The Fish Coach

FEEDING FISH SOMETHING GOOD IS A GREAT WAY TO HOOK THEM

BOTTOM FISHING BAITS

How many different types of bait do you take with you for an offshore bottom fishing trip? A lot of anglers load up the cooler with sardines and squid. That’s a great start, but there are some other options you might want to consider. Live shrimp are the hands-down favorite inshore, but most shrimp are actually caught offshore in the Gulf and the fish out there love ‘em too. A shrimp is often much better for catching larger, more wary snapper. Speaking of live bait, it’s always a good plan to have a few live pinfish of other hand-size baitfish. Red grouper are very happy to slurp up dead sardines, but gags, blacks and scamp are more predatory in nature and can be a lot pickier. A live baitfish can be just the ticket for these “other” grouper that a lot of people have a hard time catching. For the red grouper, consider some less conventional bait options. Raw chicken is a good one. Strips of fish belly are also good. Even chunks of bonito can get their attention when the old standards just aren’t cutting it. Remember, even fish like variety in their diets. Offer it to them and watch your catch rate go up.

CATCH IT YOURSELF

Sometime between early spring and early summer, whitebait (scaled sardines) starts to show up around Southwest Florida. That’s a good thing, but don’t get too excited yet — at first, we mostly just see little runty baitfish, no more than about 2 inches long. While it can be tempting to try netting whitebait no matter the size, it generally works out to being a dumb thing to do. If your castnet’s mesh is too large, tiny bait will simply slip through. At least, you hope they’ll slip through. Throw a net with smaller mesh and you’ll pull up a nightmare with a pretty name: A Christmas tree. That’s what we call a castnet full of gilled baitfish. Each bait has to be removed by hand, and they’ll pretty much all die in the process. It’s a huge waste of time that results in no live bait to use. That’s why the pros carry nets with different mesh sizes. They’ll throw smaller mesh on smaller baits, but they won’t be foolish enough to throw on baits that are going to end up gilled. Wait until they’re bigger — you don’t want to cast those tiny baits anyway. Chum up some pinfish instead, and keep hope that we’ll see some bigger whitebait roaming around soon.

DEAD BAIT IS OK

Fishermen go to a great deal of trouble to ensure their live baits stay alive. Sometimes it’s worth it. Sometimes it isn’t. When the water is warm and the fish are lazy, sometimes live baits can actually reduce the number of fish you catch. Most predatory fish are just as happy to scavenge as they are to hunt. This is especially true when they’re a bit stressed, as they are when water conditions are less than optimal. Oxygen levels are low. Fish don’t want to go chasing after a frisky pinfish — it’s much easier to mosey over and slurp up one that’s already dead. Summer water is also dark in the Harbor due to tannins from the rivers. In addition to being easier to catch, cut or frozen baits are also easier to find because they leak scent into the surrounding water. If they can’t see it, they can smell it. Now, it’s worth pointing out that a snook is not a vulture. A fresh dead bait is often eagerly eaten. A rotten dead bait is left for the crabs. Once your shrimp or baitfish die, you’ll need to keep them on ice while you’re on the water and in the freezer back at home. If the smell makes you gag, it’s not worth putting on a hook.

Although there are some amazingly lifelike artificial lures being made these days, it’s true there’s nothing quite like the real thing. Live shrimp, whitebait and pinfish are the favored baits of many Charlotte Harbor fishermen, and it’s because fish love to eat them. But keeping live baits alive is always a hassle. What if I told you it was unnecessary? Fresh dead baits have 90 percent of the appeal of live ones and are a lot less of a pain. Most predators are also scavengers. It’s easy to understand why. A fresh dead meal is a lot easier to catch and doesn’t fight back when swallowed. It’s called being opportunistic. Dead baits can be cast into many of the same places as live ones: Under mangrove edges, into potholes, around pilings or other structure. They can also be used in open water, where the combination of a dead bait and a popping cork can be deadly. To keep the bait from spinning, clip off the tail fin and hook it through the lips, from top to bottom. To keep baits fresh, pack them on ice just like you would fish you plan to eat. There’s a world of difference between a fresh bait and one that’s rotten. Snook and trout are picky; catfish and crabs don’t mind at all.

