Autumn Trio live bait trolling from kayak: dolphinfish, leerfish and sea bass

A kayak trip in a warm and sunny autumn day.
With the use of the fishfinder I find a school of round sardinella and I catch a dozen with the sabiki which I keep inside the drawing tube- live-well.
I rig the main trolling rod, a 6ft one piece Penn Conflict Jigging, which I keep on the right side of the kayak, with a classic bluefish wire-rig, as they are a very common species in the area I fish.
On the 30-pound wire I mount two hooks, a trailer one that I position in the nose of the fish, and a stinger one that I place at the height of the anal hole.
Chequed the swimming of the bait, I begin to troll slowly at a speed between 1 and 1,5 knot.
When I have a lot of live bait, I also troll with a second rod on the left side, normally a spinning rod or one for vertical techniques with a conventional reel, as in this case.
Very often I put a small bottle on both rods to keep the bait afloat. The bottle has an line approximately 1 meter long which is connected to the main line with a quick releasing snap and swivel.
The function of the bottle is to prevent the bait from sinking and therefore not running the risk of getting snagged on the bottom, when there are rocks or ropes that hold floating structures.
Another usefulness of the bottle is to know exactly where the bait is, which is very useful when trolling with several rods, when changing direction or when passing close to other boats.
Furthermore, the bottle acts as a lure, a teaser for predators, attracted by this object that moves on the surface of the water.
Ideal for surface predators such as bluefish, mahi mahi and leerfish, it also works in shallow water for sea bass and barracuda.
Hooked up the fish on the right sided rod, I start retrieving the line from the rod on the left, in order not to risk that the two lines cross during the fight.
The live liner system of the Penn Spinfisher 6500 reel allows the fish to catch line as long as the handle is turned and the main drag already set for fighting comes into operation.
She is a dolphinfish that performs in the characteristic jumps out of the water in an attempt to slack the line and free herself.
Once unhooked, I keep it inside the Omer PVC thermal bag.
I use to keep the ice packs and cubes in a plastic container inside a cooler bag rather than immediately placing them inside the cooler bag until needed.
When you keep the ice more compact it’s gonna last longer throughout the day, so I will not put the ice in the bag untill I catch a fish, to slow down the melting of ice cubes.
Rigged a new bait on the left rod, I'm trolling again with two rods. I have a shy bite on the right rod.
I try to withdraw the line to steal the bait from the predator and entice him to attack.
And 10 seconds after turning off the camera, the fish launched a decisive attack, with a quick run.
I don't have time to retrieve the other rod, so the only way to keep the lines from tangling is to move forward and keep the fish on the same side.
I realize that I also have an hook up on the other rod.
The hooked up fish, a leerfish, is very strong, and almost tears the rod out of my hands, when at the sight of the kayak it starts again towards the bottom.
When the line of the rod on the left side is far enough away, I can think of hauling the fish aboard.
I pass the rod to my left hand and take the landing net with my right. I pull the fish towards the kayak and land it without any problems.
I immediately leave rod and fish to retrieve the other rod, on which I also had the bite.
Unfortunately, in the meantime the fish spit the hook, he was probably another leerfish, a gregarious fish in his juvenile state.
The leerfish has a tendency not to swallow the bait in the first instance, but to hit it several times before launching the attack.
The leerfish is a trevally with a rhomboid-shaped body with a very small head compared to the rest of the body and a very large mouth.
He has a greenish gray livery on the back, while the sides and belly are pearly white.
He is a pelagic species that usually frequents port environments and river mouths, where it feeds on mullet, garfish, sardinella, horse mackerel and mackerel.
I place the cooler upright right behind my seat. In this position it takes up very little space.
I put another round sardinella on the rod on the right, always on a wire rig, which, as we have seen, also works well on species other than bluefish and barracuda.
I release the line of the rod for about 20 meters and close the bow of the reel. At this point I insert the live liner by operating the lever at the bottom which has a setting of 4 positions based on the resistance at the exit of the line that one wants to give.
On the way back, I had another attack just few meters from the shoreline.
This time he was a sea bass, which could not resist the live round sardinella on the wire, a rig that I had used to catch the bluefish, but in the end I caught everything except the bluefish.