Capt. Karl Anderson

This article originally appeared in On the Rip, the magazine of South Jersey Tournaments.

The young crews and anglers coming into sportfishing today know nothing different than dredges, circle hooks and electronics with more computer power than any of the Apollo Space Missions. Of course they probably don’t even know the Apollo program, it is such a piece of history. 

Today, crews have the incredible advantage of space age materials and moon landing like technology to chase and catch big game fish. The evolution of teasers and hook baits has seen an incredible metamorphosis. From daisy chain mullet teasers to the multi-tier dredges of today with natural and or artificial baits of every shape and color accoutrement attached, to hook baits that had large J-hooks and wire to the refined swimming and skip baits we see today with circle hooks and Fluorocarbon leaders.

Little did we know back in the mid-80’s what was about to happen when an innovative captain from Montauk, Capt. Barry Kohlis, had an idea to imitate a school of bait as a teaser. His first rig was a simple four arm striped bass umbrella rig with black mullet. In 1988 or ’89 Capt. Dave Berard fishing on the 48’ Whiticar “Great Escape” saw the rig and made some Stuart bait fishing adjustments to it. 

Berard and his crew had been fishing the standard of the day mullet daisy chains with big silver mullet. They improved upon and adapted the umbrella rig and added a string of 5 mullets down the center of the rig making a trailer. Kohlis and Berard were responsible for the very first iterations of the fish raising dredge. Berard and his crew went on a four or five year tournament crusade winning multiple events going away. The dredge exploded when a guest crewman who rode along for a day couldn’t contain himself and let the cat out of the bag. 

In 1974 Captains Samuel A. Earp and William J. Wildeman wrote a bible for sportfish bait rigging called “The Blue Water Bait Book – Secrets of Successful Big Game Fishing” published by Sports Illustrated. In the 176-page riggers guide the reader is taken through an evolutionary time in our sport when there were great advances being made in tackle, boat design and construction. Crew skill levels were increasing in leaps and bounds as a few of the top guys had been traveling to remote destinations in areas with greater numbers and large fish. 

This travel and “mixing” of crews and regional nuances allowed them to experiment more, share information and hone the techniques that got them more bites and bigger fish. At the time the Blue Water Bait Book was published, it was only eight years since Capt. George Brandsford had caught the first grander black marlin out of Cairns, Australia, the mothership industry was pretty much in its beginnings, and it had only been fifteen years since the first boats reached the canyons from Beach Haven, Manasquan, Atlantic City and Cape May. 

In their segment on White Marlin, the captain’s description is as crisp, vivid and true today as it was then. They open with, “Here is the most frustrating and challenging of all big game fish. He’ll come up behind your baits and move from one to the other much faster than a blue marlin or sailfish, dancing around like he’s crazy or has St. Vitus’s dance. Not knowing which bait he’s going to eat; the angler is kept jumping from rod to rod and back again. Although other billfish occasionally act this way, it is the trait of the white marlin.” And they continue, “As soon as he grabs the bait, he’s likely to spit it out immediately, and then swim over to another bait, and then another. Whites have been known to stay behind a boat for five or six minutes, and then swim off without even eating!”

It is that exceptional ability of the white marlin to frustrate anglers yet completely awe them with their incredible acrobatic displays of cartwheels, vertical jumps, greyhounding and great strength. A classic example of a game fish with wide ranging travels in the Atlantic Ocean from Nantucket to Venezuela and Cape May to Morocco, the white marlin excites anglers as few other fish can, and few tournaments bring in the big money payouts like the white marlin do. 

These days we have the luxury of reaping the benefits of the early crews and anglers many trials and tribulations. We know that ballyhoo will give us a better hook up percentage than an eel. We know we can catch fish with less stress and damage or mortality by using circle hooks as opposed to J-hooks. We know that we can raise more fish to the multi-tiered “dredges” that have become the norm with squid chains over them as opposed to just the artificial squid or natural mullet daisy chains on the surface or the old scoop-faced balsa lure head with nylon hair that was so prevalent in the 1970’s as a surface teaser. 

We know to have six, eight or ten rod and reel outfits ready with two pitch baits rigged and ready to pick a fish off the teaser. We have super advanced sounders, side scanning and omni sonars, radar, high-powered vhf radios, cellular and satellite phone communication, even satellite water temperature data from the night before we go! We have 30 and 40 knot boats with outriggers that deploy hydraulically, we have two-speed reels, advanced technology guides and roller guides. 

We have low density, light refracting and abrasion resistant Fluorocarbon leader material and crimps to match the diameter eliminating bulky knots in the higher test leader.  All these advancements have led to the great catches we see today. When the fish are around, they will be caught in numbers as the efficiency of the captains and mates is only outdone by the technology at their fingertips and the equipment in their hands. 

In the 1970’s and early 80’s out in the canyons it would be typical to see most bait boxes with a variety of baits. A well-known favorite was the squid due their high concentrations in the canyons, the eel was a noted rigger bait, mullet and ballyhoo were imported from Florida and another favorite, the strip bait was routinely fished with a sea-witch. We also occasionally rigged a dorado belly in the Panama bait style when we caught one. 

