Proved the tactic of weedline fishing to a few friends this past weekend. Not all weedlines hold fish that can be seen. I have marked fish at 50-60 ft below the patches or weedline and fish were not visible under or around as one would think. Pull up to a weedline, be sure to have bailing rods ready, chunks of bait cut and dehooker ready. drop a butterfly jig down next to weedline and rip it up with a fast yo-yo motion and repeat several times. If there are fish around, most of the time this will bring them up. A perfect jig for this is one of Eastern Tackles Katana jigs in pink color. when the school follows the jig up, and lots of times you will be hooked up on the jig by the time it gets to the top, drop a few chunks overboard and even swish a rod tip in the water. This will get them fired up for a while, but they will sound again, they always do. Repeat the jig process and do this until they turn their nose up at the chunks. Now reach into your livewell and grab a few livies such as small hardtails, greenies/ bar jacks,threadfins, or cigars that you sabiki’d up and thow them out free swimming. nose hook a few and throw them out when the school comes back, this will get them fired up again. Lots of times the slingers are pretty wild and will shake the hooks from their tender mouths, they aren’t big enough to gaff, and a gaff will ruin 2/3 of the meat even if you use a small snake-gaff. Remember, just because you are offshore doesn’t mean you have to gaff everything, a large landing net works just as well 50 miles from land as it does 50 feet from land.
Wanna really have fun, on a slick day, take a few medium action bass rods and some rebel pop-r’s and cast around the weedlines for some exciting fights. Hope this helps.