Trolling helps fight the heat by creating a breeze of 5 to 8 knots. If you are working waters from 60 to 250 feet, then you will want a trolling spread that includes rigged ballyhoo, small feathers, diving plugs and planers. The rigged ballyhoo are frequently replaced by bonito strips by the experts. Bonito strips are cut to the size of pilchards, flying fish and small goggle eyes, and these are the natural baits on the reef in the summer. The ballyhoo or strips are frequently decorated by reverse nylon lures. The best known name is the Sea Witch, but there are smaller better choices. These reverse lures make your strip or ballyhoo look like a flying fish.
The small feathers look like small fish and are targeted by bonito, tuna, school mahi and then shocking to us, a blue marlin or fifty pound dolphin devours that little bait.
Diving plugs draw the strikes from kingfish, tuna and wahoo. A surprise mahi will add some spice at times. These plugs are labeled by how deep them can dive with light line and leader. For this reason troll them on braid line with light fluorocarbon leader or titanium wire leader.
Planers take 3 1/2 Drone spoons or reverse feather ballyhoo or strips down deep into the water column. We like Old Salty 4 to 6 planers. These must be trolled on at least 50 pound braided line. Rig your planer 50 to 100 feet in front of your bait. You must have gloves ready to leader your fish, or track down a lesson on removable planers. The removable planers allow removing the planer and winding the fish into gaff range.
All these baits and rigs work offshore, however we troll faster when out in the deep. This makes planers and diving plugs harder to deal with until a piece of floating debris indicates a high possibility of wahoo. Then we fire out the planer and or diving plug and make several passes to catch those striped speedsters.
Another offshore addition is a large outfit, 50 to 80 pound line and lots of it, with a big mahi colored trolling lure. This lure is trolled close behind the boat to attract schools of mahi and draw strikes from marlin and big mahi.
Good luck out there.
Capt. Bouncer
CaptBouncer@bellsouth.net
(305) 439-2475