Do you love it when kicking mahi are piling up on the deck so fast that a river of red goes running through the scuppers? Of course you do! These five tips will help turn a “normal” day of fishing into cockpit chaos that dyes your socks red.
1. Set up the Bucket Brigade
Most anglers with a few years under the belt know that you can hold a school of mahi by keeping a hooked fish in the water next to the boat. Then you can bail them one after the next. This does work, but there’s more to this tactic than meets the eye. First off, rotate the fish that’s in the water. When someone hooks fish number two, fish number one can come in; when number three gets hooked up, number two comes in, and so on. This works a lot better than leaving a single hooked fish in the water (some guys hook one up, get it close, then put the rod into a holder) because after a while a hooked mahi will over-stress itself. You’ll notice that its color goes from blues and greens to mostly silver, as the fish basically runs out of juice and fights itself to death. At that point the other fish won’t stick around to stay near it. With a fresh fish always next to the boat kicking, however, you can decimate the school.
The second factor to keep in mind is that at any time, a fish might come unbuttoned. If this happens with a rod sitting in the holder you might not notice until all the fish disappear, and it’s too late. But with active anglers swinging in the fish one by one as others are hooked up you know immediately if the fish gets off. That gives you a moment or two to toss out some baits or chunks to keep the fish close by and fully activated until another is on the line.
2. Don’t Shift Around the Fish
With big twin diesel boats the fish don’t seem to care too much, but the metal-on-metal “clunk” of outboard transmission going into gear can freak these fish out. Bailers should pay special attention when approaching weed paddies, floats, and flotsam, so they can shift into neutral and coast into place rather than shifting into reverse to stop the boat’s forward motion. And trollers who stop to ravage a school that followed a fish to the boat need to either stay in gear or not, and avoid going out of and back into gear. Pay attention to the direction of the wind and current and don’t stop in a position that could cause you to blow back over your trolling lines, forcing you to shift back into forward.
3. Think Small
Sure, mahi will hit those tuna lures sometimes as you’re trolling around. But if you add something into the spread that’s sized more to their taste you’ll catch a lot more of them. A simple four- to six-inch pink squid doesn’t look like much, but run on a flat line or short rigger and mahi-mahi will pounce on it at every opportunity.
4. Think Squid
Different baits are popular in different areas of the nation, but no matter where you do your fishing if there’s any one thing that’s for sure it’s that mahi-mahi love eating squid. Added bonus: squid are the ticket to getting bit when the mahi get spooky. Sure, most of the time they eat willingly, but not always—and nothing’s more frustrating than watching a school of electric blue and green missiles reject your baits one after the next. Slide that hook through the mantle of a whole squid, flip it over the side, and the enchanting wiggle of those tentacles is almost always more than a mahi can resist.
5. When Bailing Also Prospect
Sometimes there will be a few larger fish down deep shadowing the main school, and you might never know it if you don’t actively prospect for the fish. Rig up a rod with a five- to seven-ounce jigging spoon, drop it down 100’ or so, and give it a yo-yo-style rip back up to the surface. It’s rare a mahi will hit this spoon, but if they’re down there the big fish often chase it back up to the surface. Then they tend to get caught up in the frenzy you’ve created by bailing the main school. You may go days at a time without anything following the spoon up but when it does happen—and sooner or later it will—this tactic almost always produces the largest fish of the day, so anytime you’re bailing on fish you should have an angler assigned to this task.
Okay: ready to load the freezer up? Few fish make it easier to do so than mahi-mahi, so stuff these tips into your back pocket and be sure to bring plenty of ice.
