What fish attack first, the all-important stinger chase bait

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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.

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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

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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.