How To Ballon Baited Lines From Shore!

On this day the weather report called for high North winds, which rarely occurs. So i got up at 5am (brrrr) and went to Chocolate Beach. This is my preferred testing area to demonstrate fishing techniques. My friend Junior who works at that area told me the fishing has been bad there for weeks but i just needed to demonstrate how i ballon my baits from shore.

For this i used a 13'3" Daiwa Ballistic Rod with a Shimano Ultegra 10K spinner loaded with 380yd of 50lb Jerry Brown braid. The main reason to balloon out a rig is to get distance from shore to increase your chances of catching fish. Now if you want to drop a bait instead of having it on the surface you can do it 1 of 2 ways-
1) Use a hard sucking candy with a hole in it (like Life Savers), or drill a hole in a cough drop. Then tie a thread through that hole connecting the balloon to your bait rig. Depending on the candy used (Life Savers will be +-15min) it'll dissolve & drop your bait.
2) Take a couple squares of toilet tissue & repeat. Roll the sheet into a tube & roll it around to connect the balloon to the bait rig. This time repeated jerks of the rod will cause the bait to break away from the balloon.

Be sure not to use more then 3/4 of your spooled line when ballooning. I usually stop when i loose sight of the balloon. My Ultegra 10K has a line retrieval rate of 40.5in per crank. So i counted 236 cranks bringing in my line. That'd 9,558in. That amounts to 797.5ft or 265.5yd. My reel is spooled with 360yd of 50lb Jerry Brown braid.

The larger the balloon is after inflating means it''ll catch the wind easier & travel faster across the surface. In the past i've caught huge Hammerhead & Tiger Sharks using this method. Just got to make sure to keep your back to the wind direction. Also this day i made my most unusual hook-up on my 2nd rig that i used to shore cast with. Snagged a useable 12ft Surf Rod with a large casting reel on it. Still soaking the reel but the rod cleaned-up good!

Neat post. Thanks for sharing.