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Transcript37 lines
- [00:05]
A
Welcome to the Salt Strong podcast, disrupting fishing entertainment as you know it. Prepare to laugh, prepare to get to know fishing legends in a whole new and unfiltered way. And on occasion, you might even learn a thing or two about fishing. Here's your host, Joe Simons, like diamonds.
- [00:26]
B
The summertime lure hack and rigging hack, everybody. Joe Simons, like Diamonds.
- [00:33]
C
And Luke Simons, like diamonds.
- [00:36]
B
So we were chatting, Luke and I were chatting earlier this week, and I was trying to come up with new ideas, and I said, what do you got for the podcast this week? The pod, if you will. And Luke said, dude, we got to talk about this rigging hack. It's crushing it, especially in the warmer months we're here. I. I call it ever since Memorial Day hits like it's summer, at least in Florida, it's hot in the 94 degrees here today. So what do we got? Dude, what's. What's the deal?
- [01:03]
C
Yeah, so it's. It's. It's one word. And, And I'll. Before I'll talk about. The reason why this word is important is the. During the summer, the waters, obviously the water's hotter, but what happens when the water gets hot is there's less oxygen in the water, so the fish start losing energy and they'll. They'll naturally gravitate out to deeper water. Um, so the fact they're in deeper water and they're not quite as energetic, the one word is weedless rigging. Um, so weedless is the term. So whether shrimp lures or swim baits, rigging weedless has been the biggest game changer for me personally. And I was actually out this morning, caught a slam in the first 20 minutes, and it was not even good tides. Um, just skipping weedless lures under. Today I was going under docks. There's some heavier options where I was taking this out on the reef last week and getting snook and cobia, plus some grouper. And this is a 1 ounce jig head. But whether it's 1 ounce or half or quarter ounce or 3, 16, whatever, as long as it's weedless, it significantly increases the odds of getting strikes, because now you can actually deliver the lure right where the fish are holding, which is tight to structure. And, and of course, you know, jig head size will be dependent on the depth that's being fished. But. But yeah, so I was skipping, literally skipping under docks for two hours a day, and I didn't get snagged a single time, and. And still got a good amount of fish. So before I would use normal jig heads and half the time I'd spend re rigging because a lot of docs especially the better ones have some rocks and some stuff on the bottom and anything like an exposed get snagged and you end up catching, catching the bottom a whole lot more than fish.
- [02:58]
B
So when would you not use this? When would be an example. You would not use it.
- [03:06]
C
Yeah. So now really the, the key times that I don't use it or I'm when I'm fishing the beach like when I'm fishing surf like I have a report doing that as well. Obviously if you're fishing bottom where there's no nothing to get snagged on then you don't need to go weedless because going weedless even though this, this is the, the jig head that's by far my favorite. Even though there's a nice gap, you can see this, this gap. Basically the more the gap the the better the hook set. Because when you set the hook it shoots it, you know it's, it starts shooting out that's going to push the lure down which makes the hook point go out and into the fish. So the hook set ratio although is good on this, it's still not as good as an exposed hook like a normal J hook. But the benefit of not getting snagged when you're fishing tight to structure, it's not even close. It is a no brainer. So now I use weedless riggings probably 90% of the time because I'm typically fishing around structure. Right. Snook, redfish, sea trout, flounder, they're all ambush predators. They spend most of their time near structure even in the fall and spring that when they're more more active. But in the summer they're just tighter to the structure. So so really summer and even winter there the, the weedless rigging is actually is most important. But really throughout the whole year I now I now using weedless more often and a cool benefit that I've that I've found more recently. I was, I was testing out these prawn XT lures which is the same same prawns that we've had. It's just an at a like bulletproof material. It is incredibly tough. I was throwing it on on a regular jig head, you know with an exposed hook and I I was gut hooking more fish than, than ever. So like I I rarely ever gut hook fish. So like for catch and release this, this type of rigging, the weedless rigging does a good Job of getting right in the corner of their mouth. Rarely ever do I gut. Hook a fish with the. The weedless compared to, you know, the J hooks that. That have a propensity to. To do that. All right.
- [05:11]
B
Knowing that a lot of people listen to this and. And aren't getting to see the visual that you're showing. Talk about what jig head you're talking about.
- [05:18]
C
Talk.
- [05:20]
B
This gap looks like kind of describe what exactly what you're using.
