Those of you who know me know that I can’t resist a good buffet. There is something about seeing all of those delicious foods and deserts that makes my mouth water like Pavlov’s dogs. Given this information it is no wonder that when we head offshore to troll for our favorite pelagics I like to put out a buffet spread for the fish. I guess you could say I have a real understanding of the impression a large amount of food can make on hungry fish.
Most of the fish we target when we troll offshore spend the majority of their time chasing large schools of ballyhoo, cigar minnows, flying fish and other small baitfish. A sure fire way to catch more fish is to increase the size and activity in your trolling spread. The invention of the spreader bar has allowed anglers to do just this. Over the past several years the use of spreader bars among anglers has increased dramatically. The primary reason for the increase in popularity is quite simply that spreader bars work. Anglers have reported definite increases in the number of strikes and fish caught when using them.
For those of you who may not be familiar with spreader bars they are very simple in design. It is comprised of a thin flexible metal bar with baits hooked to it and the bar spreads the baits out behind the boat. By using a spreader bar you can increase the number of baits in your spread from the 8-10 lines you normally pull to as many as 100 or more baits, mimicking schooling bait fish. Calcutta (a manufacturer of spreader bars) has one that holds 44 artificial baits. Running just one of these behind your boat increases the number of baits to over 50!
As the number of anglers using these bars has increased so have the number of companies manufacturing them. The increase has led companies to spend more money and effort in the research, development and improvements. In their early days spreader bars were very heavy and cumbersome and at times were more work than they were worth. The new models are lighter, track much better behind the