Best place to buy bait for Tortugas?

[englishadam]

Hello me and 5 friends are fishing Dry Tortugas Oct 7th we are looking for a place to buy Fresh Goggle Eyes, Fresh Ballyhoo and Live Pinfish.

We have a good price for 20 Dozen Fresh Ballyhoo but have been unable to find anywhere for Fresh Goggle Eyes. Also Looking for a decent price on Live Pinfish.

Any help would be awesome thanks.

[Chevy Juan]

You can try catching your own Live Pin's if you guys are willing to do so and save yourself some bucks. There will be some others to point you in the direct of the Gog's man, good luck with that.

[fishnfool73]

Adam get my number from Pat and call me I'll be at work all night so feel free to call whenever. I will need your schedule to best help you. Sometimes it is easier to just buy your bait if you are leaving early in the morning. Hit up Plantation Fisheries for fresh ballys call ahead and reserve them. Get kingfish and bonito from Sea Leggs and catch some hand size runners and some mackeral for grouper bait. I use whole butterflied runners and mackeral up to 3 lbs for grouper baits.

[englishadam]

You can try catching your own Live Pin's if you guys are willing to do so and save yourself some bucks. There will be some others to point you in the direct of the Gog's man, good luck with that.

I was thinking of catching my own Pins but it looks like me and my friends are working right up to the morning we leave for the trip.

I dont know how many Pins I could fit in a regular sized bucket for the travel down they may die. Does anyone have any ideas?

[killula]

Last season there was a group of rednecks that brought 3 dozen live pins in a large life saver bait bucket, didn't look a lot bigger then 5 gallons. I swore up and down it wouldn't work, so did a lot of the regulars, sure enough they turned each one into a mutton and I ate my words. No they won't stay alive in a regular bucket and yes those guys had to baby the bait, including changing the water out every other stop we made but they were gold. YC has a bait bucket upstairs but between the pumps not running, and the hot sun, those pins will be fish soup after a few hours in the hot sun. I plan on getting a small portable live well for my trip and you can get plenty of pins at the famous stop before the tortugas, a small bridge called no name that is tucked away a few miles from the nomal drive south. You should have no problems finding it, there's actually signs on the main road if you keep your eyes peeled. If you haven't a clue where it is, its in the lower half of the keys, past marathon.

[englishadam]

We have Fresh Ballyhoo and 10 Dozen Live Pin Fish secured now in key west.

Still looking out for Goggle Eyes.

[crashmister]

Good luck. Unless you can get someone getting them off shore, it's gonna be hard to get quality Gogs this time of year Adam. You could talk to Kenny. If he's seeing a lot of em at night, you could do a trip. It'll probably be cheaper than buying them. I forget exactly what we were quoted, but it was like 50.00 a dozen. You should be able to get them at night in the Tugas, but you never really want to count on that.

[englishadam]

Good luck. Unless you can get someone getting them off shore, it's gonna be hard to get quality Gogs this time of year Adam. You could talk to Kenny. If he's seeing a lot of em at night, you could do a trip. It'll probably be cheaper than buying them. I forget exactly what we were quoted, but it was like 50.00 a dozen. You should be able to get them at night in the Tugas, but you never really want to count on that.

Had a couple of estimates $36 per dozen fresh "IF" they can get them.
Got a couple of bait guys going to try help me out.

[Chevy Juan]

Sounds good man well hopefully you get your hands on what you need, take pics and let us know how the trip went!

[englishadam]

Sounds good man well hopefully you get your hands on what you need, take pics and let us know how the trip went!

Yeh im hopeing man Never been out with Paul Benson before but been told he will fish for what we want so should be good.

[killula]

There must be a influx of new 6 pack charters out of KW, Benson and now Capt. Hammer, who just put out a killer post on FS. Not sure if he is a liscensed captain or just a rec fisherman but dude knows how to catch quality fish.

[fishnfool73]

Paul has been running charters down there for over 20 years and Cpt. Hammer is close to that as well if it's Rob. Paul ran the FFF for a few years then Andy Griffin fleet. He left Andy the same time as Yuri did for Fishquest. No new influx at all.

[killula]

Well that's news for me. They both know how to stay under the radar, and then suddenly appear out of nowhere. Buisness must have been getting dry without getting the word out.

[fishnfool73]

How are either getting the word out ? Rob has always done posts on FS and Paul still doesn't advertise as far as I have seen , he is like Yuri in that word of mouth gets him all he needs. Rob stays booked up to a year out when he is running charters.( if it is Rob Hammer that you speak of) You are just new to the fishery down there as both guys are old salts. Have you heard of the Delph brothers ?

[killula]

I admit, I am rather new to the fishery, I started saltwater fishing after getting back injured from my tour in Iraq, 2007. You were actually around the first time I went to the tortugas in '08. In 3 years time I havent seen a single post of either Capts, fishing the tortugas especially on FS forums, until now.

Edit: I see why I haven't heard of him now, after doing a search for his charter, I will drop the subject.