- [05:25]
C
So what. This one's called the weedless round eye. And it's basically by what company? From hos. And so it's become. This style is becoming more popular, like the. The Zman Texas eye. A lot of people are familiar with that. And it's basically a swiveling jig head that's on top of a. Of a. Of a hook, of a big EWG hook. So I'll take this thing off. A lot of people rig it so that the. The head swivels because, like the jig head, the head actually swivels. A lot of people rig it that way. Yes, it works. I've done a lot. I've done it that way a lot, but I'm catching more fish. In particular, I'm catching the bigger fish when I don't want that head wobble. And I'm able to catch more fish per lure. So. So how you rig it is basically you have this hook with the swinging jig head is. My strategy on rigging is to cover this entire gap, you know, with material. Right. The more material. Because this. This bend in the hook is what holds the. The. The lure on. And the more material you have above the bend obviously means the more material that's holding your lure in place, which means you can catch more fish per lure. So rigging is super easy. Just go right up the top. I go down a half of an inch because that's the amount of gap here. Go down half an inch, push it down. It'll twist. It'll twist around. So there you can see I pinned the head that. Now that head is not shaking. And then just take the hook right through natural point, and boom. That is mostly weedless. And when I was like this morning when I was skipping docks, it's called skin hooking, where I push the material up and get that hook point in the material. And so now I can bounce off of dock pilings no problem. I. I do this off of jetties, too, and passes and inlets. So now I can bounce through all the rocks without getting snagged. And. And again, the hookup ratio. Once a fish hits it, it squeezes down and it'll dislodge the hook and fish on. So this is the best ratio of, of not catching the bottom while also catching fish that I've. That I've ever used. Cool.
- [07:35]
B
You to clarify, that's the hos and that's only@fish drawn.com. you know, I think a lot of people maybe haven't heard of like what's hos? Where do I find it? So yeah, Fish strong dot com. And of course, if you're an insider member Salt strong insider. Remember, you get 20% off all that all day, every day. And prele bundles as well. And that was the, the prom. When does the. This extra tough material come out? When does that happen in on the prom?
- [07:59]
C
Yeah. So that'll be. That'll be toward either the end of June, 20 or early July, so coming up pretty soon. And they're bulletproof. So this is, this is the exact one I was using that. This is the one I was using last week out at some reefs. And you can see like this head was brand new when I started using it. And so was the lure. I caught a snook. I, I had a, a really big either Kobe or snook on that I end up losing, but I caught multiple, multiple grouper, couple flounder and countless little small reef fish that are just pecking at it. And it's got both eyes. Like the lure is in perfect condition. Typically like a normal plastisol lure. I would have gone through probably like four of them, four or five of them on the amount of time that I was using this and this thing. It is, it is close to bulletproof as possible and it still has some, some flexibility where it still has some good action in the water. So this is, this is going to be really, really good. We're going to have it in the original, which is the 4.3 ounce of inches and, and also the junior on this first iteration. And then we have a 2.5 incher that'll be coming out for the, the winner for some sheep head. Sheep's head action. So yeah, very impressed with that. And same thing, right? Same. Same rigging. I, I pinned the head so that it is mostly fixed and that seems to. To fool those bigger fish.
- [09:30]
B
Yeah, I've. I found that still catch a ton of fish even if you don't pin the head. I think you, you pointed out that you've caught bigger fish and maybe more for you personally. But I have seen a lot of People that aren't pinning it. Have you, have we done a side by side? I'm curious.
- [09:47]
C
Yeah, I mean, I was, I was, I used to, I used to not pin it and then I was just going through, I was going through lures too fast and, and when I started, when I started putting more material up here, which, which ended up pinning the head, I realized I was catching more big fish. And I think the reason why is because it looks more natural. Like this is the actual one I was throwing today. This, the line's a little bit, a little bit beat up, but I have yet to see a shrimp or a bait fish that has a head that sits there and wobbles. So, so, you know, these fish aren't smart, but they're not stupid. So like when, if you're swimming something and then, and then you start, then you, you either you're twitching or you're swimming and let it drop. If you don't pin it, that head will corkscrew down. That'll go like that. And no, no actual prey does that in real life. And so I think these bigger, smarter fish, that turns them off and, and they won't hit it. The reason why some people do do like to have the swivel is if they let it hit at the bottom and it, it supposedly will help the lure sway a little bit more in the current. I've, you know, I've, I've looked at the underwater. I've obviously filmed both ways and like, unless you're letting it sit for like three seconds or more, then it doesn't make a difference. And, and I personally never let it sit three seconds. I don't have the patience to go that slow. I basically just bounce bottom, let it sit for like one second, bounce bottom again. And, and when you're doing that speed or faster, depending I should say the swivel part doesn't add any action, I don't think. And even if it does, it's, it's not natural action, which I think is, it does more harm than good. So that being said, it'll still catch some fish. I just, I just think that this, this style, it will help fool the bigger ones. And what, what definitely is, is helped or improved by pinning the head like this. Where, where I'm not letting that, that head swivel is skipping. So like what I was doing today, skipping under docks it. By pinning the head and having it fixed, it significantly helps skipping. Nothing's worse than, than having that head, that pip that pivots down right when I first Started doing it. I was just doing the, the skin hook where, where the head would swivel, and I couldn't skip at all. Like, that head is pivoting. It's just. Which is one extra thing that catches the water. So if you're going to be skipping, absolutely pin the head. I recommend pinning the head either way.
