Blues and mack.

[howardrf]

Looking to go out for blues and mack. Please suggest rigs for both.
Help appreciated.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Bluefish it's best to use a wire leader hook rig and depending on the current you may or may not need to add a weight. Watch the chum and if your bait is falling with the chum down the water column this is what you want. If not add some weight by adding an egg sinker above the wire leader swivel.

The fish are sometimes line shy and will avoid baits with wire leaders so you may have to use a mono leader. Make sure and use at least 40 pound mono or you'll get shaved off a lot.

A Mack rig is completely different since it requires multiple hooks tied into your main line and the hooks are tipped with the same sort of plastics you see on Ava jig. For this reason you are better off buying the pre tied ones or you are going to need to know how to tie dropper loops and buy all the supplies to make them yourself.

[howardrf]

thank you

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by howardrf

thank you

You're welcome and let us know how you do....

A few quick tips on Bluefishing

If you are chumming you want your bait to sink at the same rate as the chum this way when the fish come into the chum slick, your bait is right there with the chum and fits right in. This might require you to add some weight but it won't be much so have some small egg sinkers handy.

In order to stay with the chum you are going to be fishing in free spool and letting line out and once you have 30 or so yards out, reel it in and start all over again. Make sure to leave some slack in your line because if there is any resistance you're bait will ride up too high and will not stay with the chum or look as natural.

Fishing this way is going to require you to attend to your rod at all times since you want to feel the bite and if fishing with a conventional reel in free spool, if the fish hits and runs with it, you'll have a birds nest on you hands.

Not a bad idea to bring a spinner set up along with an AVA metal jig to cast to bluefish if you find a patch of working birds. If there's a mad dog bite on, once they get worked up into a feeding frenzy they'll hit anything.