High-Speed Wahoo Lures: Bullets, Jet Heads, and Plugs

High-speed wahoo lures that produce are heavy jet heads, bullets and Islander-style heads trolled at 13 to 16 knots behind leads of 6 to 54 ounces. Diving plugs and lure-and-ballyhoo combinations take over at 5 to 8 knots when the fish want depth or a natural bait. Run a dark lure beside a bright one, keep everything just under the surface, and put wire between the lure and every tooth.

Most of what I know about wahoo lures I learned fishing some of the best wahoo destinations in the world, and a good share of it alongside the people in this article. I have run high-speed wahoo lures off Bimini, West End, the deep-water side of Andros, Cay Sal, the Dominican Republic, Madeira and Kenya with the likes of Corey Burlew, RJ Boyle, Peter Bristow and Mark Allen. I've cast stickbaits in Costa Rica with Mike Hennessy, trolled swimming plugs at the Rowley Shoals with Chris Rushford and Ross Newton, and run baits and lures in North Carolina with Mike Dupree and in Hawaii with Shawn Rotella. I've also had the pleasure of sitting down with top tournament fishermen Shawn Olds, Rick Redeker and Ron Schatman, and lure builder Jason Gore, and picking their brains.

They don't agree on everything, and that is the useful part. Where they split on speed, leader length and lure size, the reason is the fishery: barracuda, sharks, sea state, or a tournament that pays for one big fish. This page stays on the lures; for the full program, start with our wahoo tactics and tackle pillar.

What Are the Best High-Speed Wahoo Trolling Lures?

The best high-speed wahoo trolling lures are heavy heads that track straight under the surface at 13 to 16 knots without spinning or skipping: jet heads, bullets, Islanders and glass heads. Jets and a full skirt make the lure look bigger. On the Bahamas edges, the hardest-pulling heads go on the short wire lines closest to the boat.

Shawn Olds, who mated for years in the Bahamas wahoo tournaments, credits most of his fish to a flat-topped jet head in the Express style. Its jets leave a bubble trail that makes it look far bigger, and it pulls too hard for anything but a wire line. On the longs he runs an Islander with doubled skirts and a 3-ounce lead slid up inside.

Rick Redeker, who finished first or second in the Bahamas Wahoo Championship five straight years, runs a glass head with a mirror inside and stuffs an 8 to 12 ounce Japanese feather up into the skirt for bulk and weight. When the tournaments went to a big-fish format, his crew went bigger and faster to weed out the small ones.

In Kona, Shawn Rotella pours his own 15 to 16 ounce bullets from solid lead because the weight gets the lure down. Bigger isn't automatically better: Olds caught one of his biggest wahoo on a small, plain bullet. One detail from the High Speed Wahoo Trolling shoot is worth stealing. Tie sea witch hair under the skirt, and a head-shaking wahoo's teeth snag in the hair instead of shredding the skirt.

How Fast Should You Troll Wahoo Lures?

Most high-speed wahoo trolling happens between 13 and 16 knots, and the Bahamas tournament crews settle between 13.5 and 15. Treat speed as a tool for the fishery. Rick Redeker runs 15 because it draws far fewer barracuda bites than 12, while Shawn Rotella trolls 9 to 12 off Kona, where barracuda aren't a problem.

Redeker's base is 14 to 16 knots, adjusted for sea and current, and he has caught fish at 20. Olds settles at 13.5. In Costa Rica, Mike Hennessy finds 14 to 15 knots best for big wahoo on his keel-fin diving lures.

What you do after the bite matters as much. Corey Burlew, the mate Olds credits with teaching him most of what he knows, never runs to the rod with the fish on. He "stutter jigs" the opposite rod, winding and stopping while the boat stays on plane, because a school hits the short lines first and the rest follow. Rotella keeps trolling as long as he can stand it, and Redeker has caught some of his biggest fish the moment the boat went back in gear after the lines had sunk during a fight. Our video on high-speed trolling speed and boat handling shows how the crew drives through those bites.

Wahoo Lure Programs From Bimini to Kona

Every captain we've filmed for wahoo runs a different combination of lure, speed and leader, and each one fits the water he fishes.

How Heavy Should the Trolling Lead Be, and How Far Back?

The wahoo trolling lead on the short wire lines is the heaviest in the spread, usually 48 to 54 ounces, while the long riggers pull 6 to 16 ounces depending on the sea. A shock cord of 30 to 50 feet separates lead and lure. Shawn Olds catches about 90 percent of his wahoo on those short wire lines.

The wire and the big lead hold the lure under the wash, close to the boat, where the fish come up into the prop wash. Redeker runs 50-ounce torpedo leads on his wire lines and 6 to 12 ounces on the tops; Olds goes 12 to 16 on the tops, and 24 when it's very rough.

Olds' shock cord is 50 feet of 300-pound mono, the same every time, so the lure always lands in the same place; a shorter cord rides it lower. Burlew marks every line so each lure goes back to the exact spot after a fish, because four or five feet off changes the bites, and he checks for weed by pulling on the line to feel the extra weight.

Then there is the problem nobody warns you about: wahoo eat the leads. Olds sprays every lead with zinc chromate primer, then white paint, so it disappears in the prop wash instead of looking like a gray baitfish. He puts the drop in lead bites at 75 percent or better. Our high-speed wahoo trolling rig breakdown covers the lead and shock cord build.

