Lures for Bluefish and Spanish Mackerel

[Woody213]

I am looking at going trolling for blues and Spanish mackerel this year. I have read spoons are good as are Gotcha Plugs. I plan on picking some different spoons up. What sizes should I be looking for? Im probably going to grab a few Clarkspoons and Kastmasters. With the gotchas theres even more options.

[bluefish69]

Woody Where are you? I'm in N.Y. & fish out of Brooklyn


Mike

[Woody213]

Portsmouth Va. Im an upstate NY boy originally. Grew up on Seneca.

[thorhammer]

Gotcha wont "work" trolling; its designed to be jigged.  000, 00, 0 Clarkspoons are the ticket.  Pull  two on planers (0 or 1), 1 long on a cigar weight, and one at 30 yards on six feet behind a bird.

[bluefish69]

Up here we will start 4/15 when Striped Bass season opens. The boat I fish is too big to troll [110'] so we either Jig with 3-4oz. or use 5-7 oz. spoons. Both are casted under and from the boat & retrieved at a speed that works with practiced over time. Striped Bass are a slow retrieve & Blues are faster.

[MarkT]

Why can't you troll from a 110' boat? I troll from the Excel just fine and it's 124'.

[bluefish69]

I have seen up & over 100 Passengers on the boat. I used to do the Galley on her.

Mike

[MarkT]

100 on a 110' boat? Ouch! That sounds like elbow to elbow all around the boat. Couldn't have more than probably 5 people trolling at one time. On the San Diego long range fleet they all they troll with one 5 person team at a time. They divide the passengers into trolling teams and rotate. That'd be 20 teams with 100 people which sounds scary!

[bluefish69]

On the Tuna Trips they
only take 25-30 passengers but it's rare that they troll. Their trips go 24-36Hrs & no bunks.

Mike

[Cor]

On the Tuna Trips they
only take 25-30 passengers but it's rare that they troll. Their trips go 24-36Hrs & no bunks.

Mike

Excuse my ignorance but sounds like punishment to me if you can't even put your head down a bit.

[biggiesmalls]

Some days in the spring here, you can't even get a boat out off the beach - there are so many people trolling for Spanish. I would hazard to say 90% of them or more are using clarkspoons.They will catch blues as well, if you're trolling slow enough for them to catch up.

I prefer to cast for these fish - much more fun on light spinning tackle than on kingfish rods. We've used gotchas, minnow baits (like yo zuri, rapala, rebel, etc), kastmasters, and small white bucktails all with some success.

Tight lines,
Drew

[Newell Nut]

I cast a 3oz Viking jig from S&G tackle in NY. Kings and Spanish eat them like candy.

[conchydong]

For trollling Spanish Macs I grew up using a number 2 or 3 Barracuda  Reflecto spoon. Luhr Jenson bought the rights and they are now marketed under their name. For casting, a homemade soda straw rig or a gotcha does the trick. I only rarely fish for Bluefish and that is from the surf when they are running in south Florida and I use a cut finger mullet for that.