Before we can catch fish offshore in the Florida Keys, we’ve gotta do the not-so-glamorous part first: load the livewell with the right bait—and a LOT of it. In this video I’m teaming up with Heiko from South Florida Fishing Channel, and we walk you through exactly how we catch ballyhoo and (my personal favorite) cigar minnows before we ever point the bow toward the “promised lands.” We start with shrimp in the well, put out a chum block, and then it’s game on when the screen lights up with bait under the boat. I show you how we sort through the chaos when there’s bait everywhere—what we keep, what we toss back, and what we’ll throw on ice when we’ve got “too many baits for the well.” We use the Ballyhoop to scoop up those “little speedos” (cigar minnows), talk about keeping bait healthy, and then rig a couple live baits to fish—short leaders, circle hooks, and even balloons when we want to spread lines and keep a livie swimming where it needs to be. The big takeaway: good offshore days usually start right here… and when the bait is this thick, you take advantage, because there are plenty of days the ballyhoo won’t come near your net.