Monday, 5/16/11 … catching live bait is critical this time of year

No matter what your fishing for, tarpon, snook, redfish, etc., you are often only as good as the bait you use.

And you pretty much need to catch fresh, healthy, live bait fish every day this time of year. Sometimes you even need to catch bait fish a couple of time a day.

Catching the right bait is most often one of the hardest tasks of the day for me and many anglers.  The wind, tides and water clarity are a few of the factors that can determine how many bait fish you end up with in your live well.

The grey back pilchard is the most common bait I like to use for the wide variety of fish in our waters.  I usually catch these pilchards in 3-4 feet of water with an 8 – 10 foot, 3/8 inch mesh cast net.

In the spring, chumming is a must to attract bait.  When chumming for pilchard, I like to have the wind and tide headed in the same direction, preferably toward shallower water.  Time of day and tidal movement are big factors on the amount of bait fish you may catch.

I like to start chumming early in the morning before the sun breaks the horizon.  I also favor stronger tidal movements to carry the chum away from the boat to attract bait fish from afar.   If the tide is changing (at max ebb or max flood), it is very challenging and the bait fish are hard to come by.

If fishing from the shores of Sanibel and Captiva you can often find pilchards running up and down the beaches or around structures like the Sanibel Pier or Blind Pass Bridge (the bridge separating Sanibel and Captiva).

Look for the brown pelicans; they most often find the bait more quickly than we do.  Chum is not required for these areas.  Just look for a couple mirror like flashes in the water and toss the cast net immediately on those flashes.

One more thing to remember is that pilchards die quickly in stagnant or hot water and overcrowding your live well also reduces the quality of your bait fish.  About a hundred bait fish per 20 gallons of water, with a flow of fresh rejuvenating sea water at 500 hundred gallons per hour, would be a recommended maximum capacity.

Go to this link to see some Sanibel & Captiva style cast net throwing instructions I found on the web:

http://www.castnetworld.com/cast-net-throwing.html

Practice, practice, practice!

Fair winds and following seas,

Captain Joey Burnsed ~ call 239-472-8658 or email captjoefred@gmail to book a charter.