- [12:21]
B
Good. All right, let's. Let's pivot. Get it. Let's pivot a little bit and talk about fishing spots. We've, you know, the last couple podcasts, we've talked about lures, and we both agreed that lures are very important. You need them, they're awesome. But what trumps at all is being in the right spot at the right time. You said you had an epic day. I'm curious, you know, I heard you say, docs, what else? And how are you picking your spots here? Assuming we're talking about summertime fish fishing, maybe even just start with, you know, today. What, what, what happened? And kind of not your exact spot, but why you picked those spots and why they worked.
- [12:58]
C
Yeah. So summertime. Let's see if I still have a tide chart up. But the, the. I just looking at the tide chart, like, first of all, this is like a few days after the full moon at this time. And, and so there was a, a pretty good amount of light last night, which means the fish were probably feeding and there was good current flow last night. And yeah, so here's, here's the tide chart. So right now we're on the red. When I was fishing, it was like right here in the morning. And so that's just a slow incoming in the evening is a really sharp decline. That's probably going to be the best bite. So I was looking at the tide chart. The current is weak. It's a week incoming. It's. It's right after a lot of, you know, a, a big moon night. That's not a good recipe for catching fish. So I was, okay, let me just go to Old Faithful. And that's skipping these prawn lures under docks. And so I end up, I'm catching a couple snook. I broke off on one that I, I didn't see, but it was, it was definitely bigger. The two I caught were all that good. I caught one trout that was probably 18, 19 inches. I caught a couple flounder, which brought. Came home for dinner, which is, which is rare in Tampa. There's not that many flounder in Tampa. And end up getting two. Two solid ones. And then, you know, handful of grouper so and then I, I, I was only fishing for about an hour and a half. A dolphin came in and, and was following the boat. So I, I went and left, I hit the flats and, and that was just dead. It was dead. And I, I just came home, came home early. But, but yeah. So what I did though is when I was selecting docks, like when I do select docks for this type of fishing, I'm basically looking for docks that have good current flow and, and ideally close to the Gulf, so or the Atlantic if I'm fishing the Atlantic side. But today I was on the Gulf side. And so what I did is I targeted some docks that were probably a quarter mile from the Gulf. So I was really close to a pass. I didn't want to be fighting the wind, so I just chose some docks that had a little bit of wind protection but still had at least some current exposure. And ideally the docks, I like docks that have all the way, that go all the way up to the shoreline. Not, not seawall docks. I like shoreline. For whatever reason I seem to catch more fish there. So I basically went to the, the closest docks that had a natural shoreline to the Gulf. That was really my, my, my game plan and, and it, I was you know, getting some, some decent action throughout the whole time, even though the tides were kind of garbage. But, but yeah, doing this type of fishing, as long as you're a good caster and can get good skips up under the dock, like in the shade, those fish, they, they feel comfortable there. First of all, they're there right? That's, there's, there's current, there's dock pilings, they feel comfortable, there's food. If, if you're near, if you're near a pass or an inlet that, and if current flow and structure, there's going to be some food going through there. And most importantly, those fish don't get a lot of, a lot of pressure because like live bait really can't fish it. The, the they, the live bait would just get tangled up in the dock pilings. But get good skipping a lure and, and just spin, get that lure time by the pilings on the bottom. And it's hard to not catch something. In many cases you catch some good stuff too. So it's, it's what I do when the, when I see the conditions not so good.
- [16:15]
B
Were you using smart fishing spots and like the one foot contour lines to look at like depth is depth coming to play? You're trying to find deeper docks or do you find that certain docks Older, newer and longer were any better?
