Went to Station 16 early Saturday morning (~7:00 AM) and the entire beach access was underwater. I initially thought I could make it through but decided to turn back when my bucket started floating off my cart!
Went over to the fort and fished right down from the parking lot beside the big rock groin. I haven’t fished there recently but seems like the sands shifted a lot during the storm. Fished til about 11:30 am when the beach filled up. Caught 5 nice size blues using fresh mullet (whole and cut) but not anything else. One got ahold of my finger and left a nice bite mark.
Just curious, how do you all hook your whole live finger mullet? I’ve tried several ways but seem to get robbed very frequently.
Years ago I made a rig that had a trailer hook about 2 inches or so behind the main hook. I would put it in the back end of the finger mullet. Now if the blues are biting, I use a white bucktail jig tipped with a short strip of cut mullet. Gotcha plugs and spoons with a single treble hook on the back end will catch blues too.
Cut them in half, put the tail section on the hook first. Thread the head part on and run the hook point up thru the mouth or out the side of the head. Holds up pretty good during long casts. But Blue fish are expert hook cleaners, with narrow mouths. And agree with Mr. Taylor, make some short stingers with trebbles? I’ll make one up and take a pic…be right back…
Dparker, that looks good. I’ve had so many blues bite off the tail of my bait and swim away. I’ve started hooking them up through the jaw and through the eye. I’ll then pull the hook through and put it right in the belly in front of the anal vent. I was worried that might create more gut hooks but it hasn’t happened yet.
When I go shark fishing and am targeting whiting and blues for bait I use squid, people often tell me to use shrimp and I agree with them if Im looking to get a variety of fish because the shrimp is better for that, but when I need the whiting and blues for bait specifically the squid works really good because they can swallow the little rings real easy and arent given the option of biting off half of the finger mullet, cant tell you how many half finger mullet come back or just the heads, they seem to know how far to bite and get away with it, you can apply this logic to shrimp also put a small piece of shrimp on and make them take the whole thing then its easy for them to swallow, you still get a good variety as well, but Im sure plenty will disagree with what I said but it does work when targeting whiting and blues, Ive also caught reds on squid as well by accident , but small cut shrimp will yield just about anything. If going for reds I use big chunks of mullet or crab on larger rods, the reds will also hit chunks of whiting or blues as well if you catch on smaller rods cut um up cast out, then go back to using your shrimp on smaller sets and keep the process going, it does work, but during the the big red run I just use 3 big rods with mullet or crab casted one left and out ,one right and out and ,one center and out at whatever distances you choose , and go out with bait already on hand, but so many different ways to go about whos to say whats right and whats wrong, this is just my personal preference, try them all and stick with what you want and what works for you, good day surf or fish.
P.S. not questioning Mr Parker and Mr Taylors methods as they were slaying um while I was still in diapers, just putting out a different option, its always good to have options so you can try other things when something isnt working.
This is from someone that hasnt been fishing in 3 years . Take it with a grain of salt
Fishing from boat in Broad river I used squid almost all the time I have missed a few probably . We always used Squid , have caught Reds , Whiting, Toad fish , Shark , Cobia, Trout, Black fish, Grouper , Blue fish .
We used the smaller Squid because it holds up better . We normally get 2 pieces per , body and head .I cant remember how many fish we have
caught with 1 piece somewhere around 5 or 6 .
