Fishing with live bait is the most popular way to land trophy fish world wide. Here in Florida the most popular live baits are Goggle eyes, sardines, thread fins and blue runners. During the winter months, we deploy two specialized fishing kites with two baits suspended from each. It’s exhilarating to watch predator fish attacking the baits on or near the surface.
On a windless day, we slow troll the live baits off the outriggers. To make this method more productive, we also pull a mylar strip teaser (which looks just like a bait ball) behind the boat.
When live baiting, we use circle hooks. Circle hooks have a better hook-up ratio that causes the least amount of harm to the fish we release.