- [16:28]
C
Um, yeah. I mean if I was going to a new area, I would have been using the one foot contour line. I was fishing the area that I, I used to live near. So I didn't, I didn't do that. But yeah, so I like to obviously like to have some deeper docks and, and the, the more into the summer, the, the more important the deepness is for now. Like we're early summer. So I was actually. Seagrass was another factor. So this one little zone has some seagrass plus a natural shoreline and docks. So seagrass was kind of like the, the unique factor that, that maximizes action, but anything. Right. If there's a stretch of docks that have rocks where the other docks don't fish, those docks like fish ones rocks and, and just like always. Right. For dock fishing, a brand new dock is not nearly as good as those old crusty docks with barnacles, you know, six inches off the thing or so. The, the more, the more gnarly the pilings look, the better it typically is. But it seems like this area, I guess this got beat up by some hurricanes. Like almost all the dock pilings are brand new. So I didn't, I didn't really have the crusty docks to, to fish. It was really just, just skipping up under every single dock. I probably, I don't know how many I fish, probably 20 or 30. But yeah, it just gets, it's all about practice skipping as let's say the, the most important thing when doing that and really nice.
- [17:51]
B
Yeah. Well, two things. Let's, let's go on the rigging because you mentioned it. What, what were you using? What size hoss jig head. And then talk about the importance of making sure it's on the bottom when you are fishing docks in the summer.
- [18:06]
C
Yeah. So dock fishing, I try to go with as light as possible of a jig head that allows me to get on the bottom because every eight, every slight increase in weight you have on the jig head, it. It significantly decreases the skippability. So today I was fishing anywhere from 2ft of water down to about 8ft of water. And the quarter ounce is my go to. So I can, I can easily of course hit the, the two. It's not, it's not too heavy. It's not like, it's not like beating up the bottom and the shallow water. It's a, it's light enough to skip, but it's heavy enough to get down to the deeper water. I just have to give it more time so and sometimes like if fish are more aggressive or the fish are always holding on the outside and I'm fishing 8ft of water, sometimes I go up to a half ounce, a half ounce jig head. But today the water was a little bit higher. Some of these docks were long so I was kind of fishing the entire span of the dock. And so when I do that it's the quarter ounce, quarter ounces my go to and the, and the, the. We have two sizes on the prawn USA lures. The original one is my go to. It skips better and I think more importantly it weeds out some of the smaller fish. I'm typically going after bigger fish when I do this. And so if I throw the, if I want to catch the most fish, I'll put the junior on because now I'm catching the mangrove snapper and, and the smaller species. Whereas this, this bigger one, it'll, it'll weed out most of the mangrove snapper. If I do catch a mangrove snapper on it's, it's a big one when it hits the bigger lure. But, but in most, most cases I'm going after the, the snook redfish flounder, all of which and trout, all of which can easily suck down a four and a half inch lure. So another question we get a lot is we have the football jig heads also and I do use those a lot as well. And some people say what when do you use the football versus the round one? If I'm only going to use the prong lures, I throw the football and this, this day in particular I was going to fish some oysters afterwards. And, and when doing that I prefer paddle tails. And so with paddle tails I prefer the round. The round is just a good all purpose shape of a jig head for football. If I'm always bouncing bottom or dragging, the football is slightly better because it'll sit on the bottom and it won't pivot. It'll, it'll. That football shape kind of helps it stay keeled. But in the, it really doesn't matter that much. The, the actual weight to make sure that you're able to get on the bottom and the fact that you can skip the, the weight is way more important than the shape. So, so a lot of people get, I think I get, we get a lot of questions about the shape of the jig head and it, it doesn't really matter that much. Either way works.
- [20:53]
B
It's good. Let's, let's go back to the docks. Did you find it was like a 9010 zone. You said you fished, let's just say 20 of them, and that was, you know, a few held all the fish or you were getting bites everywhere?
- [21:07]
C
Yeah, I mean, it was kind of. It was sporadic. Yeah. For. For these docks, too. Typically, when there's. There's one fish, there's more. And so every time I either caught something or got a strike, I made sure to get some more casts up under that dock. So the. The first flounder was caught after I caught a snook. So I caught a snook under one, released it, and then started pitching up under it again. And then a couple casts later caught a flounder. So. But there wasn't. There wasn't any that had like, five fish. It was just like two max, and then go on the next one. So they were. They're more scattered.
- [21:41]
B
Yeah. I would just. I would harp on and just be a repeater that in general, There is a 9010. Whether Luke happened to be on a 9010 section of a huge dock line, or if you have 20 docks and there's going to have three or four that. That have the majority of the fish, don't be afraid to move. You know, some people, you know, get there and they're like, this looks so perfect. And you just keep fishing this dock and you're casting for an hour. Like, no, keep. Keep moving. How often are you moving?
- [22:08]
C
Oh, the whole time. Yeah. So, I mean, like, how.
- [22:11]
B
How many casts would you do under each dock? I guess is a different way to ask.
