TACKLE TIPS: ALL THE GEAR YOU NEED, AND SOME STUFF YOU DON'T

 

BE PREPARED

You want to be prepared for anything when you go out for a day on the water. After all, plans can change quickly. What if your target fish won’t bite, or there’s someone already on your favorite spot, or there’s a storm coming from where you planned to go, or the water is too dirty? Anything can change your plan, and that can ruin your day — unless you’re ready to adapt. On the other hand, carrying every piece of fishing gear you own can get unwieldy. Here’s what I take for a day when anything can happen: An 8-, 15- and 25-pound class spinning outfit; a 40-pound class conventional rig; an assortment of circle and J-hooks from #6 to 10/0; assorted splitshot sinkers; egg sinkers in 1-, 2- and 4-ounce sizes; at least three sabiki rigs; an assortment of jigheads; assorted colors of silly jigs; 1/4-, 1/2- and 1-ounce white bucktail jigs; 1/8-, 1/4- and 1/2-ounce gold spoons; six or eight colors of my favorite soft plastic baits; a couple topwater lures; a couple lipped plugs; 20-, 30-, 50- and 80-pound fluorocarbon leader; 30- and 80-pound single-strand wire leader; wading boots; pliers; spare pliers; a knife; and frozen shrimp. So equipped, I’m ready to catch anything from threadfins to bull sharks.

 

Many nice fish are lost right at the boat. This is almost always due to overtaxing gear. For example, it’s common for a fish to make a final run just before it’s boated. If you’re prepared for this, it’s no problem. But if you’ve tightened your drag — or worse, set your rod down — it can be disastrous. Another common mistake is trying to lift the fish into the boat using the rod. For smaller fish, this is OK, but with bigger ones you’re risking the hook pulling out, the line breaking at a weak spot and potentially breaking the rod. Any of these things can lead to a lost fish. When you’re boating a big one, an appropriate tool is helpful. For fish that you know you’re going to harvest, a gaff can do much to ensure your prize doesn’t get away. Fish that you will or might release should never be gaffed. A net, preferably with rubber-coated mesh, is the best tool most of the time. A lip-gripping tool can also be used, on it’s own or in conjunction with a net. If you’re operating alone, loosen the drag (or open the bail) and put the rod in a holder before you attempt to net the fish. Hold the line in your hand and be ready to let go if the fish runs for it. You may have to fight him again, but that’s better than losing him.

BRAID

Braided fishing line is great stuff, but it’s not the right choice for every situation. It has very little stretch, and sometimes the stretch or larger diameter of monofilament is a good thing. One of those situations is when you’re using a conventional reel, especially one with a wide spool. The problem is that braided lines are so thin, the line will tend to dig into the line wrapped on the spool below it. Then, when a fish is running hard and gets to the point the line is buried, there’s suddenly a lot more tension than you were expecting. If you’re lucky, all that happens is the line breaks or the hook pulls out of the fish. If you’re less lucky, you might lose your rod and reel overboard. If you’re truly outta luck, you might go overboard yourself — not good. Some newer conventional reels are made with narrow spools. This designs reduces the chance of line getting buried but does not eliminate it. The angler needs to be vigilant about keeping the line tight at all times — any looseness will allow line to bury. Or, better yet, stick with monofilament on your conventional reels. The stretch will help keep fish on when trolling, and the line will “sing” less when you’re bottom fishing, neither of which is a bad thing.

 

“I hate braided line. All it does is get knotted up!” If you resemble that remark, it’s time to take a look at what you might be doing wrong. First, is your tackle made for braid? If you’re using a reel made before 2010, you should probably stick with monofilament. I have an old Shimano Baitrunner 6500 spooled with 30-pound mono and a newer Baitrunner 8000 lined with 40-pound braid. I have no problems with either because each has the type of line it was designed for. Many older rods use guide inserts that are too soft for braid. If your gear is new, consider trying a different brand of line. I throw wind knots constantly with PowerPro but have no problems with Invisi-Braid (your results may differ). With spinning gear, close the bail manually instead of snapping it with the handle. The enemy is slack line, which creates loose loops on the spool. These loops get caught by line coming off when you cast, and bam! — wind knot. I go so far as to pull the line forward after closing the bail to eliminate any bit of slack line before I start reeling. Braided line is good stuff, but you have to use the right gear and modify your techniques to make it work for you.

