Live Baits for the Kayak Fisherman

Over the years, I’ve found that all live baits are not for all kayak fishermen. You’ve got your eel guys, your pogy guys, your mackerel guys, your seaworm guys and guys who will live-line anything if it’s small enough and legal. People use what works for them and their style of fishing. The night guys tend to use eels, while the day guys seek out pogies and mackerel. Some gravitate to what is available in the bait store, while others use whatever they can jig up, snag, or find under a rock.

When eels see me coming into the bait shop, they’re like little puppy dogs in a pet store window – they line up and push themselves up against the side of the tank, each begging to be scooped up. Word has gotten out in eel world that if you want to get back to the Sargasso Sea, you’ve got to go with the guy with the orange kayak and the bewildered look on his face.

It probably started four summers ago. I was very happy and content catching decent-size bass with my kayak brethren on hot summer nights on the flats, racing my soft plastics across the surface and waiting for the grab. But on one particular night, it just wasn’t happening, so I just sat there in my kayak, grabbed a cool drink and enjoyed the night. The waves lapping up against the hull, the occasional shooting star, the sounds of feeding fish or distant chatter of a flock of resting sea birds… were all completely obliterated by the call of the eel dragger: “WOO-HOO! Yeah boys! Fish on!” Holding the sizzling drag up the VHF radio for all to hear: “ZZZZZZzzzz…” I watched their kayak silhouettes, bent rods, and pin lights being towed across the flats all night long and felt a tad jealous.

I’ve always been kind of wigged out by eels, but that summer I became determined to fish them. The following day I walked into the local bait store and asked for some eels from the woman at the counter. “You got a bucket?” I looked around like maybe one might appear. No bucket. She gave me a look. I already felt like I was doing something wrong. I left with five eels in my brand new 5 gallon Styrofoam cooler.

I’m the kind of fisherman who has to see it in order to do it, and then see it again. Since it’s usually dark when these guys are fishing eels, I never really got a good look at what they were doing. From what I heard, you just put the hook through the nose and let it go. Easy.

I put my eels in the back of my kayak and launched. Immediately I saw swirls of big bass. I grabbed the cooler, looked inside, and was surprised to see that somehow these five eels had whipped up a slimy froth. I attempted to grab one, had it in my hand, and it instantly squirted out and disappeared into the darkness. Oh well, lesson learned: eels are slippery. I grabbed another and two came out, and suddenly I had eels slithering around the kayak. I reached for one but it was too late – down the scupper hole. Number three was nowhere to be seen. Down to two.

Someone who could hear my angst yelled over, “Dude you need a towel!” and thankfully allowed me to use theirs. Finally able to grab one, I was able to get it on the hook and left it dangling over the kayak as I pulled myself back together. When I was ready to cast, I lifted the rod tip up and looked at a knotted mess at the end of my braid. My eel had committed eel hari kari, twisting itself so tightly in my braid that its body looked a bit like a mangled sausage and creating a tangle that I would find impossible to undo.

I was down to one eel. I looked in the cooler, and there remained my last, lowly, lifeless eel. I tapped his head to wake him up, but he just sat there, limp. I put him on any way, dragged him around all night, and did not get a bump. I’ve tried fishing eels a few more times and have now completely sworn them off. I’ll stick to soft-plastic baits, thank you very much. I hate eels.

Pogies? No thanks. I find myself either watching my line go around in happy circles as the pogy swims unmolested, or getting frustrated by a pogy that only wants to play hide and seek with my kayak. They don’t interest me, and I don’t know how to fish them, and I don’t really want to learn. Live bait is not for me. The tube-and-worm is the only “bait” I’ll ever use. That was until last summer.

Typically mackerel are around the North Shore of Massachusetts until early summer and then don’t return until fall. But last year they were inshore throughout the summer. Early one July morning, as I drifted upon some familiar kayakers fishing tight to rocks, I watched as one by one they would let a mackerel go and within 30 seconds be towed off into different directions by big bass, hooting and hollering all the way.

Okay I’ll give it a try, I thought. As the new guy, I was given the assignment of “mackerel catcher.” I got lucky on my first Sabiki drop and had five mackerel. I handed them out and kept one on my rig, a simple 4-foot 30-pound-test fluorocarbon leader with a circle hook that I placed through the nose of my mack. I paddled out of the channel and headed toward the rocks, then gently tossed the mackerel into the wash. I could feel the mack quiver and swim, and I followed its movements with the tip of my rod. The quivering was followed by more quivering, and soon some frantic quivering, and then a gentle pull of the line followed by a steady pull out to deeper waters…. Ooh, I thought, so this is what it feels like to catch a fish with live bait. This is fun! I let the line come tight and the circle hook set, and for the next five minutes was dragged around by a nice 40-inch bass.

It was really fun! In fact, it was awesome. I’d found my new second-favorite way to fish (I still prefer fishing soft plastics). We repeated this process all morning. We had one guy catching macks, while the others would bring them into the rocks. Several times over the course of the summer and into the fall, if nothing else was working, we would fish macks. We tried to come up with different contraptions to keep the macks alive. A few kayakers would place their macks in some pvc tube alongside their kayaks, with holes drilled into the pipe to allow water to circulate and some mesh at either end. Others would drag homemade bait pens. I preferred to just throw them in a simple mesh bag; I found they did just fine if pointed in the right direction. In my opinion, mackerel fishing is the easiest way to fish live bait. There’s no hardware on the line, just a nice braid-to-fluorocarbon knot and a 4/0 or 5/0 circle hook.

I don’t cast the fragile macks but use more of a swinging cast into 3 to 6 feet of water, or I will slowly troll the mackerel behind me when scouting new areas. I use a conventional reel in free spool and thumb the spool, gently letting out line to let the mackerel swim or let the bass take it without much resistance. Occasionally I’ll give the line a little tug to get him to swim where I want him. Once I feel a fish on, I let him run a second or two, count to three and set the hook. Usually the circles will set themselves, but I’ve seen too many fish end up inhaling the mack when anglers wait too long. I end up missing some fish, but I don’t care – it’s too much fun trying again. The only hard part is finding and staying on the mackerel, but if you have a bag of cat food chum and work as a team with fellow kayakers, it makes for a great morning of fishing.