Not only are mahimahi fun to catch and delicious to eat, they're also one of the best baits to use to build a marlin teaser. The tough belly flap is perfect for making a teaser lure when pitch-baiting blue marlin. First up you need to catch a nice mahimahi, like this beauty. Photos by John Ashley
After harvesting the fillets, cut off a piece of the belly flap about 3 inches wide and 8 inches long and taper it off at one end. Fold the flap over as shown and stitch the two flaps together working along the strip using heavy waxed thread and a sharp bait needle. Leave a good foot of thread hanging out of the bait at the beginning.
Continue stitching along the flap to form a neat barrel.
About three inches from the tapered end, reverse the stitching and work back along the strip running the rigging floss back through the same needle holes.
Continue sewing, keeping the thread nice and tight. This will help keep the bait intact when a billfish belts the hell out of it!
Finish the stitching where you started leaving another long tag end of floss and tie the two ends together firmly. The advantage of the mahimahi belly flap, is that it's super tough and can take strike after strike.
Tie the wax thread firmly to the end of the trace or leader behind the lure head. The teaser is then ready to be put to work. The combination of a flashy lure and the smell of fresh mahimahi make it a deadly teaser for billfish. When you get a bite on the teaser, the idea is draw the fish in and switch the fish over to a bait rigged with a hook.
A beautiful white marlin hooked up after it was brought in on a fresh mahi-belly teaser.
