Occasionally in the late summer or fall we will come across sailfish balling small sardines offshore in 200 to 800 feet of water. We have had times when we found these fish and had a live well full of big goggle eyes and beautiful herring, normally great sailfish bait. The sailfish would not eat these baits. Another boat would pull up to the feeding frenzy and cast out small pilchards or baby blue runners only a couple inches in size and they would hook several sailfish at one time.
We fish live shrimp for tarpon from 50 to 200 pounds all winter long. Now at times the bait shops will have live shrimp that are huge at that time of year. The logic with fishing for fish over 100 pounds is that bigger would be better. Wrong! A medium large shrimp is best for these big tarpon. I would rather have a small shrimp than a huge shrimp for these big fish.
As we head out trolling for mahi, sailfish and wahoo, we put out a spread of medium ballyhoo and mullet, or lures the size of a big cigar or even bigger. We troll for a couple hours and get no bites. The kids are bored to death and our fishing partners are not far behind. On many trips adding a 1/4 ounce trolling feather or two can turn the whole trip around as 3 to 10 pound tuna, bar jacks, even blue runners start bending rods and producing smiling faces.
We are coming into Spanish mackerel season here in south Florida. Small live shrimp, pilchards and even very small jigs can often score a whole lot more of these tasty speedsters than medium size baits on most days. Another event on the reefs in the winter is running into big amberjacks on shallow wrecks and reefs. On many occasions these big bruisers will eat a pilchard faster than a big bait.
So, the moral of the story is that there are a lot of times that a few small baits can produce a big day on the water.
Enjoy the fun.
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