Catch and Rig Ballyhoo | Fishing Offshore Key Largo | Catch N Cook

basically everything there is to do. If you have your hooks, you have the main wire coming out of there and you have your little piece of copper wire that you use to hold your

ballyhoo

, so these hooks are going to instead of sitting like this with one sticking out of the bottom, they will both be on the top and they'll sit like this, we'll give the top a little bit to get rid of the flakes. So, make an incision along the back to the rib, I mean the spine, and just cut along the spine, that's perfect, so now we're going to get our hooks in there.

You want to align this poker with the top. of the belly, who's the lip, so you know, okay, this should go in there like this, so this should go, just stick it in there and in the back you'll just take it way back, just stick it deep in there as deep as may be possible. You can get it, we'll go back up, take the end of the leader tag and stick it across the top of the belly, who's nose, who doesn't want to poke out, okay, it's a hard belly, here, here, there, come on, let's go now like.

The other we will make two loops through the eye socket. Sorry, this thing shakes. I think I'll have to redo it. I'm going to make a professional video inside, in the air conditioning, no wind, no waves, but this is just a little short. overview here for you guys so you know what I'm trolling today, okay and then we'll go down this one time just like the other one, we're just tying this leader, the beak, breaking off the rest of the beak, throw it away and that's it. and this one will be trolling a black and red islander, so I have high hopes for this guy here, wahoo candy, I've put four

ballyhoo

in there, the rest I'll put in a bag and put them inside the cooler so they stay. nice, fresh, cold and usable, I'll keep them there I think I have something here I don't know what it is, sometimes I got into a rock, when they go into the rock like that, all you can do is give them a loosen up and hope they relax a little bit and then decide it's safe to come out, other than you might get out trying to get them out right, I waited a little bit, let's see, let's see what we have here, no, he's in. that rock that's not going to come out broke off my hook unfortunately, but this time I'm using a much bigger hook oh yeah, I've got something here, don't leave it, oh, it came off, I have to get it off the ground, whatever it is , No.

No, no, he's trying to go for the rocks, I won't let you, I won't let you, what do we have here? Looks like another black grouper, oh a red grouper, hey, hey, it might actually be legal. The red grouper has to be 20 inches. Look, he's like 19 and a half, lucky guy, here we go, another big guy, I know there's a big grouper down there, I've been

catch

ing him, but I really want to go trolling. I should stay here, but I want to troll, so I'll send him back there, he goes. I think the key to getting these grouper and lamb around the boat is to just create a good falling pattern of decent chunks and throw yours in there for the big ones to get mad at another grouper. small one another small red grouper there must be tons of them down there come on he's very small but he's still a beautiful beautiful grouper go grow up I'll be back for you man keep going there go yeah I got something else here is that a snapper yeah it looks like a snapper, I shout, yeah, I think I'm going to keep it.

He has an attractive size, oh, slippery, oh yes. I will, if I had to guess I would say 13 and a half inches. Look okay I'll come see you then it's like a 13.6 inch boom I'll take you home buddy a fish in the box today I'm not going home empty handed but the real goal today is not come home to us with a snapper, but come home with a wahoo, no, on something here, hey, another grouper, what do you know, okay, big boy, let me see what we're doing, okay, okay, then you like fish, hey, here we go, another small grouper, there it is. funny, yeah, it doesn't feel like a monster, but uh, oh, it feels good, reeling something in, oh, what we got here, another snapper, a small one, oh, it just shit on me, I think something got into me the mouth, it's okay, it's okay. fish, come on, let's chase, okay, here it goes, I'm

catch

ing a mutton or a grouper every 5 to 10 minutes, but that's not what we're here for today, so even though I marked tons of fish under the boat despite me.

Getting all these hits even though I saw tons of bait fish and stuff, we'll move out to sea and hopefully get something big, we'll put some meat on the boat, wow nelly, it's a little wavy, it's okay, okay, um, you can see it here. on the restart you went from 40 50 feet down to 100 feet and it'll probably keep going down to about 120 feet right here from the blubber edge right out of Taverneer Creek, that's how there's a frigatebird up there. I'd say this is a great place to start trolling, so here I am with a good choice of lures to use.

I want to say a big thank you to my subscriber Richard Stone Dick Stone. Thank you so much. You sent me a huge box of lures for Christmas. Much appreciated. I'm going to troll all the lures you sent me today. Thank you so much. This black and purple islander is what I'm going to put. Wait, where is my belly? Where is my? What did I do with my belly? Who? Oh, there it is, jeez, okay, so the first thing I'm going to do is put this islander on the wire like this, see the belly that's nice and hidden there.

I'm going to twist the top of the wire and make a loop here. So, there we go, there's the loop with some twists, so there we go. I'll be trolling that on the deep drop rod in a second. Well, I have a trolling weight and then normally I would put a little bit of mono in here, a good mono, I guess. shock cord, but not this time and there's my big belly, there's all these little patches of seaweed here, I hope I don't have too much trouble with them, it looks like it's going to cause a lot of commotion, I like it let's say about 100 yards out there 125 yards and I'll hang it here there, let's navigate up to it.

