Anyone have any tips for catching mollies? I am fishing in a freshwater spring that feeds into a brackish area in Florida and the problem I'm running in to is that the mosquito fish swarm the bait and hook and end up getting hooked before I can convince any mollies or other larger livebearers into biting. I can see all of the fish I want to catch but keep catching mosquito fish instead. Picture of a wee mayan cichlid for the photo tax 🙂
Posted by mb9324
1 Comment
Sailfin I’m assuming? They can be really annoying. What I’ve always done is downsize the bait to the very point of a tanago, since they have weird mouths that don’t take bait as easily as mosquitofish and are also more timid biters. I drop the little fleck in front of the mollies (helps if you twitch it a little at first or if there’s slight flow) and a couple will usually come up and try to nibble it which is hopefully enough to stick them with the hook point. I’ve heard chumming bread can sometimes get them feeding, but with the mosquitofish that could be impossible. You may have to find a spot with more mollies and less mosquitofish at some point. Slow flowing water is better for that since mosquitofish don’t handle it well but mollies are quite good with it and it seems to make them a little more aggressive if anything.