Among the world's big-game boats, mullet, mackerel, ballyhoo,strip baits and squid probably represent the most popular andeffective natural baits commonly trolled for billfish. You caneasily find all of these in nearly every tackle shop in the States,and some bait companies even ship them around the world toextremely remote hot spots.
Since crews usually feel rather strongly about what baits theypull, most go to great lengths to ensure they have a good number oftheir preferred offerings no matter where in the world they'refishing. In fact, it's common to see an angler arriving in theBahamas, Mexico or any of the world's fishing hot spots lugging anenormous bait cooler through customs at the request of the charteroperation. In some parts of Africa or South America, a convolutedand hilarious discussion follows when some poor soul tries toexplain that "no, this is not food; it's fish bait," and thereforenot subject to some enormous amount of duty and/or import tax.
But the list of effective natural baits shouldn't stop with the"big five." At one time or another I've caught billfish on justabout every fish that swims, including big-eyed mackerel (scad),scaly or shark mackerel, eels, tarpon, barracuda, snapper, grouper,jack crevalle, amberjacks, Pacific yellowtail, kahawai (Australiansalmon), wahoo, ladyfish, queenfish (leather jackets in Florida),bonefish, milkfish, needlefish, houndfish, dolphin, bluefish,rainbow runners, blue runners, madfish, several species of smalltuna (including the exotic dogtooth), and a couple of species offlying fish. If I sat down and really thought about it, I couldprobably add a few more species to that list, especially when Iconsider the baits I've pitched to a fish raised on a teaser. Andif I live long enough, I expect my list to get even larger.
They Will Eat Anything
Back in the 1950s, the University of Miami did a big survey on thestomach contents of Atlantic blue marlin. Researchers produced ahuge list of blue marlin prey that included flying gurnards,triggerfish, nautilus and spiny rock lobsters - although I've neverheard of anyone using any of these as a marlin bait. They concludedthat blue marlin eat whatever is most readily available.
For years I read accounts of finding small billfish in bluemarlin stomachs, but last year in Bermuda I actually got to seewhat we surmised were the remains of a billfish in the gut of alarge blue. The partially digested carcass sported a small bill andmay have been a sailfish, white marlin or even a baby blue. I doknow that small porpoises are terrified of big marlin, and I'veseen pods of porpoise shower like ballyhoo when a big blue came upon them from behind. I have no doubt that big marlin eat smallporpoises and dolphins when they get a chance.
Toughness Counts
Once you've traveled out of range of the local bait shop, thereare several things to look for in a good substitute bait, anddurability probably ranks as the most important. A tough-skinnedbait that lasts a long time without washing out is always high onthe deckhand's hit parade, and with good reason. With baits alreadyhard to come by, you don't want to end up replacing your substitutebaits every five minutes. Any fish with a flat-sided body shape ismuch easier to make swim than one with a round body shape. If youwant your flat-line bait to swim deep in the wake or behind ateaser, pick a baitfish with a compressed body.
The big-eyed mackerel scad, which most crews call simply a scad,represents the all-time favorite marlin bait in Cairns, Australia.You can catch them in large numbers, they freeze reasonably well,and their compressed body shape makes them a great swimming bait ifrigged properly. The only negatives are their soft, easily cut skinand their overwhelming attraction to toothy critters. They make adesirable bait for just about anything, so I like to call them theSpanish mackerel of the Pacific.
Houndfish, called longtoms in Australia, are plenty tough, andyou can drag them forever if something doesn't eat them. In fact,they usually don't last too long in the spread since wahoo andmackerel love to cut them into manageable, bite-sized chunks.Marlin love them, too, but the hookup ratio really stinks. Iremember one particularly savage crash strike from a definitegrander, with a resulting backlash that almost cost my angler afinger, and we never did hook the fish.
Houndfish's smaller cousins - called needlefish in Florida,stick fish in Hawaii, and garfish in still other areas - also makegreat baits. As a kid I caught needlefish on small bait strips orsnagged them with treble hooks. I could rig them just like aballyhoo and never had one wash out no matter how fast my old boss,Capt. Johnnie Whitmer, trolled.
