Sportboat Fishing: How to catch Barracuda on iron and jigs
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Loading... - Marta Babic
- 02 Jun 2022
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While bluefin, seabass and yellowtail are still getting the headlines, anglers who fish the ½-day and ¾-day party boats, or from their own boats, are starting to think about that infamous band that rocks their world, the “Three B’s”…bass, bonito and barracuda. With warming water temps and more anchovies showing up for bait than in recent years, the hope is that we’re on the cusp of some fun local fishing.
Each of these three species are great light tackle fish, but the barracuda is known to get more people off their couch and onto the water than the rest. And for good reason. They’re aggressive biters that show up in large schools, attack both live bait and lures and are great on the barbecue.
Barracuda fishermen typically begin watching the fish counts for their arrival at the end of May. In years past, when the barries showed up, there seemed to be a three-day window to the bite. If you didn’t get out there during that time, the fish would move and it could take a while to relocate them or for another school to move in. Timing was key. We’ll see if that holds true again this season.
Memorial Day barracuda blitz
My fondest memory of catching barracuda was when I was in my early teens and used to take the bus to Manhattan Beach Pier. I remember getting off the bus one Memorial Day and rounding the corner to see what appeared to be the entire SoCal party boat fleet and dozens of private boaters right out in front of the pier. I knew something must have been biting wide-open to draw boats from Long Beach to Malibu.
I ran as fast as I could all the way down Manhattan Beach Blvd. and out to the end of the pier, to find anglers hooked up or trying to bounce log barracuda averaging 7- to 8-pounds over the railing of the pier. Easier said than done.
I quickly joined the party, fired out a jig and immediately hooked up, but the big barracuda inhaled the jig and bit me off. I looked for a bigger jig in my box and got bit again. Weaving over and under other fishermen’s lines, I finally had my prize straight up and down.
Then the question was do I attempt to reel it up, hand line it or wait for a net. There was one hoop-shaped landing net on the pier, usually used for the occasional halibut, which was dropped on a rope down the 20-feet or so to the water. The trick was trying to pull your barracuda over it so it could be quickly scooped up, and hope that it stayed in for the ride up onto the pier. Not all of them made it. Some were still too green and shimmied out of the shallow net on the way up.
The other problem was keeping your fish on the line while waiting for your turn for the net. Most didn’t wait and tried to manhandle the fish up from the water and with a mighty heave, bounce the fish over the rail. Not easy to do with an 8-pound log on 20-pound line, as I soon found out. Say goodbye to fish number two, but I finally got the hang of it.
My Dad arrived at noon to pick me up to go to a family barbecue and when I wasn’t waiting in front of the pier as instructed, he came looking for me and saw the pandemonium going on. I excitedly said, “Dad, go home and get another rod! This bite is unbelievable!” He declined but volunteered to clean my four barracuda lying behind me and said then we’d have to go.
Of course I couldn’t just stop fishing and shortly added another barracuda to the cleaning table, and then another before he said in his empathetic Father Knows Best tone, “Sorry son, you’re done for the day. We have to go.” Without the prior family commitment, he probably would have made a few casts himself, but dads have to do what dads have to do. It hurt having to leave in the midst of a wide-open barracuda bite, but it inspired me to want to catch more in the future. Read More...
