This spring will be my first season running my own boat trolling offshore. We’ve made plenty of trips out 40+ miles for the bottom groceries however have never done any trolling. Any advice for the springtime trolling season coming up? Looking for pointers on the Mahi and King fishing as I’ve never done it on my own. We are looking forward to making it happen and have the boat, gear minus all the experience. Would be nice to have some baseline where to start looking for these fish and begin to build my knowledge.
The best advice I can give you is to gather a good crew. Find some guys that know what they’re doing. In the spring its important to find the edge. The place where the gulf stream meets the shelf water. Early season there should be a strong temp change & color change. The colder the winter the stronger the edge will be. When I ran charters I looked for temp change - a rip - birds - color change & structure like a weed line. Who knows - with this cold winter perhaps the yellow fin tuna will show up again
Some basics from my experiences.
It depends how early you start trolling but in March you won’t run into a lot of mahi like you will April and on. In march you can find the tuna and hoos and a ton of bonita. Get out there before the suns up and troll some Wahoo lures both deep and on the surfaces way back. Troll 9 to 11 mph and you will have no problem catching tuna, Wahoo and Bonita and an occasional aj on your deep baits. Anything over 11 and you should switch to high-speed set ups. Put lines in at like 150 or 180 and troll out to the ledge. I’ve had luck starting south and working the ledge north and out to deeper water depending what is going on out there. If you hook up don’t slow way down, just smoothly drop it to about 6mph and reel like he’ll. The best way to loose a Wahoo is slow way down or stop reeling cause your arms are tired. If you feel like they are getting the angle or slack use the boat to tighten up and straighten up on them. Early season we have good Wahoo fishing because they stack up on thermo lines and when you find 1 there are usually more. Every time I’ve went out early in the year Wahoo trolling I’ve seen schools of tuna or bonita. Last year I saw 20 plus pounders jumping but had nothing but high-speed gear. Look for birds and surface activity. Bring a few jigging or pitch rods and chum ready to go. Throw chum where they were and then pitch your bait or jig out. Let the bait fall and drift naturally, and let jig go all the way down and rip it fast all the way back up. When you pull up on them they dive deep or run. Sometimes they cooperate some times they don’t so don’t spend to much time trying if you don’t get any action. As for kings idk much but I have been bottom fishing in like 100 near live bottom and the commercial guys are bailing them in but this was winter time. I’ve heard more than once you can clean up on the kings out there in the winter. Mahi after April seem to start at like 150 and go as deep as you want to go. Look for rips, weed lines and bird
In April they will still be kinda deep. Wait until May and go out to 150-200’ and troll out. When you find something good or get bites, work the area really good and put some fish in the box. Biggest dolphin I’ve ever caught was 50 lbs and caught him in 130’ on labor day weekend. Go drag some baits and figure it out.