Although fresh bait is almost always better, frozen bait makes a great insurance policy. There are some days when, try as you might, you just can’t find the mullet, pinfish, ladyfish, sardines, bonito or whatever bait it is you prefer. A stash of frozen bait can be a real life saver on those days. Keep it at the bottom of your cooler, covered in ice. If you don’t need it, super — it can go back in the freezer when you get home (although it still does thaw a little, unless you toss in a chunk of dry ice, and should probably be used for chum after three or four trips out to sea). If you can’t find bait, it doesn’t take long at all to thaw the frozen stuff in our warm summer waters. Frozen bait tends to be mushier than fresh, and it doesn’t have as much appeal because the blood and oils don’t flow like they do in fresh baits. But which is better shark bait: A frozen ladyfish, or the shrimp you brought to catch ladyfish that are nowhere to be found? When you look at it this way, it makes a lot of sense to have some frozen bait on the boat — if only as a backup plan.

HOW TO RIG IT

Fishing with live bait is simple, right? Just stick a bait on a hook and toss it out there. Well, maybe — but there are a few techniques that will help you catch more fish. One is the “death flutter.” When a predator is faced with a school of baitfish, it needs to quickly identify a vulnerable individual. That’s where you come in. Instead of hooking your baitfish through the snout or lips, put the hook right through the body. This may seem cruel, but it actually minimizes the bait’s suffering, because it generally gets eaten in just seconds. The bait’s wild flailing produces vibrations that a predator will immediately key in on. If you need your bait to live longer, hooking through the snout is better. Sometimes you may have fish drawn to your baits, but not willing to commit. You might also need to get a fish’s attention in dark or murky water. Whitebait and threadies are soft and can be easily torn in half — simply grab the front half in one hand, the back half in the other, and twist. When these baitfish halves hit the water, a lot of scent disperses very quickly, which will get almost any predator fired up. Pinfish can be cut in half with a knife for the same effect.

Everybody knows that live bait catches fish, but did you know that how you hook it can affect the way it swims? Baits like pinfish and small grunts will tend to hide in the grass if they can. By hooking your baitfish through the base of the anal fin (not in the gut, or they’ll die) you can keep it swimming upwards and out of the grass, where a predator can find it.

KEEP THEM ALIVE

It’s not easy keeping bait alive in hot water. Whether it’s a high-flow livewell or a simple 5-gallon bucket, if the water gets too hot, your bait is toast. What’s a fisherman to do? Here’s a simple trick we’ll call the live bait two-step. Step one: Get an aerator. You can buy small battery-powered models for as little as five bucks. They do a great job in a bucket. For a larger livewell, you might consider one of the bigger 12-volt versions, which pump a much larger volume of air. Step two: Get a case of cheap bottled water. Put the bottles in the freezer until they’re solid (10 to 14 hours ought to do it for most freezers). Put them in your cooler on ice when you go out to fish. Now, when you get your bait, turn on the aerator and add a frozen bottle or two to the water. You want enough to keep it cool but not cold — temperature shock can also kill bait. Cooler water holds more oxygen, and by combining that with an air pump you can keep bait alive all day. In a livewell, turn the recirc pump off. Be sure you have spare batteries for the aerator, and if you’re recycling water bottles double-check the lids. Fresh water from melting ice will kill your bait even faster than heat.

When whitebait are in short supply, many anglers turn to the similar Atlantic thread herring (threadfin) as an alternative. Fish like them just as well, but there are two problems that fishermen will discover quickly. First, they’re harder to catch. Threadies prefer deeper water, which makes them much harder to throw a net on. Be aware that threadies don’t respond to chum as well as whitebait do. Second, they’re not nearly as hardy in a livewell. Black out a well with whitebait, and they’ll be fine as long as the water circulates well. Black out a well with threadies, and every single one will die (and it usually takes only a few minutes). Limit your bait to what you need — a couple dozen is plenty — and it’s much easier to keep them alive. If you’re having trouble netting, try a sabiki rig. Versions with very small hooks are best for threadies. Cast past the school and reel the sabiki thru them slowly. No bouncing or jigging is required. Don’t get excited as you feel the hookups; just reel slow and steady. Be careful to not get hooked. A sabiki rod will make the entire procedure safer.

In spring many anglers begin switching to live whitebait, but if you’re fishing from shore, it’s tough to keep more than a handful of these little fish alive. The good news is that live shrimp are always a good bait choice, and they’re far simpler to keep kicking. Insulated bait buckets work better because they’ll keep your water from overheating. Never set any bait bucket in direct sunlight if you can avoid it. Trolling buckets pierced with little holes seem like a good idea, but the water where you’re fishing may be very different from the water you got at the bait shop. It’s best to keep shrimp in the water they come in. To keep them in the best shape, use a battery-powered aerator and make sure the batteries are fresh. Keeping your aerator dry is vital to keeping it working, so don’t let it get wet — even fresh water is bad for it. Lower water temperatures are better for holding oxygen, so placing a frozen ice pack or even a frozen water bottle in your bait bucket is a good way to beat the heat. If the ice melts into your water, it will reduce the salt content and kill your shrimp, so be sure your ice packs are well sealed.

