The Secret To Never Getting Your Lure Stuck In A Mangrove Tree [VIDEO]

Mangroves & I have had a love/hate relationship over the years.

Because although mangroves can be an awesome form of structure for targeting all sorts of inshore species, these salt tolerant trees can be incredibly good at snagging all types of lures that happen to get a little too close.

And given the surprising strength of even their thinnest branches, a stuck lure will either be lost or have to be manually pulled out in many cases.

Although manually pulling a lure out doesn’t sound so bad, a trip to pull out a lure from a mangrove limb can get nasty fast when fishing in the summer given that mosquitoes often hide in them during the day…

And any commotion on the mangrove limbs acts as their lunch bell, after which the pesky blood suckers are not shy to come on out for a meal.

But after years of trial and error, I’ve found 3 breakthroughs that have made fishing mangroves one of my favorite things to do…

These 3 breakthroughs catch way more redfish, snook, and big trout from fishing mangroves than ever before because I can cover so much more water without wasting time and energy retrieving lures/hooks from the mangroves.

Best of all, I’m now able to catch more fish with a select few artificial lures compared to when I used to rely on live bait to catch fish.

I’ll explain the 3 necessary steps to effectively fishing mangroves without getting stuck in their limbs below.

1. Perfect the Skip Cast

The most important factor in fishing mangroves is becoming an excellent caster because the fish often are holding up under the mangrove branches.

So it’s essential to get your bait very close to the trees… but not too close because their limbs are incredibly good at snagging any lures/hooks that touch their limbs.

Most importantly, the best placement for a cast is to get your bait up under the mangrove branches so you can get right where the most fish are holding.

And the best way to get your lure up under the branches is to master the skip cast, which is where you cast with a side-arm motion keeping the lure low to the water so it skips off the surface of the water shooting further away at a low trajectory.

This allows you to have the highest chance of getting back to where the fish are without getting stuck in the mangrove’s branches.

Here are tips for skipping lures:

• Use a spinning reel (outperforms bait casters because it’s impossible to know exactly how far a lure will skip each cast so a spinning reel allows doesn’t require you to manually stop the spool once the lure stops)
• Get a lure that has a smooth and roundish surface (examples below)
• No treble hooks
• Cast from the side (not overhead)
• Keep lure low to the water’s surface at all times (no rainbows)

Skip Cast Tutorial Video

2. Use Weedless Lures

When fishing mangroves, there is no such thing as weedless.

But it’s important to use lures that are as weedless as possible because even the best skip casters will make contact with mangrove roots or limbs on occasion.

So it’s very important to be using a lure that has a low chance of getting snagged.

Here are my favorite 2 types of lures for fishing mangroves:

Soft Plastic on a Weighted Hook [Rigged Weedless]

Click here to see how to rig a soft plastic weedless

Weedless Spoon

Click here to see how to rig a weedless spoon

3. Tap Your Lure Out Of Trouble

No matter how good of a caster you are, there will be times when your lure finds its way into the mangrove limbs.

Even for an expert caster, the unfortunate tree-cast will most certainly happen because there are always uncontrollable factors … here are the most common:

• Gusty wind blowing line/lure into tree
• High skip launching lure up into the overhanging limbs
• Long skip shooting too far back into mangrove roots

So we all need to understand how to most effectively get our lures out of the mangroves while doing the following:

• Dropping lure in the strike zone
• Not spooking fish
• Not ringing Mosquito lunch bell

How To Get Your Lure Out Of Mangroves

Conclusion

Fishing mangroves can be one of the most rewarding ways to catch redfish, snook, trout, and a variety of other species.

But it can be very frustrating for those who use the wrong type of lures and who don’t know how to tap their lures out for a perfect drop right in the strike zone.

And since you’re reading this post right now, your love/hate relationship with fishing mangroves will turn to a love/love very soon.

Because one of the best thrills in fishing is to hook up with a big fish near structure knowing that the first few seconds will determine if it’s a catch or the one that got away.

Fish On!

Related Video: “How To Rig A WEEDLESS Berkley Gulp Shrimp” (watch it here now)

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