Sails in the Keys

[Chasbeau]

We're heading down to Fla. in the middle of March. Just wondering if anyone had any tips on how to fish the sails. Don't really have the equipment to run kites (college student), so we're mainly going to try and troll ballyhoo with small to no skirts. If anyone has some experience down there with sails or any meat fish i'd appreciate it.

[Sasha and Abby]

We've fished W. Palm with just spinning outfits and ballons, with goggle eyes under them. You can start as soon as you leave the beach too!

Plenty of reds and snook in the river if it blows too hard.

[Sasha and Abby]

Or you can just get a sambuki rig and catch your own bait.

Live bait will get twice as many strikes as dead ballyhoo down there.

[Fish]

If you absolutely cannot use live bait, use the smallest ballyhoo you can find and use a 5/0 hook (sharp) on flourocarbon leader.

[Fish]

Almost forgot to mention, try using a dredge or a spreader bar. These things will really get their attention. You can also use those big bullyhoo spreader bars. Those are the ones with the rubber baits and they are much easier to deal with than the ones that require real dead bait. The ones with twenty or more baits work best. The idea is to make a lot of commotion and put a bait with a hook in it about five feet behind the dredge or spreader bar. Set up two of these, one off each inside outrigger and then fish two long lines off your long rigger halyard with an eight inch section of light wire trace from the hook attached to flourocarbon leader via an albright knot. You will see more kingfish and wahoo on these baits and you can add a chin weight to these if its rough.

[KRT]

Fishwhistle I'm impressed

[dukmon]

the spreader bars are the ticket for white marlin also.

if you are going to troll you need to keep it kind of slow, in the 5knt range or slower.

[duckcrazed]

Birds are key down there as well. Look for working birds and you will find the fish.

[Hammers down]

I love it---we went from shotguns and ducks just over a week ago to spreader bars, dredges and sailfish this week. I don't know about Fishes Setup for Sails, I've only fished for them with live bait and small HOOs, but his rig will damn sure put the yellowfin in the boat. We also like to use some small spreader bars that we make ourselves. We get the components from Finest Kind.

Ours look like this
o o o
o o o
..o
..o
..o

..l
Ignore the dots, only way i could get it to space
The bottom l in a rigged Hoo about 1.5-2 feet bellow the last squid. The rig is about 1ft. wide and six ft. long including the back hook. We run these as baits not teasers and they can turn a slow day into a great day, all it is glorified daisy chain but it works very well.

[Hammers down]

for anyone interested www.Finestkind.com has everything online.
Master cat. pg. 56-63

[dukmon]

finest kind make really nice spreader bars and dredges. and there is a little tred barta commentary in there also.

i have bought some but like to make my own too.

[Fish]

Several years ago in southern Florida, Chip Shafer was winning almost all of the dead bait tournaments. He and his mate were VERY secretive about their tackle. Eventually someone caught them in the act and found that they were using dredges. Big dredges loaded with mullet. Before that time dredges were not widely used because they are so much trouble. My point is, a dredge makes the difference because it resemble a school of baitfish and that triggers the sail's balling and feeding instincts.

[GRW]

2 years ago the fishing was a little slow when we went. Every fish that we hooked were on the short bait fished tight to the dredge. On our boat we use the bullyhoo ones instead of rigging them fresh. Probably not as good as the real thing but a hell of a lot easier. Downriggers are great for running the dredges if you dont have teaser reels than can handle the weight. Dredges work up here too.

You should be able to catch live bait with a sabiki rig and a little time. There are a few artificial wrecks around that will have cigars/sardines and blue runners. Depending on where you are, and if there is a tournament going on, you can buy live bait, but it is usually pretty pricey. After getting the bait, then just slow troll the live baits like you would live baiting kings. We usually use a light wire circle hook on 50lb flouro. Kites are a pain in the ass but good; you dont have to have them to catch fish however.

Dead ballyhoo will work as long as you use smalls and troll a lot slower that you would up here for T/D/W. Naked is the way to go, though fishing one with a sparsely tied sea witch might bot be a bad plan. Since you are new to it, pulling bally and looking for fish would be a good plan. Oftentimes the first day or so we would be there we would pull bally to locate the fish and then once we found a pod, we would put out the live baits.

Good luck. You should be able to find a dolphin or two to put on the table while hunting the sails.

[Islandboy]

Another tip on the dredges is to use mullet. One tournament boat we fished on had 20-25+ mullet prerigged with small zipties. After each use they would refreeze them. The first time out they brined them very well and then used them for like 5-6days of fishing. When one would get hit, they would pull in the dredge, clip the zip tie and snap a new one on. Even after refreezing the mullet still seemed to swim great. This worked on sailfish and medium marlin pulled from a downrigger.

[Chasbeau]

Appreciate the information everyone, should be a big help.