How do you live line spot for bluefish and rockfish?

Last weekend I had some small sucess with bluefish on live spot near
Breezy Point on the Chesapeake, but I wasn't rigging it right because
sometimes the fish would take the back half of my spot -- leaving the
head and my hook -- and other times I'd pull up a tangled mess.

After a while we tried putting the hook through the spot's mouth and
out the gills, then hook him near the tail, but by the time we figured
that out the fish weren't biting any more.

What's the best way to rig live spot?

Thanks,

Greg

wrote:
Last weekend I had some small sucess with bluefish on live spot near
Breezy Point on the Chesapeake, but I wasn't rigging it right because
sometimes the fish would take the back half of my spot -- leaving the
head and my hook -- and other times I'd pull up a tangled mess.

After a while we tried putting the hook through the spot's mouth and
out the gills, then hook him near the tail, but by the time we figured
that out the fish weren't biting any more.

What's the best way to rig live spot?

Thanks,

Greg

I'm not sure what a live spot is, I suspect it's what we call a bunker.
We sometimes use a rig with two trebble hooks and a piece of wire
between them. You make the rig such that one hook can be placed in the
nose and the other back by the tail. The tangled mess I suspect is
caused by a lively bait, in that case cut off part of their tail, so
they can still swim, but not nearly as well as normal. And by the way,
if the fish gets cut in half, or all that's left is the head, don't be
too quick to reel it in, they frequently come back for the leftovers.
Not to mention stripers love to pick up scraps, they get to eat, and
the blues do all the work.

John

Capt John wrote:
wrote:
Last weekend I had some small sucess with bluefish on live spot near
Breezy Point on the Chesapeake, but I wasn't rigging it right because
sometimes the fish would take the back half of my spot -- leaving the
head and my hook -- and other times I'd pull up a tangled mess.

After a while we tried putting the hook through the spot's mouth and
out the gills, then hook him near the tail, but by the time we figured
that out the fish weren't biting any more.

What's the best way to rig live spot?

Thanks,

Greg

I'm not sure what a live spot is, I suspect it's what we call a bunker.
We sometimes use a rig with two trebble hooks and a piece of wire
between them. You make the rig such that one hook can be placed in the
nose and the other back by the tail. The tangled mess I suspect is
caused by a lively bait, in that case cut off part of their tail, so
they can still swim, but not nearly as well as normal. And by the way,
if the fish gets cut in half, or all that's left is the head, don't be
too quick to reel it in, they frequently come back for the leftovers.
Not to mention stripers love to pick up scraps, they get to eat, and
the blues do all the work.

John

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

Here's a link to a page about spot.

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries...spot/spot.html