macs for halibut bait

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by Vikingj

I have never had good results with smelt or lizardfish even though some (mistakeningly?) believe in them.

I've got them on Smelt but like Greg said usually only where that is the only bait around mostly near the kelp up at Malibu when I couldn't get any other bait up there. Smelt are weird, and I've caught some weird things on them. I never tell anyone this but my largest thresher on a smelt Jig Combo and it was monster over 14ft. Just couldn't make any macks so I was trolling a big Smelt for them and it got bit. I also got a Yellow off Rockey point on a smelt. They were busting them at the kelp line so I put one out and it got bit.

Similarly Lizards are crap bait but better then nothing.

I've caught halibut on them, and probably caught more halibut on them then on brown bait. The deal with lizards is you have to keep them up off the sand, I always fish them on a dropper loop.

You know what loves to eat lizard fish? Male Ling cod on their spawning grounds. They chow them down. My take is they eat them because they are egg stealers, same reason they eat sand dabs.