What fish attack first, the all-important stinger chase bait
by Captain Mike Fisher
Called the stinger, because of the hook, or chase bait due to its trailing position behind the bar. There are a few important considerations in making your choice of stinger/chase baits. This is the only bait that you want to be different; it has to stand out from all the other skirts on the bar by color and/or size. But don?t go to extremes where size is concerned. I found that identically sized, but different colored stinger/chase baits work better than large ones when the tuna (albacore and yellowfin) were being selective in their feeding.
Don?t put that stinger/chase bait too far behind the Bait Ball Bar on a long leader, if you rig one yourself. I recommend a total length of 18 to 24 inches between the ball bearing snap swivel under the last skirt and end of the stinger/chase bait. When a school of predators rise to the image the bar creates, you need the stinger/chase bait where they can see it to select it.
The skirts on the Bait Ball Bars are spaced in a uniform pattern; if you watch a ball of bait they establish a uniform distance between themselves as a matter of survival, safety in numbers. If you were a baitfish, and you were swimming within the school or bait ball you?re safe, swim outside the group and you and your scaly little butt winds up in the gullet of a predator. Hey, that?s just where we want that stinger/chase-bait to be! Interrupting the uniformity of the group with a change in color, size and the increased distance between the last skirt and the stinger/chase-bait marks that plastic straggler as the first stop in the feeding spree.
Can't wait to see this work at sea,
so far no joy but i am still confident that something will bite at it.
FIN
Curious to see what happens with the bigger fish, what we can say is that with Albacore so far no joy with a hookup. Maybe as an attractor.