- [22:14]
C
Oh, yeah. I'll try to do three. So I try to do the outside at least one inside and then on the. On the outside span of the other, so. Because if there's a fish there and ski, it'll usually hit the first one. As long as it's a good cast. If. If I. If I kind of have a dud cast, then that doesn't count. I do another one. But. But I was constantly run the trolling motor, and so if I didn't, you know, I didn't have time to do any more than that. And, yeah, typically, first cast is usually going to be the ticket.
- [22:45]
B
That's good. Yeah, you're moving fast. That's fast. That's intact.
- [22:49]
C
Cool.
- [22:49]
B
All right, well, anything. Anything else? I know we want to do this kind of a quicker one here, but I think it's super helpful. Just a great way to go catch fish in. In the summer, there's docks everywhere, and I think to kind of highlight it. I heard you go near the, you know, mouth inlet, pass some sort of channel where there's moving water, you got current flow which is you're bringing cooler water in. Going weedless is critical with, with the prawn on a hoss round hour or football, you know, make sure you have enough weight but not too much to get down to to the bottom and don't be afraid to move around anything else.
- [23:29]
C
To sum it up and just the. The shrimp profiles are amazing. For many years I would only use paddle tails and obviously they do work great too. But for fishing docks, especially if the fish aren't super aggressive that like this prawn usa it has a perfect silhouette of a shrimp and I just always use the natural color. It's hard to beat looking, looking like a natural shrimp and getting this thing on the bottom bouncing structure. It is shockingly effective. This is when I'm, when I'm struggling. If I'm on a like today where the tides aren't very good, this is the, this is the one that, that always bails me out. Rig it weedless. Get it in your structure. Whether it's dock pilings, rocks, oysters, seagrass, it flat out always works. I even caught a triple tail today too. I was going by boo. We saw triple tail, triple tail. Love this thing. And so I typically bring both sizes. Again when I'm going after the bigger fish, I'm always using the, the bigger one, the, the original. It's called the OG and if this isn't working and then this comes out and now I'm catching mangrove snapper for triple tail this size. Right. By far my most trusted. So I always have both sizes handy. Start with this. It skips better the big one. And then to make sure that I get something this smaller one and, and the crazy thing is these, these lures, they are great at, at just getting fish right. Anything but also quality fish too. I, I have most of my personal best with these lures, most of most of which are the bigger one including snook over 40 inches. A lot of keeper cobia even permit it is. It is really effective. I, I did myself a disservice by, by only using like paddle tails and jerk baits. For many years I, I thought shrimp lures were going to be too slow to bother with. But. But they are incredibly effective especially in the summer and the winter when you have to go slow and low. Get it and get it by the structure and the fact that these can be rigged wheelists on all depth. All depth ranges really from 10 inches all the way up to 200ft where we have a two ounce jig head across has the two ounce jig heads for these things and, and they flat out work. So. So now I never ever go fishing without these prawn lures plus these weedless rigging options for whatever depth range that I'm going to be at for, for the given day. So never leave home without it.
- [26:02]
B
And if you're listening, he's still talking about the prawn which you can only get@fishtrong.com and same with those hoss jig heads. That's all@fish strong.com and if you haven't joined us, join the insider club. You get access to the app you get. We're sending out free tackle every single month. Some of the jig heads are going out right now. I saw the email just went out this week. We're a free tackle tester for this month and as I mentioned earlier, 20 to even 30, sometimes 40% off every single thing in our store all day, every day for members. So come join us@saltstrong.com and hopefully my arm will be all healed up soon. Ended up ripping my bicep. Had to get surgery and should be back in action the next few weeks to hopefully see Luke and I doing some lives again. It's been a while.
- [26:47]
C
It has been and brutal. The old getting, getting injured, never fun. And yeah. So these jig heads, these exact ones that I was, that I was using today and that we've been talking about, these are the tackle tester for the week or first for the month. So three packs of these things, they're awesome. They work on all soft plastics and you can customize it based on depth, lure size and we even have a rigging chart to make sure that you match the right depth, the right weight for whichever lure you're using and whatever depth range you're using it. So when you get that depth right, everything else is easier. It is. Depth control is another thing I overlooked for a lot a long time and. And it is most of the feeding happens on the bottom. So make sure you're getting. Getting your lures down there on the bottom right where the action is. That's right. Cool.
- [27:39]
B
Otherwise guys, we appreciate you and we'll talk to you on the next episode. Peace.
- [27:53]
D
Find us on the water if there was away said my papa he wrote the book on catching big reds and £20 snook I wish I knew all the things he knew today
- [28:15]
C
for he's
- [28:16]
D
the reason why we are this way and he put fish in our souls to stay.