Hali-bait

I'm sort of obsessed about wanting to catch a halibut from my kayak lately Thought I'd try and rig up some stuff to troll behind a dodger. Don't want to rely on my ability to make bait so I tied up some leaders with a 3" Big Hammer chovie and silver/blue hootchie. Are most of the baits trolled in the Bay larger than this? I imagine 20lbs. leader is a little light but it's all I have on hand.

That's a nice setup!  I used 20lb test line too and caught plenty of nice Hali.

Good looking bait, be sure and tell us how you do.

Thanks, seems like it's pretty common to combine the swimbait and hootchie in SoCal. Combining my two favorite plastics can't be bad 

That's a great looking setup bro. Thanks for sharing.

Jedmo

Although I am far from an expert I troll the hoochie swimbait combo at times when hali fishing. Although I have yet to land a hali doing it I have caught lots of ling cod and Rf using it in Monterey. I prefer a normal size hoochie with a 5" Ft swimbait. I use a 5 or 6/0 gami octopus hook and rig the swimbait similar to how you would nose hook a sardine. After making many many rigs the preferred method now is using 90# uncoated ss wire for the all parts of the rig except the leader that goes to the swimbait and the main line. I use 30# mono for that and generally run a 30# main line with a 1# ball. I like to use a large all chrome lur jensen dodger. I find this effective for up to 60' but generally 45-25' is the sweet spot depending on conditions. I use a 7' medium-heavy fiberglass rod that is generally too stiff for anything else. Other possible baits on this rig  can be shallow diving crank baits and spoons like a krocodile. Good luck and be patient. 
         

That is a nice set up, but as Meat Hunter said... I would go with the 5"...

Bigger easier to see...  My go to has been just to bounce wild storm anchovy swim baits of 10 to 15' in slow tides...

probably would do better if I was trolling, this is just way easier and less work... 

  Good Luck, Nice Bait and looking forward to your reports....

Danglin...aka Storm anchovie swimbait hali master