As lures evolved and became available to anyone with a few dollars or a credit card, things did change: Relatively new and inexperienced anglers and crews won tournament after tournament. Nowadays, I often hear older captains, mates and anglers complaining that younger anglers and crew have lost the skills needed before lures came on the scene.

It soon became obvious that trolling lures at faster speeds than we could troll natural bait was a more productive technique. Anglers did not need to take the time to learn the intricacies of dropping back when trolling lures, and many crews knew only how to set lures and couldn't tell a swimming mackerel from a spinning mullet. Yet they often outfished the much more experienced teams in weeklong tournaments, especially if the fishing was slow and the marlin few and far between.

There are still certain scenarios, however, where natural bait outproduces lures, especially when the fishing is excellent. It is much easier to get multiple hookups with natural bait, dead or alive, than with lures.

Dead bait comes to the fore when voracious billfish come up in coveys or pods and are eager to feed. These are generally the smaller species, including Atlantic and Pacific sailfish, white marlin and striped marlin, although blues can and do show up in packs on occasion. One day in the Cape Verde Islands we caught only seven blue marlin out of somewhere between 35 and 50 bites we lost count with multiples of two, three and four blues attacking in packs! I came to this dance unprepared and had only a handful of dead baits, so I was pulling lures. (We didn't need to stop and catch the live bonitos that were readily available to get a bite, although, in retrospect, we might have caught more fish from fewer strikes if we had.) With a single angler on board, we stayed confused and excited and had an abysmal hookup percentage on our lures which I had just rerigged with an experimental hook-set that obviously failed miserably.

The lucky anglers who get to fish the hottest of the international hot spots quickly acquire both the drop-back skills they need and a feel for how much drag a given line class can stand. Practice does indeed make perfect, and the more practice the better. Similarly, captains and mates with experience in such locations become almost unbeatable when the fishing is red-hot, and some boats become consistent tournament winners.

But no matter how they are biting in your area, the need to acquire drop-back skills has enjoyed a revival because of the growing popularity of the bait-and-switch.With this technique you troll hookless teasers (the bait) and present armed natural bait (the switch) when a fish is raised to the teasers. It is an exciting style of fishing that rewards skilled anglers and crew.

The technique becomes especially valuable when trying to set world records, since several rods and reels with varying line classes can be standing by to make the switch. You decide which bait to pitch, depending on the size of fish coming after the teaser.

But the bait-and-switch isn't something you get good at right away. When trolling a plain ''flat line'' or switching a billfish off a teaser, the angler doesn't have the cushion offered by the belly of line being released from an outrigger pin. Every mistake can be a costly one.

''Get ready!'' is a standard instruction I give when teaching new anglers how to hook a fish on a flat line. ''Get ready!'' means to initiate a specific sequence of actions.

On light tackle that's easily lifted and handled, the rod and reel should be held with the rod tip at a 90-degree angle to the line. (Presuming the bait is being trolled or if using the bait-and-switch, it has already been let out to its desired position.) The angler should hold the rod either vertically or horizontally and perpendicular to the side of the hull. Up or out depends on the captain's preference for a swimming or skipping bait and the position of the fish relative to the bait. (If the fish is still chasing the teaser, the rod should be horizontal and held out toward the teaser.)

The reel must be placed in complete free-spool with the right hand cradling the reel and the right thumb pressing firmly on the spool so no line is allowed to slip from the reel, and the bait, live or dead, continues to be trolled. If the rod is held so the butt lies along the right forearm, you can easily hold tackle up to the 50-pound class with one hand.

When the fish strikes, the thumb should be lifted from the spool and the rod tip should be vigorously dropped to point straight toward the bait. ''Throw the tip of the rod at him,'' I tell my anglers. The desired effect is to create instant slack line to allow the fish to take the bait into its mouth, and to help the angler begin to release line from the reel without a sudden jerk against the spool that might cause a backlash.

Top anglers will watch the trolled bait like a hawk and will actually begin the drop-back when they see the fish trying to eat the bait, but slightly before the savage tug can be felt. This technique, which Whitmer calls ''feeding it to them like a gumdrop,'' takes practice but results in a much smoother drop-back with a higher percentage of hookups. Until recently, many considered it a major mistake to drop back a bait before the fish actually eats or hits the lure.

In a well-executed free-spool, the line will actually fall to the water from the tip of the rod and place no pressure on the bait. If too much thumb pressure is applied, the line will appear to pay out freely but will come off the rod tip at an angle.

To help my anglers see this difference, I have them watch the line between the rod tip and the water as they deliberately let out a bait with a slight amount of thumb pressure on the spool. ''Now take your thumb off completely and see the difference,'' I tell them.

With practice, my anglers soon learn to let the line fall with just enough pressure to control the spool and keep it from backlashing. This also lets the angler feel with his thumb when a billfish has picked up the bait. Doing this under the excitement of a real strike is something else, but, again, practice makes perfect.

With heavy 80 or 130-pound-class gear, it's best to leave the rod and reel in the rod holder until the fish is actually hooked. Then as quickly as possible, remove the rod and reel from the holder and take it to the chair. (The IGFA rules state that the angler should '' ... strike and hook the fish with the rod in hand.'' But countless approved world records have initially come tight in the rod holder both when the angler was manipulating the reel and when no one was even near the rod.)

When using heavy tackle, the ''Get ready!'' signal means to place the fingers of the left hand on the spool of line and use the right hand to place the reel's drag into free-spool. Continue to troll by holding the spool tightly with the left hand until you release your grip to initiate the drop-back and then only caress the spool ever so lightly to control backlash.

With the rod in a fixed rod holder it is impossible to drop the rod tip to help absorb some of the energy of a ''crash strike.'' This makes it even more important than with light tackle to watch the bait while in a ''get ready'' position, to anticipate the bite and release the line a fraction of a second before the heavy tug occurs.

In most situations, it is considered a major mistake to drop a bait to a fish that is not actively trying to eat it. Even the best-rigged baits look less than ideal lying dead in the water, and, as artificial lures show time and again, it is the action of a trolled bait that draws a strike. It's a great idea, however, to use the ''gumdrop'' technique and release the line a split second before the fish actually grabs hold of the bait.

When using an outrigger, downrigger, kite or helium balloon with a release clip, it is easier to drop back without backlashing since a small amount of slack line is automatically created when the strike occurs. To ''gumdrop'' a fish from an outrigger clip, you must yank the line free just as the fish comes up to eat.

Even if you do everything right, sometimes you'll miss the strike and fail to hook up. In most cases, even if a fish has been hooked enough to pull out strike drag or even full drag, it will once again chase the original bait if it's quickly reeled toward the boat. Billfish commonly get stuck with their natural prey's spiny dorsal fins or have small baitfish wriggle free from their grasp. They instinctively resume the chase for a tasty morsel that has escaped even if their mouth was pricked by a bony spine or a hook.

When the fish chases after the bait a second, third or even fourth time, the angler proceeds as though he is trying to hook him from a trolled flat line. Often the fish will quit chasing the original bait and attack another offering in the spread. A top crew will continue to replace baits until the fish has been well hooked or gives up.