Remember When I Used to Eat Sardines for Dinner
We absolutely wrecked the striped marlin during our November 2025 trip to Mexico’s Magdalena Bay – catching over 80 of them in two days, a number that gets at most a ho-hum from anyone who’s spent any time there. The marlin were there in such great numbers for one reason: sardines.
Magy Bay is where the little baitfish spawn by the millions (billions?) and the food chain pushes them into tight schools and then gorges on them. We’d pull up on a bait ball and see marlin slashing through them, and they simply weren’t tough to entice, particularly when we switched from dead ballyhoo to live sardines.
If you’re looking for lures that resemble this oft-maligned forage species, for Mag Bay or elsewhere, you may be surprised that Tackle Warehouse has some great imitations. Here are a few of our favorites.
Blue Sardine
Laser Sardine
Sardine Green Silver
Hot Belly Sardine
Super Glow Sardine
And while you may know AFTCO best for their fishing-oriented clothing, true to their salty roots they also have fishing accessories and tackle in their catalog – including multiple members of the “Blue Fever” line which come in a Sardine pattern.
And here’s what it’s like to back up into a bait ball to collect sardines for marlin bait:
Crush marlin, tuna, and even freshwater fish (?) with the best sardine-pattern lures. See our top picks from Tackle Warehouse & AFTCO—proven fish-catchers.