Best Lures for Mahi Mahi: 2021 Buying Guide

Lure Details

The 5 ½ inch length is excellent for mahi mahi and blackfin tuna in the areas you’ll be fishing. It comes in a few different colors, but pink and white are one of your best bets. It comes ready to be used right out of the package, with a 6-foot 100-pound monofilament leader and a 7/0 hook. 

The lightweight head not only creates a huge bubble trail and a ton of noise, but it’s great for running through and around weed lines since it won’t tangle and drag weeds on it. The skirt is made of mylar and will stand up to hits from fish.

How to Best Use It

The best way to use these mahi mahi lures is to fish a few of them in a spread. Ideally, fish at least two, along with some deeper running lures of a daisy chain for maximum effect. You’ll want to locate some floating structure, low-diving birds, or floating weed lines and troll them around those areas between 2 and 8 knots.

Lure Details

The rig is made from 200-pound monofilament and has a 6/0 hook inside the 6.5-inch skirt at the bottom. The four flying fish are a great addition to help bring fish up from deeper water or enticing strikes in general. 

How to Best Use It

You can fish this rig either in the shotgun position or mid-distance if you use an outrigger. Fishing it alongside other lures like the Stubby Bubbler is best, but this rig will usually be the one that gets a bite first. 

Lure Details

The jigs are made from high-quality, non-corrosive materials and hold up well to big strikes from fish. They come with either one or two assist hooks, attached with a heavy line for hooking any fish that bite.

The mirror finish reflects light, and the lures glow in the dark, helping increase their visibility in darker water. In addition, the 3D eye and color variety helps bring some attraction and a realistic look to the lures.

How to Best Use It

While mahi mahi spends most of their time near the surface, especially when feeding, they do prefer water that’s at least 150 feet deep. Sometimes they’ll hold deeper than the top 30 feet of water you usually catch fish in, making trolling or pitching baits to them difficult. They’ll do this most often around singular pieces of floating debris and small patches of weeds, and you can find better success with a jig in these situations.

Lure Details

The Bull Popper comes with extra-strong treble hooks and has a solid through wire construction. It’s balanced well to give you an excellent casting distance as well. These mahi mahi lures come in two sizes, 6-inch and 2-1/2 ounces, and 8-inch and 5 ounces, and ten-color varieties. 

The cupped head splashes and makes a ton of noise in the water, so it will stand out to fish even in a feeding frenzy. In addition to this, the patented power body is incredibly durable. 

How to Best Use It

You’ll want to find schools of mahi mahi around weed lines or under birds that are feeding on baitfish before pulling this out. Then, instead of trolling through the school, start pitching out dead or live baits and have one or two anglers casting the popper out into the school. Not only will the popper get bites, but the mahi mahi that chases it near the boat will find the baits you have thrown out as well.

Lure Details

The X-Rap Magnum stands out thanks to its versatility in both uses, size, and patterns. For mahi mahi, a pink lure 6-1/2 inches, the 2.5-ounce lure is ideal. X-Raps have bright, flashy inserts that help mimic baitfish and attract your target fish. Coming with two trebles and a diving lip, the X-Rap is great for deeper trolling than you’d get out of a bubbler or other surface bait. 

How to Best Use It

The best place to use these is in a spread with surface lures. The deeper trolling X-Raps get down in the water to pull up deeper holding fish and get them to bite. With the right size, you can also use them as casting lures once you’ve found a school, tossing it in and hoping it gets picked up by a big mahi mahi.

Lure Details

Planers are pretty simple. The size of the planer corresponds to the lead weight attached to the front and how deep it dives in the water. Size one runs 5-12 feet deep, size two runs 10-20 feet deep, size 3 runs 12-25 feet deep, and size 4 runs 15-30 feet deep. There is a size 8, but that works more like an outrigger. 

If you want to use larger baits, go for a bigger planer, with sizes 3 and 4 are excellent choices for mahi mahi. 

How to Best Use It

You’ll typically attach your line to a snap swivel, which then connects to the ring on the planer. From there, you’ll attach a snap swivel with a 30-50 foot leader to the other side of the planer, which then runs down to your lure. You’ll want to use these when you want to get a skirted lure or rigged dead bait deeper in the water and keep it from running up to the surface.

How to Best Use It

Speaking of dead baits from our planer entry, these wires work great combined with whole ballyhoo and a planer. You can run multiple dead ballyhoos rigged up with this wire on planers to mimic a swimming school of ballyhoo. It’s a great way to use dead baits to troll for pelagic species like mahi mahi, also catching tuna, wahoo, and even sailfish and marlin. 

There are many ways to rig ballyhoo, so you can find a way that works best for you. Here’s a short guide for using the copper wire. 

You’ll want to twist the wire onto your hook and then through the eye or the hook. Then insert your hook through the gill plate of the ballyhoo on the bottom and into the cavity of the fish, eventually puncturing it with your hook coming out through its belly. Then take the copper wire, wrap it around the fish behind each gill plate, go through its eyes, once in front of the eyes, and then up through the jaw. This secures the fish and your hook while still giving you a lifelike presentation. If you have questions or want to do it a different way, there are many videos and guides out there.