Yellowtail Fishing

[alberto101]

Please chime in on your techniques or favorite ways to fish for Yellowtail. My best success has been to free line a silverside in the chumline until I get a hit. This has given me the best success. Look forward from hearing from the experts.

[Bill Erhardt]

Alberto....... I don't know where you are fishing, but here is a photo of a Pacific yellowtail, which is in the jack family that also includes roosterfish, amberjack, Jack Crevalle, etc., that I caught a month or so on a fly-lined mackerel. I think that there may be an east coast version that is a different fish. West coast yellowtail are usually caught on mackerel, or some other baitfish, fly-lined or with a sliding weight above the hook, or on iron jigs. I've never heard of anybody chumming for them down here, but this year fishermen have been scoring well by getting bait down to where the fish are holding with downriggers. This one I released after a photo op. since I had long since loaded up everybody I know with fillets.

[alberto101]

Bill,

Sorry I should have specified. I fish out of the East Coast. Hollywood Florida to be specific. It is definately different than what you have pictured which is a beautiful fish. The one I speak of is yellowtail snapper.

Thanks,

[deltarome]

We anchor over wrecks or other structure where the snapper hold up.
Then release chum down deep to get the fish stirred up. Also start chum on surface. After about 20 mins, we free line a shrimp on a 1/16 oz chartreuse jig with tiny hook back into slick with bail open on a spinning reel. use 3' of 20# fluorocarbon leader.
Also small hook hidden in piece of bonita or shrimp free lined back into slick.
Have at it!
Best time is on full moon at night. the bigger snappers are too smart to hit bait during day when they can see the leader and hook.

[hickspic]

we fish out of ft lauderdale/port everglades. pretty much follow the same techniques. I have never tried using a chum bag deep. Will give that a try. One thing that I have found that works when the current is too strong to get the jigs down enough for the yellowtail bite, we will make a ball of oats (cheap store brand and slighlty damp to form a ball) about the size of a raquetball. I will form this over the jig and silverside. This gives enough weight to get the jig down
after a minute or so, the oats break up and expose the jig with silverside.

[UrbanRenewal]

All the above. I feed glass minnows back into the chum slick and drift a silverside back on the hook. The glass minnows are a lot cheaper to feed to the fish. I also am a fan of small circle hooks while yellowtailing. Let them start to run, engage the reel and your hooked up.
One caution about dropping a chum BAG to the bottom. I tried that once, hooking the bag to my downrigger ball and lowering it. Had an godawful hit on the downrigger, started peeling off cable and thankfully let go. Cranked it back up and a shark or big cuda had shredded the bag!
Lesson learned: Use a chum cage if your dropping it deep

Tom

[reelclassic]

We will also use the same as above but will get a bucket of sand and mix with the glass minnows and make the "chum Balls" with that the sand will allow them to sink and drift a little below the chum slick! Also bring ALOT of chum!