I'll just use a very simple double hook ring with an ultraviolet violet squid skirt and hopefully that will produce I have about two and a half feet of metal leader on the wire and there we go, let it go out and explore the world. Okay, I got my three rods out. If I had a friend with me, I would troll four or five rods, but three. The reeds are already enough for me alone, it's a headache. I see some flying fish in front of the boat and sometimes they scatter here. There is grass scattered. I'm actually marking fish right under the boat, so we're

fishing

. four four to five knots much slower than I normally troll and I must say this is much more relaxing I really enjoy this it is easier to keep the boat in a straight line no

fishing

trips are complete without a peanut butter and jelly sandwich yeah it's been 15 -20 minutes I still haven't gotten a hit so I'm going to quickly check the baits and make sure they are swimming well.

I already see a problem. I'm going to take the drag weight off the screw that way. too much unnecessary bulk I don't need it, who wants a trolling weight? Not me, yeah, get rid of that big, bulky thing. The bait looks amazing. No, wait, just troll, let's see how it swims. I must say, nothing fabulous. That has to catch something. I think it is by far the best bait. The most attractive bait I have ever trolled. This guy also had some algae. Most of it fell right into the boat, but that shows the importance of checking. your lines every maybe every 15-20 minutes definitely don't hurt, it's been another half hour maybe even more and I feel like I'll waste the whole day if I'm just trolling in the same place so I'm going to stagger. all in executing it and shooting it somewhere where this looks more suspicious than this.

I'm going to check the wrecks and if I don't see anything on the wrecks I'll run a little further out to sea in about 250 250 feet of water and see if I can get something there okay 118 feet marking tons of fish finally I went to a different different place ledge a little further north and I think this seems like a good time to start trolling I wonder what's down there. I threw in a piece of bacon or a piece of line herring, but nothing makes it to the boat, so let's start trolling. We're back in the trolling game.

I took out all my rods except this one. Now I took out all my rods. The rubble is here. I'm going to see if he has a fish, see if he wants to eat a piece of herring. No, desperate, I ran about 10 miles, now we are in 320 feet of water, but everything is fine because I sit down. very good with this decision, again, same extension in a different place, there's that chain making a racket back there, yeah, we're on guys, yeah, boy, oh yeah, he's pulling, yeah, come to daddy, come with dad, hey, I wonder what this is in the daisy chain, what could it be if it hits the daisy chain?

It's probably a tuna, if I had to guess, it's got some fight in it, yeah, it's got some fight in it, yeah, oh, yeah, whatever you do, don't go out because I want to at least know what you are. I saw the ship and I wasn't very happy. What is it? I think it's a tuna. It has to be a blackfin tuna. Beautiful colors on this guy, fanned up, okay, turning on the aerator, oh. That wave just crashed here. I'll take him out here. Just cut off the gills so they bleed out really quickly there and then we'll move them to the ice box.

I threw a man overboard where the tuna was. We'll come back and tour that area again, maybe catch another tuna or something else. It was in about 220 230 feet of water, so I'm going to do a big pass around this area and then we'll head out. I'm moving closer and I'm going to try to fish between 60 and 130 feet to see if I can catch maybe uh, I don't know, a special little sunset on the edge of the reef here in Key Largo, 115 feet of water, so what? What I'm doing is just putting it in neutral and I'll let the valley sink for a minute.

I'm going to bring them back up. I'm going to get it going. Yes, it is very windy. I've been, I made some circles on where I was marking all those fish and I just can't get anything, so the sun is starting to set like always. Oh, I just got soaked at that drive-in, I'm a little soaked. but I'm not giving up yet one more thing to do it's time to troll um wait let me take it out of the bag let's go to a plug on the reef hey so we had that medium sized diving plug and then we got this guy right here who It's a little smaller, but it should be good, let's make sure it swims well.

I think I'm throwing up the white flag. I don't want to go back to the field. Damn, I thought there was a chance, maybe I could pick up a grouper, but it will come, I'm freezing, oh man, I'm crazy, home sweet home, well, well, look who showed up, it's swimming pretty fast, I'm following you the rhythm, wow, what a big mess we have. It's there, oh, it's trying to drink the dripping drops that come out of there, how fun the manatee's life is, right there, savoring every drop, so I was about to put the hose away and I looked down, look how desperate there's this manatee, he's just trying to collect every drop. of a dog as if he would do anything for a drop of water this leak in the water pipe is surely convenient for this manatee there is also a natural spring in this marina and that is why we are going to come here to drink the fresh water that comes out of the Spring looks at that and he's getting all the lemon, you're welcome, using his paws to funnel the water into his mouth.

The clean well of the boat. I have a fish farm. I feel pretty confident that whenever I run out, I'll fish with the patriots, but. trolling the bib, where are you? I'm wet and I'm cold so I'm going home to make some hot chocolate so so so so so good what I should have done is scale it before removing the head, but this will work. okay, just take a knife or something, just move the knife against the scale and they will come off like this, that's how it took out most of them, do the same on the other side, we don't go there, there are no more skills except those. a little bit stuck to it so we'll just wash them, there we go, well washed, gutted, washing everything ready for the fryer, the snapper is ready, I'll probably bread it in some kind of batter and throw it in hot oil to fry. that's all I'm going to do with the snapper and tuna, I just have to fill it real quick, that shouldn't take too long, and I'm going to brown it with a coconut crust and breadcrumbs and then just dip it. that in some wasabi and soy sauce and that's the plan so hmm so so uh so oh so hi that looks delicious eh I have a tuna fetish too yeah you're not bad at

cook

ing either buddy that's really good , you put it on top of coconut coconut crust with panko breading, I really squeezed it too, yeah, you always need to add that touch of class, oh