Running a larger chase Bait

[crash1371]

I have been getting a lot of phone calls from the West Cost,Mexico and Hawaii Charter capt.about running a larger chase bait on a spreader bars. They have brought it to my attention that when other boats are not hooking up they are and with this method.Is anyone else doing this in the GOM or East Cost ?

[north coast]

I run one a different color and further back than most,but haven't tried a larger one . I might this weekend though. The fish just showed here the other day. I can't wait.

[rchanner]

I haven't tried it, but it sounds reasonable....it would be kind of adding another "link" to the food chain if the chase bait was a lower level predator.

[crash1371]

I am a huge believer in "monochromatic spreads" that mimic what really happens in nature and a scene that gamefish hunt for and are attracted to every single day of their lives. Bait schools pretty much universally consist of the same size and color members and there are rarely any "misfits" in different sizes and/or species mixed in. That is why I prefer lure spreads that consist of SuperBars, Spiders, or Ruckus Raisers that have teasers that are all the same exact color and size. And if I am trying to immitate another pretty common scene, other, smaller predator fish chasing the smaller teasers, I make them all the same size and color (as each other) because the predators travel in like sized schools too.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that monochromatic spreads like this raise and catch far more multiples of tuna, dorado and other pelagic school fish for us than any other lure pattern or combination that I have ever fished with. And having fished hard and with an utter dedication to experimenting and learning for over fifty years now, there are few, if any, that I haven't stacked up against the monochromatic ones. In fact, starting way back when I started running the matching spreads, I have always considered a one or two or even three fish stop a negative that I caused by doing something wrong, like pulling back the throttles before we were completely covered up. With this kind of spread, when the first fish' hit and the rest of the bait pods keep "trying to get away", the rest of that school of tunas or whatever reacts instantly with the kind of savage, competitive, natural instinctive strikes that result in the other thing that I love about this kind of spread...explosive surface strikes across the entire pattern. Eeehaww!

And you know what? If you maintain your cool and someone in the crew starts sprinkling chum - chunks being the best for me because they can't swim off with fish chasing them like the live stuff can - into that big school that has been attracted up into your wake looking for something to eat now that the bars are gone, many times you can get the finest kind of bait stop going too. 'Course, ya gotta crank them troll fish in first and keep chunking steadily. No rest for the wicked, ya know?

And need I say that if you are like many nowadays and you don't piss away a bunch of money on live stuff that may or may not live and that may or (likely) won't be the same as what those offshore fish are eating, you can use those bars that you pay for once for literally years and save a huge pile of cash to boot. (Go ahead, do the math!)

Small baits are universal and begin the entire oceanic food chain. That being the case, were I starting out I'd run Meatball Bars or Meatball DaisyBars with either 3 or 4" teasers on them and the same size, but different colored chasebaits. I'd "cover the waterfront size wise" by also having some six, nine and twelve inch chasebaits ready to snap on those bars with the little teasers on them if the bait that day happened to be bigger stuff, or it's between tide bite times and I wanted to turn on some aggression and competition bites from fish that are no longer feeding, but that simply can't stand letting some smaller predator fish "chase bait and feed, right in front of them" and hit it to kill, not eat it.

If you are more comfortable having a bit bigger bars, the six or nine inch models will get the job done for you, but the little ones will beat them if the fish are on the little baits, which they so often are out here. If you do get a couple of bigger bars, run them shorter than the small ones.

As far as colors are concerned, I am an utter outlaw and to many, madman. I am a lure manufacture and as such have a wide variety of top colors to choose from, but give me some "black and...purple, green, or red" ones and some "white and...pink or blue" ones and I am happy as a clam and I will load the boat, as long as I follow the first rule of fishing and fish where the fish are first, and that I washed out the belly of the first fish we catch and match the size of what he's eating in the second.

It ain't rocket science and it makes sense if you stop and think about it.

[welder]

Bigger Baits you say...........I say make them to order and I'm talking 24" to 30 " With a jig head the size of a large softball .

Spreaders with 12" to 16" teasers .

[crash1371]

Bigger Baits you say...........I say make them to order and I'm talking 24" to 30 " With a jig head the size of a large softball .

Spreaders with 12" to 16" teasers .

