Fished two weekends ago north of the hole and managed to straighten hooks on two different fish, one was a confirmed wahoo. We made it home with one 50lb wahoo, and one 10 lb dolphin.
I’ve always trolled with drags set at full strike but after pulling hooks on several fish I backed off the drags on every reel in the boat except the rigger lines.
The hot colors were a pink/white/mylar and green/yellow seawitch, and a red/black flash series ilander.
If you do not own a flash series ilander you need to go directly to the nearest tackle shop and pick up blue/white, red/black, and black/purple with the mylar. The last half dozen trips I have been on, the flash ilanders have outperformed all other baits including the regular ilander.
We ran a blue bird with an ilander on the way-back all day with not a single hit. Around 3pm I moved it to the flat line about 10yds behind the boat in the prop wash and we picked up our wahoo not 15 minutes later. I’ve never run birds in that close but I may give it a shot next time I’m out.
This is what worked for us the last time we were out. If you have any other tips or tricks that have worked well this year please share!
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
I started fishing this rig this year to try and minimize some short-strikes on my wahoo baits, esp on my planer rig. I make them with about 4ft of 140lb hardwire. FYI, stick with 8-9/0 mustads. These were some cheap 6/0 dink hooks I was using for practice and they both came back bent and mangled minus what would have been the first fish of the day. I believe the second picture shows them rigged with the appropriate hooks
When you make your haywire twist that you connect your snap swivel to, pinch it down as narrow as possible where you can still get the snap-swivel through the loop. This way you can slide ilanders on and off your rigs depending on what color is hot while you are fishing
This guy fell for the black/red flash ilander.
And no, the kid holding the fish is not missing a chromosome, he was just having a rough day…
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
How do you get your hooks that far back in the bait? my hook normally comes out about middle ways.
Pinch down the waywire twist where you would connect your snap swivel so that it is very narrow. This allows you to do two things. This first is to easily feed it through the anal cavity up and out through the gills of the ballyhoo. Then just slide the ballyhoo down the wire until the shank of the main hook is all the way inside the body of the ballyhoo.
When you connect your wire to the eye of the main hook, put about 15 wraps in your waywire twist so that the twists come out of the gill place and give you a place to attach your monel wire to secure the ballyhoo’s head.
The second benefit to narrowing the connection haywire twist is that you can slide the large ilanders on and off the ballyhoo depending on what color is hot.
Make sure you brine your ballyhoo first and it helps to make three or four rigs the night before so you don’t have to mess with them on the boat. We’ve had some pretty solid luck connecting this rig directly to a bird and running it in the propwash. I usually make it with about 3-5’ of 140lb hardwire.
Hope this helps!
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
I started fishing this rig this year to try and minimize some short-strikes on my wahoo baits, esp on my planer rig. I make them with about 4ft of 140lb hardwire. FYI, stick with 8-9/0 mustads. These were some cheap 6/0 dink hooks I was using for practice and they both came back bent and mangled minus what would have been the first fish of the day. I believe the second picture shows them rigged with the appropriate hooks
When you make your haywire twist that you connect your snap swivel to, pinch it down as narrow as possible where you can still get the snap-swivel through the loop. This way you can slide ilanders on and off your rigs depending on what color is hot while you are fishing
This guy fell for the black/red flash ilander.
And no, the kid holding the fish is not missing a chromosome, he was just having a rough day…
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927
31’ Contender
Twin 250 HPDIs
maybe I’m being picky but I pop the eyes out of all the ballyhoo. After being in the water for awhile the eyes can bloat and can cause the bait to swim on its side…
“I’d hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
Hunter S. Thompson
When the bait is pulling on the stomach\anal cavity like that, we call that by many names including: The old spinnerrooni, mr twister, the helicopter, tiny dancer, crazy ivan, etc…
Reel Excitement:
Get two boxes of Kosher salt. Iodized salt will turn your bait brown. Fill a 48qt cooler half with ice. Then fill with water until ice is just covered. You can use creek water or fresh. Then stir in first box of Kosher salt. Then stir in thawed ballyhoo. Let sit 15 min. Then stir in second box of kosher salt and close the cooler and let it sit for 12 hrs. This is the recipie I picked up online awhile back and it seems to work well. Remove ballyhoo after 12 hours and place on metal tray, separated from the ice until you are ready to fish.
Shelvin:
If I am pulling naked ballyhoo or ballyhoo with small skirts in front I will pop out the eyes. With this wahoo rig you are using 140lb singlestrand wire with a large ilander in front of the bait. The eyes will be burried up by the head of the ilander so the eyes don’t really have much effect.
Skinnee:
A bait should never pull from the hook while you are trolling or you will experience one of the many names you suggested. The bait should always pull from the head. If you properly anchor the ballyhoo head to the wire the hook will not pull from the belly cavity. The purpose of the waywire twist from the eye of the hook up through and past the gillplate of the ballyhoo is to give you a place to anchor your monel so that you can tie the head down properly so that the ballyhoo won’t slide back and pull from the hook.
I sail-fished with some tournament boys down in Stuart and they convinced me to never use a pin-rig again. secure your monel to the wire under the ballyhoo head, come behind both gillplates and around, through the eyes and around, up through the chin and through the soft-spot in the top lip and then wrap the monel down the bill and break off like you normally would. If done properly the head goes nowhere and the bait doesn’t spin.
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
As long as you have the hook coming straight up and in line with the plane of the body/tail and not bent out to the side the bait swims fine. I don’t run this rig naked. There is always a full-sized ilander in front and this really helps keep the bait tracking straight. Unlike a swimming ballyhoo with 50-80lb leader that you want to shimmy and shake without spinning, this is a much more stiff rig that doesn’t “swim”. However, that stinger hook will flap and flash back there to give the bait some action. The only way the bait will run fouled is if you don’t secure the head of the ballyhoo tight and the ballyhoo slips back and bunches up.
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
Also, I like using selects or horse ballyhoo for this rig. The ballyhoo in the picture was the very first ballyhoo I rigged with this set up. It got eaten but those small hooks were bent and mangled to hell. I switched to select ballyhoo and 9/0 mustads and landed the fish in the picture.
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