Matching Lure Weight to Sea State

Sea state changes which lure you run as much as which lead. Jason Gore machines the same head in aluminum and brass, so the identical lure weighs 1 ounce or 4. In 2-foot seas he runs the 1-ounce and lets it skip and dive like a flying fish; in 2 to 4 feet he goes to the 4-ounce, and the light heads go on planers so they don't trip them. His 34-ounce brass high-speed head has an offset line hole that keel-weights it, so it runs one way and the hook set stays put. His Gore's Offshore wahoo trolling lures video walks through each head.

Olds pairs a lighter lure with a heavier lead, and a heavy jet head with a lighter one. "A skip here and there isn't a bad thing," he says, as long as the lure keeps swimming true.

In a sea, Redeker gets most of his bites running downsea and on the inside of the turn, where the baits sink deeper. Weather sets the window. Redeker wants three or four days of steady barometer and calls winter fronts, when the wind clocks around, bad fishing; Olds wants the falling barometer the day before the front. At Cay Sal, with a front a day and a half out, we got bit almost at slack tide.

When Should You Slow Down and Pull Diving Plugs for Wahoo?

Slow down when the fish need depth or a natural bait, not just because the high-speed spread is quiet. Slow trolling wahoo with diving plugs or lure-and-ballyhoo combinations at 5 to 8 knots reaches fish holding over structure. Off North Carolina, Mike Dupree pulls 6 to 8 knots; at the Rowley Shoals, Reel Teaser runs Halco plugs at 5.

Dupree's Onslow Bay spread is lures over dead ballyhoo: Gore's 4-ounce Islander-style heads on the shorts, a sea witch on the shotgun, and a bait 35 to 40 feet down on a #16 planer he checks every 15 minutes. When the current kept tripping the planer, he went to a smaller, lower-drag lure instead of adding weight. He fishes 30 to 44 fathoms, hunting a subtle half-degree break over structure; the day we filmed, the water was 78 to 79 degrees. Our planer fishing article for kingfish, wahoo and tuna covers the planer side.

At the Rowley Shoals off Western Australia, I fished aboard Reel Teaser with Chris Rushford and Capt. Ross Newton. They trolled the Halco Laser Pro 190 Crazy Deep, whose 6-meter bib actually runs 3 to 4 meters down at 5 to 5.5 knots, only 25 to 35 meters back because the sharks take hooked fish. When a chewed plug won't swim straight, Newton shaves the notches off the bite marks and swaps in a fresh bib.

Not every diver is a slow lure. In Costa Rica, Hennessy runs keel-fin diving lures that track to 20 knots, with magnets that lock the hooks so the lure doesn't skip.

What Color Wahoo Lures Work Best?

Dark colors lead: black and red, purple and black, black and orange. Most captains we've filmed also run a light or bright lure beside them. Fish one dark side and one light side, then switch the spread to whichever color is getting bit, the way Shawn Olds did fishing Bahamas tournaments.

Olds ran black and red against pink and blue. Dupree does the same off North Carolina, light colors on the port planer side and dark on starboard. Off Bimini, Burlew put out black and red first because the water was a beautiful purple.

The bright lure earns its place. Rotella always runs a glow yellow in Kona, and some days it gets picked out over and over, cloudy or not; he charges glow-painted heads before sunrise and gets bites in the dark. Hennessy matches the bait, flying fish pattern when flyers are up, purple and black when tuna run with skipjack. Gore has caught two of his three biggest wahoo on orange and black. Seasons shift it, too: when we filmed bullet rigging in Kona, black and pink was the hot color, on two of the seven lures in the spread.

Rigging Wahoo Lures Against Bite-Offs

Wire length is where the captains disagree most, and each one has a reason:

• Short piano wire: Rotella runs 174-pound piano wire just long enough to grab the swivel and gaff the fish.
• Six feet of #9 wire: Gore rigs his lures this way so a wahoo's tail whip hits wire, not line.
• Eight to 10 feet of 600-pound cable: Redeker pairs it with an 11/0 stainless hook in a stiff, heat-shrunk hook set that survives several fish.
• Eighteen feet of #9 wire: Dupree runs it because hooked wahoo turn and swim back at the boat, and he wants them hitting wire if they swipe the line. He won't use piano wire, which he calls one-and-done once salt air touches it.

Rotella keeps his two hooks close together and "loose and sloppy" so a turning bite catches both. He also points out that a landed wahoo leaves the skirt intact, while a missed bite takes nearly all of it, so pull your lures and look. You may be trolling a bare head.

Two captains break the all-wire rule. On his ballyhoo lures, Gore fishes 150-pound fluorocarbon with a short piece of cable crimped around the hook set. Hennessy calls 150 the best wire size, but when the bite slows at the tide change he clips the main-line swivel straight to the lure, because wahoo usually chop a bait in half and end up on the back hooks. Our wahoo leader systems article covers the full build.

Wahoo Lure FAQ

Building a Wahoo Lure Spread for the Day You Get

The lure is the last decision, not the first. Speed is set by what else lives on the edge, lead weight by the sea, wire length by how the fish behave at the transom, and color by whichever side gets bit first. Start with heavy, straight-running heads on the short wire lines, a lighter lure on the long, a dark side and a bright side, and a painted lead, and then let the day tell you what to change.

From here, our complete wahoo tactics and tackle pillar puts these lures inside a full plan for reading water and running the boat.

When you want to see these captains rig and fish them, our captain-led wahoo fishing videos take you aboard.

Seth Horne Founder and CEO