Cutlass fish, or "silver eels," share the pros and cons ofhoundfish. And although their extremely compressed body shapeallows them to swim beautifully, the hookup ratio is only so-so.Again, an additional negative is their extreme attraction to thebig mackerel, wahoo and barracuda known to Aussies as the razorgang.
Eels will always have a place in my heart. As a very youngcaptain in the Bahamas, I won my first major tournament largelybecause of our use of eels. I spent a summer working as a mate inNew England after graduating from college and caught my firstswordfish on a large eel. Thereafter I learned that many skippersup north favored using the tough, nearly indestructible smallereels as bait for white marlin.
Our angler in that tournament had 10 thumbs and a knack forfree-spooling when he should have been winding and vice versa. Wemanaged to get shot after shot on our tough little eels, and mostof the time we eventually hooked the fish. Many times after amarlin or a sail stole a ballyhoo and/or mullet, we'd hook up onthe second, third, or even fourth bite on the "super eel."
While on the subject of tough baits, I should mention one of myvery favorites, the Australian queenfish, or what the Hawaiianscall lye. In Florida, we know a smaller relative of the queenfishas a leather jacket. These little buggers have a skin so tough youcould strap one to each foot and walk from Palm Beach to Miami. Butbeware of the sharp, stinging spines on the dorsal, anal and pelvicfins - they really hurt. We hold queenfish very carefully with atowel or heavy gloves and cut their fins off with a pair of heavyshears before rigging them as dead or live bait. Both marlin andsailfish love queenies, and they make one of the best baits on theplanet to use as a teaser for the bait-and-switch or whenfly-fishing.
Bluefish, known as tailor in Australia, are a favorite bait ofAussie anglers seeking big, narrow-banded Spanish mackerel alsoknown as a tanguigue - a game fish that resembles our kingfishpainted with wahoo stripes. In 1971 I caught my first world-recordblack as a captain on a tailor we had rigged on a 30-pound outfit.At 816 pounds it turned out to be much larger than the 400-poundestimate I had made when I called for the 30-pound rod. The bigblack piled on the bluefish bait without hesitation and after afrenzied fight nearly doubled the existing world record.
Since that day, bluefish have always been welcome in my spread,especially when fishing for giant bluefin tuna. (You may have seena great series of photographs that Paul Murray took of a giantbusting a big bluefish alongside the Cookie while fishing off CapeCod.) The bluefish's compressed body shape makes it one of theeasiest baits to make swim. If a belly-rigged J-hook is used,there's usually no need to add lead or remove the backbone to makethese babies swim.
Long vs. Short
I haven't kept accurate numbers to figure out any hard percentages,but over the years it has become obvious to me that hooking fish onlong-bodied baits is harder than it is on short baits of equalweight. Both a long, skinny, 20-pound wahoo and a short, fat,20-pound tuna are extremely attractive baits that are consideredprime fodder by moderate to large blue and black marlin. However,your hookup ratio will be much higher on any species of shortstubby tuna than on a wahoo or king mackerel.
On Australia's Great Barrier Reef, when our most desirable bigbaits like tuna, scaly mackerel and rainbow runners are hard tocome by, we sometimes rig what we have come to call "Frankenhoos"or "Frankenmacks." Here's the recipe: Take one 40-pound wahoo orking mackerel, cut out a 20-pound chunk of its midsection and saveit for dinner. Sew the two ends together with heavy Dacron or waxednylon rigging thread. Take some duct tape and wrap it several timesaround the joint where the two pieces are stitched together, thensew again, through the tape, so the wash of seawater while trollingdoes not ruin your first stitch job. Use whatever rig you arefamiliar with to tie a large hook on top of the wahoo's head, andstart trolling. If a large marlin is in the vicinity, she's goingto eat it.
In Cairns, during a temporary shortage of big baits, we oncerigged a truncated wahoo of well over 40 pounds. Much to the horrorof my client, we put it out immediately after finally catching adozen 8- to 15-pound bonito.
