Thread: Crazy fish

I was on the pier fishing Monday and the bait fish was sacred, but I see most people throw away crazy fish when they caught them. Why?

Because it is typically not viewed as a bait fish. I have only heard of few isolated cases where they were successfully used.

I caught one a few years back in a cast net. While getting it out, one of the spines on his belly stuck me under my fingernail and broke off. I had to go to the doctor to have it removed because the pain was too great for me to do it without numbing.

I dont even touch them anymore. Those and leatherjacks which I discovered in a similar way last year, only that one is 100,000,000 times more painful than the crazyfish.

Yep, some carazy things about 'crazy fish' (Atlantic Bumper).
Dr. Bob Shipp describes them as "one of the most numerous baitfish in the northern Gulf of Mexico." ???

The last king I caught had 3 partially digested CFs in his belly. ???
Like Delta stated though, few have used them successfully on the pier.
Next time you see Lou out there ask him for a few pointers on making them work as king bait.

:yippee:

ive seen some people use em for cut bait but there only a little strip of bait on em ive never used them

There is a fact ;the bait, (fake or real),you use the most, will catch you the most fish..Predators are opportunistic feeders;like some people ;if it put in front of them they will eat it.So ;if you can 't fish with the bait you love;love the bait you have and fish it.

Since I was a kid, I have fished from a boat quite a bit. We enjoy fishing for tarpon and kings near the beach and have often found ourselves with crazy fish being the only live bait in the well so I have fished them a lot. I've seen a ton of kings caught on crazy fish, although they are not my favorite bait. Last week we caught a 31 pound king on a crazy fish on the Cold Mil. My experience is that larger kings tend to like crazies more than small kings do. A king seems to love a bait that thinks it can out swim him. It almost seems like they have fun chasing down a super fast bait. A crazy fish just tends to pull down and can't swim nearly as fast as an LY or herring etc so he doesn't seem to "turn - on" the king. However, IMHO a crazy fish is absolutely the best tarpon bait in the gulf. The main reason is that the tarpon doesn't usually miss him. In most cases around here, if a tarpon misses a bait, he doesn't bother turning around to try again. LY's, mullet, hardtails etc often outrun that first tarpon strike, where crazies don't. Fish on.....

Baby bumpers make excellent speck bait btw. :headbang:

[quote author=Green_Steel link=topic=1351.msg12975#msg12975 date=1339661054]
Since I was a kid, I ...
IMHO a crazy fish is absolutely the best tarpon bait in the gulf. ...
[/quote]

Right on Tom!
Thanks :headbang:

Like you mentioned, they tend to swim more slowly and downward than most other baits we usually fish with and for some reason kings don't usually care for that approach.
That is a sure strike from amberjack over a reef though! oke1:
They will eat them in a heartbeat and even chase them back to the surface.

I believe Lou caught several kings in a day (about 5 or 6 in a SLOW week) soon after the pier first opened and there was NO other live bait available but 'crazies'.
His trick was pinning them under a float so they struggled more in the 'zone' ;-)

[quote author=Viking Guy link=topic=1351.msg12981#msg12981 date=1339680040]
Baby bumpers make excellent speck bait btw. :headbang:
[/quote]

I know spanish rip 'em too!