A
blue water torpedo, we catch these guys right up to the
mouths of the passes. Some of them probably come on inside
with their first cousins the Spanish mackerel though I've
never caught them there. They show up in mid summer weighing
four to five pounds and by the late fall ten to fifteen
pounders have joined the fun. They are classic pelagic
fish, roaming freely all depths of the blue water. Large
schools herd up bait and strike savagely causing white
water blowups you can actually see for miles. So can the
sea birds so we'll sometimes cruise the blue looking for
birds or explosions. Normally girded with eight and ten
weights we'll pitch minnow imitations into the schools.
Boat control and technique go along way toward insuring
success. We found you probably shouldn't just run your
boat right into the school and shut down. We'll often
have better success running parallel to the school then
getting out front, cutting the engine to idle, not off.
Then we hold our casts until we see an albie actually
blow up on a ball of bait, cast to the spot and don't
strip. Don't worry about setting the hook. The average
albie is quickly on his way toward the Panama Canal. We
have seen good (but not premium) fly reels just come unglued
after one or two of these scorching runs. Expert and very
experienced fly fishermen can stop one of the rockets
with six weights and get them back into the water without
fighting too long. The small flyrods are not recommended
though in order to better protect the fish.
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