mayjong1 said:
my trolling observations from a couple months ago...
if you are using topwater (hoochie type, or rigged ballyhoo with a hochie on its nose) it will be fine. usually, you will see the weeds catch the lure (the rod will start bouncing a bit) and you can just grab the line and yank it with your hand while the rod is still in the rodholder, it will come off. I only had to reel in a few times to get it off... you would be surprised by how many times the lure will just skip over the top of even the heaviest mats...
if you use any lure that goes under water (like a spoon or diving bait) you can forget it... you'll be cleaning weeds the whole time...
we did get a few hits/fish near the weed mats as we trolled though... pompano I think...
also caught several little tunny (bonito), a black fin tuna, barracuda, some silver fish I couldn't identify (small kingfish?), and a mahi.
I wish we had brought more than 3 pre-rigged ballyhoo... we caught fish on all 3, with 2 of them being within 5 min of putting the bait in the water!
got a lot (like 4?) of our fish near the kingfish banks, on our way back from anegada..
one last fishing tip... if you catch a tunny, you can cut strips (like 2 inch by 6-8 inch, with skin on) and pin those to your "hoochie"... seemed to increase our catch...
good luck