July 2009 WebXtra coverage. In the July ‘09 issue of Florida Sportsman, three wahoo experts divulge step-by-step instructions for building a favorite wahoo trolling rig—no downriggers or planers required. You can check out Pensacola-based Capt. Jeremy Williams' mono to single strand connection Yo-Zuri Bonita rig, Key West Capt. Brice Barr’s livebait rig, and Jacksonville Capt. Steve Grant’s high speed skirted lure rig, all with illustrations included. “Wahoo Three Ways” is another in our FS series, “How We Rig It.”

Captain Jeremy Williams’ rig has a short wire connection so that you’re able to handle the leader to position the wahoo for gaffing without having to handle the singlestrand wire, which can kink and break under the stress of a hot fish held by hand. Also, it gets any shiny snap swivel a long ways from the lure to reduce cut-offs from strikes from other wahoo.

“These rigs pull a lot better on a bent-butt rod, but if you don’t have one, at least pin it to the transom on a flatline clip,” says Williams, above. “That will give it more depth, and you’ll be able to pull it faster, and with wahoo, the faster the better.”

Captain Brice Barr, Double Down Sportfishing, Key West, who often locates schools of migrating wahoo at The End of the Bar and Western Dry Rocks off Key West, likes to troll live baits to bring up those wahoo. He’ll also put the hook down and chunk bonito to draw the wahoo close to his anglers.

“This is an effective way to catch wahoo on anchor as well,” says Barr, pictured above. “They’ll hang out around concentrations of bait for days and sometimes weeks in certain locations, and we can target them day after day, given good conditions. Fillet a couple of bonitos, skin them and chunk them. Cut them into 1-inch chunks, with no bones or blood line. (Fish are finicky eaters.) Begin trickling out the chunks and then freeline one, give a slight drop back, and the fight is on.”

Captain Steve Grant, manager of C&H Lures in Jacksonville, builds a high-speed wahoo rig to target the biggest of Florida’s wahoo that prowl over deepwater structure off Jacksonville and St. Augustine. Fifty-, 60-, even 70-pounders are common both in the winter and the summer, if you’re willing to make that run to the blue water.

“I like to use 900-pound cable between the hooks for various reasons,” says Grant, at left above. “It stiffens the rig substantially and I don’t worry about getting bit off. I make the lure rig 5 to 6 feet long because when a fish strikes the lure, the lure slides up the leader and a second fish could cut you off, so the 5-foot leader keeps the lure close to the fish.”

All three rigs are displayed in detail in the July ‘09 issue of Florida Sportsman.