What is the Best Bait for Trolling?

Using natural bait is one of the most effective ways to troll. Even spooked fish can be caught with a live bait rigged with a fluorocarbon leader. Live baits such as bonita and skipjack tuna  work very well to catch big game species like Marlin. Cut or dead baits can be used to catch nearly every other species that is targeted when trolling. The best baits are live bonita, skipjack tuna, pilchards and ballyhoo. Dead baits such as ballyhoo, and cut bonita strips will nearly always catch dolphin and sailfish. Cut baits with a teaser rigged with an O’Shaughnessy hook are also common. Keep reading to learn how to work live and dead baits, and why you should add them to your trolling spread.

Troll Slowly with Live Bait

Whenever your plan for the day involves catching live bait, you’ll want to get out early. It takes time to locate and catch baitfish and you’ll need to get this part done before the real fishing starts. Baitfish can be caught with cast nets or hook and line.

Pilchards are a common baitfish caught with a cast net. You can catch wahoo, mahi mahi, and sailfish with pilchards. To catch pilchards, you’ll need to start with baitfish chum. Baitfish are easily spooked so you’ll have to spend some time chumming the waters and let them come to you.

When building your chum slick, make sure you’re building it in a direction that makes the fish come to you. You’ll anchor your boat upstream of the pilchards. The chum line will travel from your boat to the school of baitfish. Over time, the baitfish will travel closer to your boat.

Once the baitfish are close enough to the boat, you’ll have one shot at throwing a cast net on top of them. The baitfish are so easily spooked that you will likely have to start the whole process over if you have a bad throw. Once you pull in a cast net full of pilchards, put them in a livewell to keep them alive. Ballyhoo are very popular baitfish when trolling and can also be caught with a cast net.

Bonito and skip jack tuna are common fish to catch and use as live bait to larger game fish such as Marlin. These are caught with hook and line. Bonito and skip jack tuna are frequently caught when trolling. To catch these baitfish, make sure you keep drag settings light to avoid missing the hookset on their soft mouths.

Sight casting to baitfish is also effective. Use a small lure that looks about the same size as any of the small baitfish you see around. If possible, match the color of your lure to the color of the baitfish as well. Cast your lure out a few yards in front of the fish and work the lure on the retrieve. Once you have caught a skip jack tuna or bonita, keep it in a separate livewell or immediately rig it with a circle hook and let it out as bait.

When letting your live bait out, be careful around the motor and the propeller. The last thing you want is a baitfish killed by your propeller and your line tangled up. Usually when using live bait such as skip jack tuna, as bait for big game fish, there’s genereally only one line out with bait on it. This is because the bait is swimming and could much more easily tangle lines, especially when it starts fleeing.

Trolling at the right speed is critical when live bait trolling. If you troll too fast, you could ake the baitfish dizzy and kill it, which will become an unnatural presentation. Troll as slow as you can go, probably 2 knots, and if you can’t troll that slowly, try bump trolling. Bump trolling is when you put your boat motor in and out of gear repetitively to give it a little power and then let it coast forward.

Along with the speed of your boat, you’ll need to be cautious about how many live baits to put out at a time. I tend to only do one because I cannot control the sideways back and forth swimming that may cause tangles with additional lines.

At the end of the day, if you have baitfish that died, I recommend freezing them. You could even use them as dead bait or cut bait on another fishing trip. Catching your own bait and freezing the dead bait will save you “boat loads” of money.

Before we move on to talking about cut bait, you should know I have an article that talks about the best trolling spoons too. Pair a trolling spoon with cut bait and you’ve got good combination.

Add Cut Bait to Your Trolling Spread

Cut bait or dead bait is quite a bit easier to handle than live bait. There’s no need to worry about keeping it alive, and its much less prone to tangling with other lines in a spread. Squid is one of the most effective dead baits in offshore trolling. It seems everytime I put a dead squid in my spread, it gets hit.

Tackle shops will have frozen cut bait, dead bait, and frozen chum available for purchase. Each of them should be thawed before use. To troll with chum, I recommend putting a 5 gallon bucket on the side of the boat, with holes in the bottom and let the chum gradually fall out and create a slick behind the boat. This will build more attractants towards your spread. I will normally get a menhaden chum, as that’s what’s easy to find in my local stores.  

Most often you’ll see skirted lures with dead bait or cut bait strips attached to the hooks. The skirts tend to be bright colors to attract fish from further away. Once they are drawn closer with the skirt, they’ll see and smell the bait and strike.

Another advantage of trolling cut or dead bait is the ability to drive the boat faster. You can troll with dead squid at speeds fast enough to catch wahoo, or slow enough to catch other species like small dolphin.

While you’re here reading about trolling bait, read my article on the Best Tuna Lures and Bait. Tight lines, y’all!