trolling for dinner, favorite lures?

[Palarran]

Originally Posted by Greg4cocokai

Attachment 79675

That is one huge Mahi.

[Curmudgeon]

In the Northeast U.S. I've had good luck with deep diving Yo-Zuris or Mann's stretch divers. That's for bluefish, because even in a sailboat you are usually moving too fast to troll for striped bass.

[GeoPowers]

We nabbed this 36" rockfish east of Herring Bay last Saturday. It was our first time catching one this big. The hardest part was landing it as it was too big for our net and gaffing striped bass is illegal here. Caught it on a cuban yo-yo.

Frank

[mariner36bob]

No fish of the sea can resist white bucktail. My apocalypse lure.
Nice Stripah !

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

In the Northeast U.S. I've had good luck with deep diving Yo-Zuris or Mann's stretch divers. That's for bluefish, because even in a sailboat you are usually moving too fast to troll for striped bass.

Yep, our trolling speed for striped bass (rockfish) here in the Chesapeake is 3 kts, plus/minus half a knot.

Our most productive lures are "parachutes" with shad bodies and stinger hooks attached (see GeoPowers/Frank's second pic) and this year white is leading green (chartreuse) by a factor of 2-to-1 for us.

The Mate rigs ours two leaders to a rod line, and one leader is longer than the other. One group of rods might have a 2-ounce parachute on one leader and a 4-ounce on the other. Another group of rods might be rigged with 3s and 5s. And so forth, so total weight and distance behind the boat controls trolling depth to a certain extent.

-Chris

[GeoPowers]

Originally Posted by mariner36bob

No fish of the sea can resist white bucktail. My apocalypse lure.
Nice Stripah !

Thanks!

"Chartruese is no use, but white is all right"

Warning, fish story!
I was crewing on a boat from MD to the Exhumas this past fall, and we were pulling two yo-yo's- a white bucktail and a cedar plug. We had just crossed the stream, on a nice sunny day with light winds. The white bucktail hit first and the yo-you zinged out line super fast. I was able to grab hold of the yo-yo and feel the weight at the end of the line and it made the rockfish I caught above feel like a panfish. About 5 seconds in my line (100 lb test) parted. Then the yo-yo with the plug hit, and same thing, but that one parted on the steel leader! We decided it was probably best we didn't catch whatever was on the other end of the line!

Frank

[Terra Nova]

Reminds me of the time the fishing was so good that we had to go into the cabin to bait the hooks.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by ranger42c

Yep, our trolling speed for striped bass (rockfish) here in the Chesapeake is 3 kts, plus/minus half a knot.

Chris

It's the same in Narragansett Bay or off Newport neck. You have to keep your speed down. The other issue is that striped bass don't like wire, but if you use gut leaders for bluefish you are going to lose a lot of expensive lures.

The best way to catch striped bass in my neck of the woods is to still fish at night using sand eels ("striper candy").