Offshore Fishing

Featured in Fall Edition of The South Florida Sport Fishing Magazine
Captain Ralph Piñeiro

Follow these 6 tips to increase your catch!
You’ve probably heard of the 10-90 rule. It is said that 10% of the anglers catch 90% of the fish. Practicing the following few tips you too can join that 10%.

LIVE BAIT:

Never go offshore without live bait. There are only a few times when we don’t use most of them and return with baits. Each and every trip we like to use a few gadgets, lures, and lots of jigs, but the one thing we always have is live bait. Sometimes, Pilchards, Gogs, or live Ballyhoo are hard to come by. In those cases a few pinfish are better than no live bait at all. Before you start talking bad about pinfish, let me tell you that besides being one of the hardiest baits out there, we have had success with a variety of offshore, reef, and wreck species using live “pins”. The most memorable catch was a potential record sailfish caught aboard my previous boat. That large sail was 99 inches from lower jaw to fork. He took a pinfish suspended from a kite. It was released at the angler’s request, but I like to think that when we catch him again, he’ll be 100 inches long or more!
You can catch pinfish at almost any grass flat or inshore reef. Put out a bag of chum and bait some small hooks with squid. You can use shrimp, but squid is harder to steal especially when you have inexperienced anglers on board. They are easy to keep alive even if your boat doesn’t have a livewell. If you don’t have a livewell you can buy a portable one or make your own using an old cooler or bucket. Use a small bilge pump or battery operated aerator. You can also keep a few small pinfish alive in a large bucket with an O2 tab but you will have to change the water often. Take my word for it, eventually you will want to have some sort of livewell.

RUN & GUN:

I prefer not to troll. Trolling eats up a lot of time and is sometimes too boring. We prefer to “run & gun”. Run offshore looking for working birds, “floaters” (boards, trees, drums, buckets, dead bodies, bags full of money, etc.), or large weed patches. In other words, anything that might seem out of place out there. When you find the fish, catch them until they stop biting (or you have enough), rinse the boat, give high fives and run out for more fish! We have never found any dead bodies or bags full of money but after all, this is Miami, so anything is possible. Last week, two tourists found $80,000. in a small bag offshore. Whoever said money doesn’t grow on trees, didn’t know they sometimes grow around Sargasso weed.

THE BIRDS:

Next, let’s cover birds. Most people know about circling frigate birds. Reality is much different. Small terns and other birds are encountered much more often. I see so many people run past one or two “working birds” so often that it would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Little do they know the fish that they are passing up. “Working birds” are not the ones flying around looking for stuff. You want birds (could be one or many) that are hovering very close to the water, or circling and dipping their beaks in the water. They are picking fish scraps provided by dolphin and tuna which are feeding on small baitfish or flying fish.

DOLPHIN OR TUNA?

Next you need to be able to tell the difference between dolphin and tuna schools by looking at the birds. Stop your boat a couple of hundred yards away for a minute and study the birds. If you approach a school of tuna you will spook them! Normally birds on feeding dolphin will be hovering really close to the surface or making small circles and dipping. Also, the school will move relatively slow. Approach the birds (but don’t run through them), stop the motors and throw a jig and/or a live bait under the birds. After hooking your first fish, keep him in the water until you hook another. By always keeping a hooked dolphin in the water the remainder of the school will stay interested.
Birds that are following tuna will generally act in the following manner.
There will probably be many more birds than with dolphin (sometimes as many as 50 or more). They will be moving faster and flying a little higher, 20-30 feet high and swooping one after another over one spot on the water. Another difference is that tuna bust the surface with big splashes, and a lot of times jump out of the water making them easy to ID. This is the only time I troll. We Put out a couple of feathers or small lures like a Billy Bait Mini-Turbo Slammer way back, say about 100 – 150 + yards back from the boat. Run the boat fast and run around the school then turn to one side or the other so your lures pass over the school. Hookups should be fast and furious. If there is another boat nearby whose anglers might be a little less experienced (e.g. they are trolling right through the school) reel in your lures and leave. Neither of you will catch anything while the other guys are spooking the fish.

WORK THE FLOATER:

Check every floater! I like to say that you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince. Real good looking logs may not have any fish under it, but a 2 foot piece of two by four (2” x 4”) might hold the mother load. When we find a “floater” we pull close, but not right next to it and throw jigs first or maybe live bait. My favorite is a 2 ounce white bucktail jig called a pilchard jig. The erratic swimming action of this jig will make any dolphin under the floater come out and chase it even if they are not hungry. When you see the school next to the boat, you can then use cut bait to catch them (especially if you don’t have that many “livies”). Make sure that you pitch out at least one live bait and always remember to fish a bait deep. I like to use spinner outfits loaded with 20# test. If you have experienced anglers onboard you can use 12, 8 or even 4-pound test and even fly rods. I consider a double line (Bimini Twist), and 50-pound quality fluorocarbon leader a must! Depending on size of your live or chunk baits, add a 3/0 or 4/0 bronze extra strength live bait hook (like Mustad 9174 or equivalent) and no other terminal tackle. Try to keep one live bait far away from the smaller schoolies in case there is a big dolphin lurking (and many times there is). Tripletails floating next to the board can be caught on chunks of ballyhoo, squid, a small white jig, or even live baits if the Triples are really big.

Mr. WAHOO

Finally, always check every floater for leftovers. Even if you see that a boat just left it. Remember the 10 –90 rule. 90 % of these people are not as experienced as you.
They might not have fished the “floater” thoroughly. You may be able to pick-up a couple of additional dolphin with the jig or with a live bait. More importantly is to check for wahoo. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve picked up one or more wahoo, or a big dolphin from a piece of wood that some other boat just fished and left. The trick here it to drop a jig or a rigged or live bait down deep, and I mean deep. 200 feet or so, then work it back up through the water column. If there is a wahoo (or sometimes a big dolphin) below, he will attack the bait with gusto. Remember to utilize a wire leader for this rig. I’ll take leftovers like that anytime. Practice these few tips and increase your catch, but please don’t forget to release some for tomorrow’s anglers.