“Snot” bait attracts most types of birds…and fish.
Snot bait (photo before this) and anchovies attract the same types of birds, but each stimulates different behavior.
Find the Frigates! Bird activity comes into play in many other locations as well. For example, in the last couple of springs off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, some of our captains have told us to look for frigate birds hovering along the beaches. Frigates are a major pain when they eat the sardines we are tossing for chum; however, they can also reveal the whereabouts of big roosterfish. Frigates will hover around the back of a rooster in hopes of it pushing a sardine to the surface. Frigates are also an excellent way to find billfish offshore. Any time you see one hovering in a small area or when one doubles back and forth over the same spot, there’s a good chance there is a large predatory fish in the area. There have been an abundance of small ribbonfish the last few autumn seasons in the mid-Atlantic, and just a few small bluefish will push these five- to six-inch silver ribbons to the top.
