My buddy and I spent the day fishing in the Sullivan’s surf yesterday. We caught some fish, but missed countless bites. We ran through an entire tub of frozen shrimp and half a baggie of frozen mullet, and didn’t have near enough fish to show for it. Can anyone help me out? I’ve never had this issue before. I’m not a complete newbie, but know that there’s people on here who know WAY more than me, so maybe yall can shed some light on what I was doing wrong yesterday. Here’s what I’m thinking:
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Bait problems: the bait we got seemed like it had been thawed and refrozen. It was EXTREMELY soft, so keeping it on the hook was tough. I started out threading the shrimp on, tried leaving more/less hook exposed, hooking them differently,using more or less bait on a hook
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Hook issues: we started out with all size 2 circles. When we were missing hookups we started running 2 circles, 2/0 circles, 1 circles. and medium sized J’s. Didn’t seem to make a difference
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Equipment issues: A couple of the rods we were running were light with light mono. Maybe the light rods had too much give or the mono has too much stretch and the fish arent hooking up on the circles? We were running a couple larger rods and had 2 rods with braid as well though.
Thanks in advance for any help and advice you can provide!
Imo bad bait for sure. That’ll do it every time; re-frozen anything is NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!##!!!
Dparker677 said on the other post it was bait stealers(small whiting too small to hook).
“The big one’s still swimming, let’s go.”
Small fish are very active right now,like the dreaded pinfish. Using the smaller hooks will help.I use eagle claw long shank hooks size 6.You can’t set the hook when using circle hook.Refrozen works but I prefer fresh shrimp.Mono double drop rig. 1 to 3 oz. pyramid weight depends on the current.Equipment fine.
Frozen shrimp is OK when the fish are feeding. But don’t buy the crap that’s a solid frozen chunk! It is too mushy. I’ve used, in a pinch, the bags at the grocery store, shell on is important. Just use a small j-hook; #6-#2 assuming you’re not using a fish finder rig with a long leader. Cut shrimp in half or thirds and double hook. In one side out the other then BURY yes bury the hook point back through. And the smaller fish are very active in the surf right now Whifting and Bluefish, don’t think I’ve ever caught a Pinfish in the low country surf.
It’s not a piece of shrimp, but you get the idea. That’s a #2 eagle claw 84, my go-to hook.
This is what I was catching yesterday…silly fish. And no…it hooked itself. And was promptly chopped up. And caught more Whiting and Blues on Whiting chunks! That is a 6/0 3x circle.
One day when fishing off a pier, I caught a bull whiting on a cut finger mullet.
Jalen Abraham
Some times they will key on cut bait.