Mahi Mahi and general trolling rigs. I noticed the thread from offshore lures is from 2012 and a lot of the links are extinct. What are we using in our water to catch mahi mahi and other offshore fish. It doesn’t have to be the biggest fish only lures. Thoughts?
Welcome back, thanks for posting, I am a meatman myself for bait, Ballyhoo are hard to beat for gaffing size Mahi.
I like colorful skirts, and seems the larger the bait, the larger the fish, just my opinions, thanks again for adding to the site.
I myself like Islanders. For mahi I like blue and yellow, white and blue. And yellow and green.
For wahoo I like the darker colors like purple and black. Green and black. All rigged with a ballyhoo.
Saltwater candy also makes pretty decent stuff.
They’ve all got ridiculously expensive like everything else.
Is there a certain brand of another?
Do you buy the pre rigged or do you rig yourself? Any colors of choice? I hear a lot of pink and blue.
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Personally my best success has been with rigged Ballyhoo for live and a pink Mahi magnet for artificial. When they are biting aggressively, darn near anything. If you can get one to the back of the boat and tied off to a cleat many times the school will stay with it and you can pick off a few. That Pink magnet will also works for tuna, wahoo, kingfish, and sailfish. Ask around the docks and many will share what they used for bait, general area, and trolling speed. Good luck!
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Do You attach it to the cleat hookless?
Don’t overthink it. Dolphin will hit most anything as long as its swimming naturally. Seawitches have snagged more dolphin than any $80 lure.
Billfish and tuna are different, but for dolphin and wahoo, simple works fine.
Fred means that if you hook a schoolie dolphin, leave it in the water. Often times the other schoolies will come around the boat to check it and the boat out. Do that, then pitch fresh baits to them with spinning rods. Lots of fun and very effective.
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It’s the schoolies that will hang out together. You get on a big bull or cow get them in the boat. They don’t travel in schools.
And for rigging ballyhoo there’s plenty of videos out there.
Do you mind a couple different ways. If I’m in a hurry I just push the poop out of them and break their back a couple times. If I’m running naked ballyhoo I have a stainless steel too while I remove their spine. Then I split their tail about an inch to 2 in. I can also write them for the chin weight.
The important thing is they do not spin.
And I almost always run a stinger hook.
A good friend of mine swears he can catch “Dolphin” on a lure, fashioned from a beer can.
If that doesn’t work, a piece of a hotdog wienie will.
An old fishing, riding buddy. Hit and killed by 80 something year old woman. Chris was a monster. Probably 6’4 about 275. His arm were bigger than my thighs. Going in a bar one night. I was talking trash to him. He reached around grabbed me by the belt in the back of the pants one-handed. Carried me in the bar. Set me on the bar. Funniest person I’ve ever met in my life. Don’t believe I ever seen a man without a smile on his face. All around great guy.
We were putting our spread out. He reaches in his bag and pulls out a daisy chain. Made out of half a dozen CDs. Clips of naked ballyhoo on the end of it. I bust out laughing. Didn’t even have the spread out and it got hit. The dang thing got hit. Big smile who’s laughing now. We get it to the boat it’s a big big football. I’m scrambling to get the gaff . Big wahoo comes up and blasts one of the CDs and cut the line off.
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What 23 and OTC said. Leave the hook in and have a spinning reel or two rigged up ready to pitch to the schoolies. If it’s a big Dolphin like OTC said don’t risk it, bring it in the Boat. If you lose a slinger no big deal.
I’m a little clumsy and not been able to due it, but I have seen a buddy free gaff a couple by bringing the school close to the boat. I’ve picked a couple off with a spinning reel from a following school. Fun stuff when you get into them. My best times for Dolphin off our coast have occured in the Deli.
10 per person with a 54 boat limit. New last year Dolphin now have a size limit… Minimum 20"
I’m interested in seeing this method, can you post a picture?
Is there a particular jig you lean towards when hitting the schools
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I keep a rod with a ballyhoo on it left in the live well to keep the bait from drying up. Or that same pink one I posted. I have also cut a chunk of ballyhoo and put on the lure, kind of like piggy backing a cricket on a beetle spin for brim and red breast.
You would be surprised at the number you can get up close to the boat with a big school of slingers. Keep a couple of rods ready if you encounter this and sight pitch it to them.
Curious about your friends CD trick. Didn’t see anything on the internet even close. Over herd of tying a teaser on the cleat. Interesting idea with the shiny DVDs
I used to fish with a neighbor who used CD’s as a teaser. About every other trip something would hit it and tear off a few of them. They seemed to attract more kings than dolphin.
Chris had an interesting way of looking at things. Very creative guy. If I can find a picture of his bike you might would understand. Super cool definitely one of a kind bike.
I make most of my Daisy chains.
Run about four or five of these birds. Take a horse ballyhoo with a skirt and just a little bit of weight. Maybe a chin way just to keep him under the water.
These I tend to run a little deeper. And whatever’s on the daisy chain the last one is always a different color and larger.
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Noted. Can you tie a hookless daisy to the cleat or is that unheard of
Oh yeah . hand reel.
The only thing about running something hookless . You got to get it out of there quick. And something else in front of them… The bigger fish are going to go away fast. They didn’t get big by being stupid.
Running teasers, dredges and stuff like that are more billfish tactics.
Try to keep it simple and have fun with it. You get too much stuff going on it turns into work. I would always put out a spread with different colors at different depths.
The big thing is finding the fish.
Find the fish they will eat.
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