To Outrigger or Not to Outrigger

[SteveK]

This follows up the lures conversation. Our experience has been to not bother with outriggers. We get 90% of our hits right in the wake. The additional hassle of outriggers has not been worth the trouble. I think they are overrated and only plausible for charter boats looking to get maximum hits when the have six customers or more on board. How many dumping reels can two or three guys handle anyways?

[josko]

I've been asking that question of some competent skippers this week, and the answers seem to be consistent: you don't troll lures, you build spreads, and that means considering how a straggler fish would behave if trying to carch up to the main body. It seems we all have the inside spread right, in that it looks like stragglers behind the main body (propwash). Our mistake with outside lures has been towing them too far back, without a meaningful relatuionship to the rest of the body. I did have great luck with FA/bonito in the sound by trolling the outside riggers so they're on the surface of the first wave. At the time I didn't have inside riggers set up, but they were placed well wrt the inside lures, and indeed got most hits.
We'll mess with pulling outside riggers much closer next year, and perhaps trying to add some depth to the spread.
There are some folks here (Bahamas) who swear by the far-back shotgun, and others who don't bother. It seems to be a way to snag a fish or two that woldn't approach the boat, but fell in behind anyways. I think it's got nothing to do with the school hits, but is just an insurance policy for the boat.

Was planning to go offshore some this week, but bonefishing's been just too good :-)

[backman]

<P><FONT color=black face=Verdana,Geneva size=2>boy oh boh - our response to the deep spread not working was to dump it out a few more waves which sounds like was the wrong way to be doing things; instead we should have been cranking them in a wave or 2.</FONT></P>
<P>Only question is how we are going to manage 9 lures in a much tighter spread.</P>
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