Doc's Perspective on Bottomfishing

"Bottomfishing involves hooking a smelly piece of cut-bait onto a heavily weighted rig, slinging the mess as far out as you can get it, and waiting for some scavenger to pick it up - It sucks!"

The mere idea of bottomfishing with dead bait is almost repulsive to a guy like me that prefers to use artificials ninety-percent of the time. Sometimes though, you just have to do what you can to catch fish. Whenever the choice seems to boil down to bottomfishing with natural baits or repeatedly throwing a piece of plastic, most fishermen will opt for what they believe to be the sure thing - the natural bait.

I have fished plenty of times with fishermen of this ilk. And, believe it or not, over the long haul, the artificials fare about as well as the natural baits. The problem that most folks have with tossing artificials is that they have no confidence in the bait. If they haven't gotten a strike in three casts, they start wishing that they had live bait, dead bait, or some natural bait instead of the inanimate piece of plastic with which they're stuck. That is the wrong attitude, and furthermore believing that a particular bait will not catch fish is a self-fullfilling prophesy. It is an attitude that must be changed before any fisherman can become an effective artificial bait fisherman.

How does one change such attitudes? To begin with, realize that anyone can catch fish with natural baits. You just toss 'em out there and wait for the strike. If it comes, you must be doing the right thing; and if it doesn't, the fish must not be there, 'cause no fish in his right mind would turn down a free meal, right?

Most scavenger species or bottom-feeders, like gafftopsail catfish, croakers, ground mullet, black drum, and the like, will follow this generalization. However, the ambush predators, including the venerated spotted seatrout, will not follow this pattern.

For the most part, these fish are not interested in picking up scraps off the bottom. Rather they are programmed for picking off forage species that stray into their attack zones. It is a hungry and desperate trout indeed that must grope along the bottom amongst the catfish, croakers, and other scavengers to find a meal.

The moral of the story is quite clear. Natural baits on the bottom will get you strikes from bottomfishing scavenger species. Gafftop catfish, sea catfish, white trout, Atlantic croakers, and flounders will comprise the majority of these species. If you are interested in speckled trout, on the other hand, you will find that topwater, midwater, and anything other than bottomfishing will yield the best results. And if you will also keep in mind that these species are looking for movement, you will understand why fishing with an artificial bait can give you the needed edge for catching these species. When was the last time you saw a chunk of cut-bait with the action of a Sidewinder spoon, a Sassy Shad, or a Countdown Rapala?

Admittedly, live natural baits give one the best of both worlds - a natural bait with, obviously, natural action. I suspect this is why fishermen enjoy their highest confidence level using live natural baits. There are times, though, when the artificial bait will outfish even the perennial favorite live shrimp. It is difficult to conjecture why a speckled trout would prefer to attack a gold piece of plastic, ignoring a dozen or more lively crustaceans dangling from a hook; but suffice it say that it does happen.

Several years ago, I was fishing on the Gulf Park Pier in Long Beach along with a horde of other fishermen. Most of them were using live shrimp, and a few were tossing plastic shrimp tails under popping corks. As usual, I was casting my artificials. By 6:00 AM, I had put half-a-dozen respectable fish into my fish basket while the rest of the crowd with their live shrimp failed to land even a single fish. By 7:00 AM, I had ten or so fish to my credit and was now releasing fish regularly. The live bait fishermen left in disgust, some of them remarking "if the fish won't even hit a live shrimp, I don't want 'em". The importance of confidence in ones bait cannot be overstated. If you are not confident in your ability to catch fish using artificials, your only catches using artificials will be accidental. . .