Pitch baits can provide pleasant unexpected surprises during a day of fishing

The most successful offshore anglers never leave the dock without pitch baits. Dead or alive, those baits can turn a fair day of fishing into an unforgettable one.

Those anglers always have pitch baits rigged and ready to cast because the baits will catch fish that show up unexpectedly. They will also get the attention of fish that appear when you’re trolling lures or baits but show no interest in eating.

A fisherman might be trolling for wahoo when a big dolphin shows up, but doesn’t go after any of the lures. That’s when a live pilchard or a rigged dead ballyhoo pitched to the dolphin can spark the fish’s appetite. It’s the same for a sailfish, which typically isn’t interested in eating a big lure, but will happily wolf down a live herring.

A live sardine is the No. 1 pitch bait for captain Casey Hunt, with a live threadfin herring his second choice. Hunt, who grew up in Pompano Beach pitching baits out of Hillsboro Inlet, now fishes out of Key West, where he pitches baits to everything from sailfish and blue marlin to dolphin and tuna.

The keys to successful pitching are having a bait ready and immediately getting it into the water when a fish shows up. Especially when a sailfish is hooked.

“If you’re fighting a fish, cast a pitch bait towards him and a lot of times you’ll hook another sailfish right away,” said Hunt, who runs CN-it adventures (www.cnitadventures.com), which offers fishing trips as well as snorkeling trips and eco tours. “Even before you release him, have a guy cast a bait towards that fish.”

The technique works with other species, most notably dolphin but also wahoo, kingfish, tuna, and marlin.

When Hunt high-speed trolls at 15 knots for wahoo, if he hooks one or two fish, he’ll slow the boat and then have an angler cast a live goggle-eye with a wire leader in case there’s another wahoo around.

With dolphin, Hunt doesn’t pitch live baits until the colorful fish make it clear they won’t eat anything else. If he gets into a school of dolphin, he’ll have his anglers start off by casting lures such as jigs to the fish. When the fish lose interest in lures, he’ll switch to chunks of ballyhoo or bonito.

When the dolphin stop biting the chunks, Hunt puts out the live baits. And before leaving a school of dolphin, Hunt has someone drop a live goggle-eye well below the school in case a larger fish is lurking 50 to 100 feet down.

When reeling a kingfish to the boat, it’s not unusual for one or two other kings to show up during the fight, and they’ll usually jump on a live pitch bait.

“If you see one tuna jump in your spread, just throw everything you’ve got in your spread, because the more baits you have in the water, the better,” Hunt added. “We do a lot of that, or we cast popping plugs. That kind of gets blackfin and yellowfin tunas fired up, then we cast baits.”

Pitch baits are frequently used in South Florida when fishing for sailfish. The fish often travel in groups, which is why Hunt always has someone pitch a sardine when a sailfish is hooked.

Other times when Hunt uses pitch baits are when sailfish pop up in a fishing kite spread and when he spots a free-jumping sailfish.

“If you’re sitting there kite-fishing and have a fish come up and look at a kite bait, you can cast a bait to him,” said Hunt, who always has at least one pitch bait in a livewell that’s hooked on a spinning outfit and ready to cast.

Hunt, who kite-fishes with 20-pound Accurate 7:1 retrieve conventional reels, said a 7-foot spinning rod and any brand of reel that holds 400 to 500 yards of fishing line are fine for pitch baits.

He prefers a main line of 20-pound Momoi Diamond or Diamond Illusion. He ties a 10-inch-long Bimini twist in the line and uses an Albright knot to attach it to a 15-foot leader of 30-pound Momoi Diamond fluorocarbon tied to an Eagle Claw 5/0 or 6/0 circle hook. The baits are either hooked through both lips or bridled through both lips so they don’t fly off when they are cast.

While Hunt is running along a color change to set up another drift, each of his anglers has a baited spinning outfit ready, the live baits in either a 5-gallon bucket with water or a livewell. That way, if Hunt sees a free-jumping sailfish, he can get in front of the fish and have all of his anglers cast to it.