Going on a trip to the BVIs in March and plan on trolling the south drop.
Has anyone ever used those plastic ballyhoo? Any success?
2014 Key West 203DFS
1987 Landau
Tried similar years ago and zippo!
Why don’t you take a case of real ballyhoo with you? I would imagine you could get a lot in a cooler. I brought back 150 lbs of frozen fish from Alaska a year ago and they counted as checked bags as long as they were 50lbs or less. Still pretty frozen when I got home for the most part. And, they weren’t even in coolers. They were in those wax\cardboard seafood boxes.
http://www.basspro.com/Williamson-Lures-Ballyhoo-Combo/product/72166/
I am by no means an offshore guru but I used some of these on our summer vacation in marathon Fl. Hooked a billfish and caught a mahi with them. I chose not to mess with the real thing because I was in my own boat with my Brother-in-law and elderly father both 0 help. So it was nice not to have to mess with bait. They swam well I put some procure mullet on them for giggles and went fishing.
Sabalo 21 150 Yamaha
Key West Stealth 150 V-max (SOLD)
Actually I had great success with them the 2 times I used them. Caught over 10 dolphin with one. It wasn’t cheap and looked really realistic and actually outfished the frozen stuff! I’ll try and find the brand I was using.
They work, that’s without question. Sometimes as mentioned they work pretty well. Now whether they work as well as a properly rigged and prepared natural ballyhoo… probably not. Here’s the problem though- a good portion of the “fishermen” that use natural ballyhoo aren’t righing them to swim or look as good as the pre rigged rubber hoos. You’re choice, just my 2cents…
Thanks fellas. Good info. We won’t get to troll too much as the wives will be with us and their idea of a trip to the BVIs does not mean fishing a majority of the time. That said, we’re going to rent 3 trolling set ups. Will order some frozen hoo and plan on bringing some of those rubber hoo.
Are they usually pre-rigged?
Do you run them naked or can you run them skirted or on a chugger?
2014 Key West 203DFS
1987 Landau
Williamsons can be bought pre rigged with a hook and rubber skirted chugger style head. That’s the way the run the best, don’t waste time pulling them
Naked.
Had luck with them also. Haven’t used them that many times but was lucky when I did.
Have a friend that caught a wahoo on one last year in SC. When we took a charter in Panama City, Panama a few years ago, the guide put out skirted chugger ballyhoo pin rigs with no ballyhoo (no lie had the bait spring and all). I thought he was full of crap with laziness and wasting our time, but dam if we didn’t catch 6 big bulls on those rigs that day. I was shocked. So I don’t see why the rubber ballyhoo wouldn’t work in the Virgin Islands. I wouldn’t use them in SC where the fish are pressured so much though…
Boat was a 23 open contender that had the fish boxes and live well mounted next to each other in the cockpit deck. So, on a side note, the dudeman had the live well pump left on overflowing on the deck into the fish box in the floor, so we only kept the last fish we caught towards the end of the day that was still fresh. The guards at the security shack in the canal sure enjoyed all of our spoiled dolphin though haha.