Tip came in, and I was on the fish — hairtail stacked thick, three-finger belly fish in numbers. Shore cast, the whole window working.
Hairtail (太刀魚) get measured in finger-widths here, laid across the body at its deepest point. Three fingers is a respectable fish. Three fingers of belly — that’s a fish carrying condition, fattened and feeding hard. When a school like that stacks within casting range, the window is everything. They move with the light and the bait and don’t stay long.
Soft plastic to find the depth, minnow to cover water
Two tools in rotation. The soft plastic on a jig head lets you hunt depth — count it down to find the layer the fish are holding, then lift and drop through the column. The minnow covers the same water faster, tighter action, draws the reaction strike when the fish are switched on and chasing.
Hairtail hang vertical in the water and rise to slash at bait. Find the layer they’re sitting in and you stay bent. Fish above or below and the spot feels dead. That’s why the count-down matters first — read the depth, then decide how to retrieve.
Mind the leader
Those teeth will cut through a fluorocarbon leader — a thin wire trace is worth considering. A soft plastic that comes back with the tail clipped clean on a short strike is the fish leaving its mark. Stay in the cast, keep the lure in the strike layer, and the numbers stack up when the school is this dense.
The fish were there, fat and biting. Someone who knew passed the word, and the rest was reading the column and not wasting the window. A run like this doesn’t come around on schedule — you fish it hard while it’s open, then you owe your friend a drink.