I do make the 12" bars and Daisy chains are big sellers up north on the east coast Va.up wards The Idea of cutting that first fish open and seeing what they are eating is the ticket of knowing what is it that they are eating size does matter in this regard My friends have been telling to think out of the box i have been experimenting with smaller bars like 6" running a 2 drop or 2 lines on it Fred Archer is one of the leading pioneers in this field and those are his quotes

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/superbar...ning/1273345043

[bluetech]

We build spreader bars for bluefin tuna, both 36" and 48" bars. We always put the next bigger size squid for the stinger. For instance, if we are running a bar with 11" squid we have a 13" stinger, etc. The stinger is always bigger and a different color than the rest of the bar. The same principle applies with a tuna train. The daisy chain part is buit with 8.75" bullet nobs and the stinger is 11.50" long. Works great on big bluefin as well as schoolfish and yellowfin.

I also built a squid daisy chain for a marlin tournament I fished in May that consisted of 4 - 13" hand painted Japanese shell squid for the teaser and a 21" hand painted shell squid for the hook bait all on 400lb Momoi X-Hard with the double 12/0 hooksets being on 500 lb Momoi. You see that rig swim at 7 knots! Pretty looking swimming through the water.

[jamisjockey]

I can't speak to tuna lures, but its not uncommon to run a larger chase bait when Striper fishing with a dredge, daisy chain or umbrella rig.

[crash1371]

Capt. Fred Archer Quote yesterday --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for the kind words, gents. As far as West Coast albacore (and yellowfin, bluefin, bigeye and other species) are concerned, let me take a little bit of time to discuss them here. I'll try to not get too windy.

First, let it be noted that albacore and other tuna species spend a great deal of time feeding on very small baits and they can and do become very much fixated on those little baits and can be very hard to catch on lures or live baits that are too big. The books show much of this bait, taken directly out of the guts of actual tunas, and compares it to the hollow squids that we use to imitate it. That bait is universally small and cutting short the scientific jargon, the tunas feed on this, the very same bait that whales feed on, for the very same reason - it is very high in protein value and is hugely abundant and easy to catch. Neither the tunas nor the whales have to burn up great deals of energy, like they do if and when chasing after the much faster, bigger fin baits and bigger squids.

A recent study by a marine biologist who studied albacore stomach contents specifically for a long period of time noted that something on the order of 85% of their prey consisted of marine animals from three inches and down.

The problem - and the potential - lies in that size thing. Boiling it down as much as I can, that means that tiny lures like little jets and feathers, while they will catch some fish that manage to spot them spread out in a spread, actually do a lousy job at getting the attention of any tunas, to say nothing of entire schools of them. That is why I wrote in the quote made on that other poster's post that, "if I only raise singles or doubles, I know that I am doing something wrong. Tuna travel in schools and when you raise a school to your lures, if they are the right ones, every rod should get bit and does." (How to handle and catch up to eight or more tuna multiples is explained in the books.)

The best way to do all of this is by running small, lightweight, easy trolling, composite spreaderbars rigged with natural looking "pods" of small, hollow squid teasers that "match the hatch" as far as the size of the small baits the fish are zeroed in on. As noted in that other quote, make them all monochromatic and pack as many of them in your pattern as you can and you will reap the rewards with multiple after multiple stops.

We call that type of bar a "Meatball" bar and we make them with squid sizes running from 3 to 9 inches long. The 3 and 4 inch versions are the most popular for albacore. There were three albacore tournaments that we know of out on the West Coast last year...Meatball Bars with small squids won two out of three of them (Captain Bud Hosner on the Grady "Seelicious") and in one, five of the top six boats did it with them. We are grateful and naturally, proud and thankful for that because it pretty much says it all, I think.

Please check out our website and online store at www.fredarchersworldoffishing.comand take a look at the videos of Meatball and other SuperBars running. I think that you will like seeing how light, easy to troll, and tangle-free they are. If you have any additional questions, our Chris Young (email addy on the site) knows our bars backwards and forwards.

Sorry to have taken up so much time here. And thank you again for the kind words, guys. Making you happy and helping you catch more fish is what myself and those who work with me are all about.

Now, catch fish, send pictures with them and the lures, and you just might wind up in a book, on a book cover, or in a magazine article!

__________________

Author of Pro's Guide to Catching Dorado on SpreaderBars, Spreaderbar Bible, Wahoo Bible, Bigeye Tuna Troller's Bible, Best Marlin Lure & more.

[Ice Cream Man]

TimW Texas ...... you sound & write like Capt. Fred Archer ???

Are you one & the same ????

What about The TOAD ????? my favorite chase bait, that I never get to use ....... ...... ICM