SHRIMP

Fishing with shrimp is easy, and you have several different options how to rig them. One of the most popular ways is to dangle them under a popping cork or other float. For this method, you can hook your shrimp in the head or tail. I prefer tail. First, twist off the tail fan, then insert the hook into the hole and push it out through the bottom of the tail. A de-fanned shrimp can also be rigged on a jighead, but when you do this push the hook out through the top of the tail so the shrimp will stay right side up. If you’re casting under docks or mangroves, you can simply free-line your shrimp. For free-lining, head hooking works better. Push the point of the hook in at the base of the shrimp’s horn and bring it out the other side. Cast a head-hooked shrimp gently — otherwise, it can easily fall off and you’ll be fishing on credit.

What good is a frozen shrimp? Well, if you fish it right, almost as good as a live one. In some cases, they can actually be better. Frozen shrimp have a bad reputation for catching catfish, toadfish and other unwanted species, but it’s not the bait — it’s what you do with it. Toss it out and let it sit on the bottom, pinned down with a heavy weight, and of course you’re going to catch scavengers. But put on a light jighead or weighted hook and bounce it across a grassflat or in the surf — now you’re really fishing! Anything that will eat a live shrimp (which is to say just about anything that swims) will take a dead one. Fish that hunt mostly by scent, such as redfish, black drum and whiting, will usually take a frozen shrimp more readily than a live one because it puts out a lot more shrimpy smell. The only real downside is that a thawed shrimp isn’t very durable. You can partially compensate for that by threading a long-shanked hook through it, like you would a freshwater nightcrawler. At the very least, hook them by the tail, not the head. But frozen shrimp cost a good bit less than live ones, so it’s not a major problem if you go through them a bit quicker.

Everybody knows shrimp are great bait. And every angler who fishes with shrimp knows that they’re more expensive to buy live than frozen. That’s because in many instances, live shrimp work better. Bait shops go to great trouble and build elaborate setups to keep their shrimp alive and frisky. So what do you do? You put 50 of them in a 5-gallon bucket with 4 inches of water in the bottom. Even with an aerator, that’s a pretty lousy way to keep your shrimpies alive and kicking. If you can immediately transfer them to an aerated baitwell, that’s much better, but if your boat doesn’t have a well or your fishing from shore, you’re pretty much out of options — right? Wrong. There’s a very simple way to keep shrimp alive for hours or even days at a time: Cold-pack them. What you’ll need is a well-insulated cooler, a bag of ice, a towel (don’t use one of the good ones, unless you want to sleep on the couch for the next week), some salt water and, of course, the shrimp. Start by laying the ice in the bottom of the cooler. It’s best to leave it in the bag — you don’t want the ice to touch the shrimp. Soak the towel in salt water and lay it on top of the ice. Arrange it so the ice is completely covered, then put the shrimp on top of the towel. The towel should be big enough that you can lay part of it on top of the shrimp. Now your bait is securely encased in a chilly, damp, salty environment. When you put them on your hook and plop them in warm salty water, they’ll liven up in a hurry. Meltwater is the enemy. As the ice melts, it becomes very cold fresh water. Any shrimp that come in contact with it will die. If your cooler has a drain spout, it will come in very handy. Obviously, a bigger cooler with more ice will stay cold longer, so use as big a cooler as you practically can. Six-pack coolers are too small — don’t even try it.

SQUIRRELFISH

Sand perch, locally called squirrelfish, are very popular baits for tarpon and grouper. They’re also stupid expensive, and that’s if you can even find them for sale. You’re better off catching your own. Tie a No. 8 hook onto a 6-foot 20 pound leader, leaving a 2-foot tag end. Tie a second hook on, leaving a 1-foot tag. Tie a drop sinker to the end of the line. This is your squirrelfish rig. Bait the hooks with pieces of squid, Gulp! lures or anything else that the squirrelfish might find edible but too tough for bait thieves to tear off (nuts don’t work). Fish right on sandy bottom in 10 to 40 feet of water. If you’re catching small ones, just keep moving.

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