Of course, to rig those baits, piano wire was the norm and to rig properly you had to know how to twist wire. The haywire twist was used to put loops and hooks on the leader ends. Without proper twist, the wire would unravel, and you lost your fish. Similar to the twists of a coat hanger, your haywire twists should be even and uniform for maximum strength, finished off with three or four barrel wraps around the main wire. A good gauge of how many haywire twists to make was to put as many twists in the wire as its size, so #6 wire got 6 haywire twists with three barrel wraps to clean it off, #9 wire got nine twists and so on. 

Never cut the tag end off with pliers as it leaves a burr that will cut you and catch in your gloves when wiring. To clean it off properly start with the tag end 90-degrees to the main wire, bend the last bit of the tag end 90-degrees making a handle to twist the tag end off close to the main wire. Any self-respecting mate wouldn’t be seen using pliers to twist anything lighter than number 10, It was a measure of pride and skill, and still is for mates to be able to twist wire and do it quickly with neat, uniform wraps. 

Rigging a variety of baits is a good skill set to know and the early crews that fished the mid-Atlantic region became very proficient and they took those skills to fishing hot-spots the world over. The rigging process starts with fresh bait. The acquisition, care and handling are important to be able to take a piece of frozen meat and make it swim like it’s alive. Care to not break tentacles or tails, or mark the skin or thaw incorrectly making them mushy is important for sure. Knowing how to properly brine them also aids in the toughness, nimbleness and longevity of any bait. 

Rigging a ballyhoo has become so commonplace and the methods are so widely used, there is little use to discuss it here. The only real difference is now we use circle hooks off the nose instead of J-hooks out the belly of the ballyhoo, the overwhelming majority of crews use mono leaders, unless a short six-inch trace of wire is added to the mono leader at the hook when there are wahoo around. These same basic tendencies also hold true for mullet, however, we have learned that larger mullet do not have a good hookup ratio, but they sure do attract fish to the dredge teaser where they are overwhelmingly used in single, two and three tiered deployments. 

The eel is a classic canyon bait, it is tough, the elongated body made it a good bait for two hooks and fish seemed to come back to it over and over again, because it was hard to hook them on an eel. The old timers would use a section chain or wire with a needle-eye hook connected and run the chain up the eel’s vent through its body with a rigging needle to bring a loop of chain into the eel’s mouth. A second hook would then be run into the eel so the eye would also line up in the mouth where the wire leader would be run through both eyes and then be haywire twisted together, and the mouth sewn shut with a pair of stitches. They would then often be skirted for color with a short rubber skirt or sea witch and fished from the long rigger or shotgun. 

The squid could be double or single hooked. The single hook rig was started with the hook attached, then laying it next to the squid to measure the bend of the hook to the head of the squid. Using a lead or piece of trimmed cork that would tuck up inside the body at the tip. The weight or cork would then be seized to the wire or mono with wax line so the body of the squid would not slide down to the hook into a ball while trolling. 

Once the distance from hook to stopper is determined, run the leader up thorough the main body and out the tip of the squid, pulling it through until the hook was aligned with the eyes, where it would be inserted through the eyes and the stopper is resting in the tip of the body. Using wax line and a needle make a couple stitches to attach the head to the body, a crisscross stitching is preferred. Then take the wax line and needle and make another x stitch at the tip over the stopper leaving the wax line ends long and tying half hitches from the tip of the squid up the leader to lock it off. 

The double hook squid rig is similar, instead of using a stopper, you use another hook, running it up into the body and pulling the barb out of the body so it is exposed. Now, a series of body stitches will secure the hook inside the squid body and taking a stitch through the hook eye then running the end up the leader in a series of half hitches cleans off the rig , keeping the squid from balling up when pitched or trolled. 

To make a circle hook squid rig, you must sew the head to the body. Then taking a piece of cone shaped cork with a wax line loop coming out the apex, use a long rigging needle to run the cork and loop up though the body pulling the loop out the tip. Now stitch the body around the cork, again leaving the ends long so they can be attached to the hook after the hook is run through the loop and secured. 

The strip bait starts with a good clean-cut strip trimmed from the side of a fresh or frozen bonito. It is a valuable skill to be able to cut a clean strip. Everything eats them; however, they are also known to be hard to hook fish at times. They are equally effective on white marlin and sailfish. There are two ways to rig the strip. The first is easy, taking your bait knife or needle, poke a hole in the strip at the tip. Align the hook so it is run through the strip with the eye lining up with the hole you have cut. Run your wire or mono through the hole and the hook eye, crimp the mono loop or wrap the wire and clean it off. Make two stitches to secure the shank of the hook to the strip. Add a rubber skirt or sea witch for color. 

The other way to rig a strip is to have a re-usable rig with wire. To make it a stiff rig, run the wire through the eye and down and around the shank so that the wire comes back out the opposite way it went into the eye making an x. Make your haywire twists and barrel wraps then taking the tag end create safety pin type end in the tag end and then bend it around the wire and cut the tag to where the wire tag is fastened about the main wire but can be opened to go through the hole of the strip. Once through the hole, put the tag around the wire and the strip is clipped the rig. Run the barb through the strip and make your securing stitches and its ready to go either naked or with the accoutrement of your choice. 

Bait rigging can be arduous, it takes time, but the results are well worth the effort when done correctly and painstakingly. The white marlin will come to your spread and rigging properly will increase your chances of success. A little old school bait rigging always makes a better mate and prepares him for going anywhere and matching the hatch to catch his quarry. Many a Jersey mate has succeeded by knowing these skills and utilizing them regularly.