or 130 Riffe Euro for most areas with Dolphin, Wahoo and tuna less then 125 lbs. When I know there is the chance for bigger Tunas and Billfish like in Central America I usually take the Riffe Island with three bands and a flopper shaft. This lets me reload quickly and shoot almost anything that comes through at 12-15 feet and feel confident of a penetrating shot.
A single 2 atm Riffe Buoy can land any of the fish above as long as you rig it with a bungey so it doesn’t put too much pressure on them too fast. a 50 ft Bungey is usually the easiest for jumping in and out of the boat all day. ( a 50 ft Bungey has a hollow bungey tubing that has 150 feet of 500-1000lb Tuna cord inside so it can stretch to triple its original length therefore “playing the fish” like the drag on a fishing reel)
More to come….