Shrimp for Spanish

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Originally Posted by ChileRelleno

Sometimes it beats working an artificial, especially if you get bit off several times.

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There's also the issue of wear and tear on an "older gentleman-fisherman". I count myself in that number. Several years ago, I had an issue with my wrist - a "SLAC" wrist (not to be confused with a "slack wrist") that required reconstructive surgery. The traumatic event necessitating the surgery was my trying to whip a four-pound pomano over the rail. To literally add insult to injury, the pomp hit the rail when my ligament snapped and my prize fish went back in the water. I'm convinced that the ligament was weakened/worn by the repetitive motion of working a "Gotcha" for spanish. I was done fishing for that year. Since then, wrist soreness sometimes has me looking for less physically stressful ways to catch spanish -ways that don't involve repetitive casts.

Last year, it was a shoulder ailment that kept my from being able to make repetitive casts like I wanted to. Now I'm back to normal, relatively speaking, and I'm throwing gotchas again. But if the wrist starts getting sore, I'm likely to soak a large live shrimp when going after spanish. Besides, I like watching that bite!

The "why waste a live shrimp" argument failed real quick last Saturday late morning when the guys with live shrimp were hooking up on axe-handle Spanish every cast while us lure jerkers were wearing out our shoulders just to get a flash.

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Originally Posted by CarlF

The "why waste a live shrimp" argument failed real quick last Saturday late morning when the guys with live shrimp were hooking up on axe-handle Spanish every cast while us lure jerkers were wearing out our shoulders just to get a flash.

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Yep, I switched to shrimp and was immediately killing them axe handles.
Once word got around, the Pier House and J&M were sold out of shrimp with a quickness.

I didn't realize the pier bait shop sold shrimp. Good to know.

Next time I am down and the Spanish are being picky, I'm gonna float a DOA under a cork and see how that goes.

A saintly pier regular, in shorts and suspenders, has recommended the rig as CarlF described, just down size to a #10 treble

Saintly? Really?

I do my best to match the hook to the bait and use one that will allow the shrimp to swim naturally and freely---not weight it down and make it go belly-up to the bottom. You'll lose some fish, sure, but you'll get more strikes. I go through a lot of #10 and #8 hooks.

Using live shrimp for Spanish has resulted in a lot of days when I hear the sweetest words a fisherman can hear: "Look at that sonofabitch---he's got ANOTHER one on."

Also, Pier#r (the ultimate authority) taught me that freelining a shrimp---no cork---is often more effective, though it isn't as much fun as watching your cork make a vapor trail at the strike. Good fishing to you, TNmatt.

Oh, yeah, I wasn't tempted to use shrimp today because the wind would have made it very hard to cast one and it would have been blown right back to the pier immediately where a large pack of hungry remoras was waiting.

I see Haywire is neglecting to tell you his not-so-secret secret to fishing Spaniards with live shrimp... He licks his shrimp.

I have found a place where I can buy them pre-licked, then I spit in the bait bucket just for luck.

Pre-licked shrimp... What will they think of next?