"Why would you ever put that thing out when we just caught allthese beautiful little tunas?" he asked. I replied, "It took Dougso long, and he worked so hard getting it rigged that I don't havethe heart to tell him to cut it off and throw it away."
A few minutes later we hooked a 1,040-pound black marlin on theunusual bait, and that evening we celebrated the catch with twokinds of sashimi - tuna and the 20-pound section we cut out of ourwahoo.
Dolphin, Jacks and the Rest
Dolphin, dorado, mahi mahi - call them what you will - make a greatmeal but just an OK bait. Dolphin actually make a very good freshdead bait, but only on the same day it is caught. If frozen or kepton ice, even if only overnight, dolphin won't last in the spreadvery long before the tail flops off.
Dolphin and rainbow runners both make poor live baits but gooddead baits. Neither fish will struggle or even swim actively whenused alive, and it is not unusual for a marlin to pass up a livedolphin or runner to eat a dead one. Rigged dead dolphin do,however, swim extremely well because of their highly compressedbody shape. My good friend Capt. Alex Adler once caught a bluefintuna over 900 pounds on one while fishing off Cat Cay in theBahamas.
Although rainbow runners make lousy live baits, they are astaple dead bait among Cairns marlin skippers targeting big blackmarlin. Because of their rotund body shape, it's hard to make themswim with any consistency, but juveniles can be used as a smallbait, while large (over 6 pounds) individuals will last for atleast a couple of days of fast trolling - if not eaten first.
I prefer head rigs and circle hooks on both small and largerunners, and with a towing point well out on the nose, even a 15-or 18-pound runner can be used on the roughest of days without aninordinate number of false alarms from tripped outrigger pins.
Atlantic amberjacks and almaco jacks, Pacific yellowtail, andgiant trevally are all members of the genus Seriola and have asimilar look and body shape. They make great baits, and you caneasily rig smaller ones to swim. I've caught marlin on all ofthem.
Two of my favorite big baits are ancient species with unusualmouth shapes that require a little extra care when sewing them up.What Floridians call ladyfish, Cairns captains call giant herring,and they are great fun to catch on light tackle. With a hook sewnonto their heads, they make a top-notch and hardy trolling bait.Like those of a bonefish, the glittering shiny scales eventuallywash off, but the bait is hardy and lasts for quite a while evenafter losing its scales.
Take extra care to sew up the underslung lower jaw, which tendsto gape. If one or both sides of the lower jaw are not closedtightly, they will tend to protrude unevenly and make the baitspin. The fairly cylindrical bodies of ladyfish make them greatskipping baits.
When Marlin magazine recently showed a photo of the smallspecies of tarpon found in Australia (known there as oxeye herring)being used as black marlin bait, we got a few horrified responses,but it is not an uncommon bait Down Under. Unlike our largerAtlantic tarpon, a 6-pound Aussie tarpon is considered full grown,and they make terrific baits. (Noted Aussie author Peter Goadbytopped the fleet in Cairns one year, catching a fish over 1,200pounds on one.)
You can use a belly rig with a very small tarpon when using alarge J-hook, but nowadays I stick to head rigs and circle hooks.Again, be sure to sew the mouth so that it stays symmetrical andremains closed. Because of their compressed body form, small tarponwill swim like crazy if rigged correctly.
Barracuda are a long way from being my favorite bait (exceptwhen fishing for sharks or big grouper), and while I have never yetseen a marlin eat a big one (say over 20 pounds), I still use themwhen I am desperate for a big bait. Small 'cudas, especially thespecies known commonly in the Pacific as sennets or pick-handlebarracuda, make a great bait. In the early 1970s we caught thebiggest marlin of the Cairns season - a fish over 1,100 pounds - ona small, belly-rigged sennet.
Any splashing dead fish will get a bite once in a while,including snapper, grouper and jacks, but before I get to thatstage I'll usually switch to lures. Even for the bait-and-switch, asmall soft-headed lure works just fine. Matching the hatch may workgreat for trout, but for billfish your baits just have to be theright size. And if no big school of bait is around, a marlin willeat just about anything. That being said, if you do run across aschool of small tuna of any kind, I would highly recommend catchingone and putting it out as a live bait!
