Catch More Mahi-Mahi Offshore

Mahi-mahi are certainly an exhilarating fish to catch. They attack with abandon, leap clear of the water, and go utterly berserk when you get them into the boat. And on the whole, they’re relatively easy to catch as far as pelagics go. Still, who wouldn’t like to catch even more mahi?

• If you find flotsam holding these fish, bailing with live or cut natural bait is almost always going to be the most effective way to stack ’em up in the boat. Toss over a handful of just about any kind of cut bait and they’ll go into a feeding frenzy. Then, toss in your hook-bait.
• If you don’t have any extra meat aboard, tie a tandem rig. Bucktails or jigheads with plastics will work just fine. Either way, put a larger lure in the aft position and a smaller one forward, to present the appearance of a small predator chasing even smaller prey. Mahi-mahi are competitive feeders, and often when they see a “fish” chasing down a “meal” it triggers an attack.
• If you’re trolling, put a four- or five-inch pink squid into the spread. Don’t add anything extra or try to dress it up. Then, run it off a flat line just 20 or 30 feet behind the boat. When mahi spot a little pink squid for some reason they just can’t seem to resist, and often even the larger fish will attack it before going after bigger baits like rigged ballyhoo.

One final tip: on rare occasions those mahi will get spooky, and you’ll need to use light leaders in order to get bit (you know to down-size when they repeatedly swim right up to a bait, then turn away at the last moment). If this happens be sure to use circle hooks so you snag ‘em right in the corner of the jaw. Otherwise, their teeth will eventually saw right through your light leaders.