 

When I’m hanging around one of the tackle shops, I often overhear things. Some of them are interesting, some are informative, and some are just confusing. The other day, I heard a guy talking to his buddy about what size line he should put on his reel. “I think 40-pound braid is the same thickness as 10-pound mono,” he said. “Yeah,” his buddy agreed, “that’s what you ought to put on there.” I popped my head around the corner to see his reel, figuring it would be a big ol’ Penn Spinfisher or something. Nope — it was a 3000 size Shimano. I briefly thought about trying to talk him out of such heavy line on that small reel, then remembered I was in someone else’s place of business. But maybe I can explain it to the rest of you. There’s no good reason to use 40-pound braid for light inshore fishing. You won’t gain appreciable abrasion resistance, because when braid is stretched tight it takes shockingly little friction to part it. Besides, your leader will take most of the abuse. You can’t take on bigger fish, because you’ll be putting too much strain on the reel’s drag system (or gearing, if you crank the drag down). For light tackle use, there’s really only one difference between spooling up with 15-pound braid and 40-pound: You’ll cut your casting distance by 25 percent or better. One of the huge advantages of braid is that its small diameter lets you cast farther. Why would you then deliberately erase that advantage by using overly heavy line? Actually, back when braid was a new thing, a lot of anglers used heavier stuff because the light stuff would cut you. It still can, but I’ve never cut myself on braid over 20-pound test, even with wet hands. I blame the TV bass guys for some of this — they like to use 80-pound braid with no leader. It works in the hydrilla, but it’s not so good on the grassflats.

 

Braided line has some definite advantages, but it’s far from perfect. One problem is that it’s easily broken by sharp tugging. Solution: Use a longer monofilament or fluorocarbon leader, preferably at least 3 feet. Tie the lines together using a double uni knot. To prevent the braid cutting through the fluoro under heavy strain, double over about a foot of the braid and then tie. You can also use the FG knot, which is actually not a knot at all — it's just a Chinese fingercuff. The FG is amazingly strong and small, but it's also tricky to tie in less-than-ideal conditions. I often start out with FG knots rigged on my rods, but if I break my line or have to replace a leader on the boat, I'll switch to the much simpler double uni.

FLOATS

We’ve all used a float or bobber at some point. A lot of more-experienced anglers look down on these devices as a crutch for beginner fishermen, but they’re actually a multi-use tool that should be in every angler’s tackle bag. One of the most basic uses is as a strike indicator, providing a visual clue to what’s happening to your bait. Any kid who’s fished for bluegills can tell you that when the bobber goes down, you set the hook. But once you move beyond that stage, a float is still useful for keeping your bait at a pre-determined depth. If you need to keep your pinfish, crab or shrimp from hiding in the grass, a float does the job. For some species, notably redfish and trout, a popping cork or rattling float can be used to provide added enticement. The sound produced can often draw fish in from a distance, and it’s especially useful when the water is dark or the wind is putting a ripple on the surface. The key is moderation —don’t pop it every five seconds. Once or twice a minute should be plenty. Although they’re mostly used with natural baits, floats are also useful for presenting soft plastic lures. A DOA Bait Buster under a float is a great tarpon lure, and shrimp-imitating plastics can be used on the flats. Most floats sold in the tackle shops are brightly colored, which makes them much easier to see when used as a strike indicator. If you’re concerned about the unnatural colors spooking the fish, it’s pretty easy to paint a float brown or black to imitate driftwood — no fish is spooked by driftwood — or choose white to blend in with sunlight from above. If you want to be anal about it, use a wooden float. Some of these are manufactured in a long narrow shape that looks a lot like a mangrove propagule just drifting along — ideal for not setting off a snook’s alarm sensors.

FUN WITH LEAD

Weights are one of the most commonly used items of tackle, but few anglers seem to really understand how to use them most efficiently. Most of the time, a weight serves one of three purposes: To keep a bait from moving around too much in heavy current, get your bait to the bottom and keep it there, or to add enough mass for casting. The most common mistake is using too much weight — sometimes way too much. Unless you’re fishing the surf or dropping to the bottom in water more than 30 feet deep, you rarely need more than an ounce of lead here. In most cases, you can get away with less, usually a quarter- or eighth-ounce. Try using less weight and then adding to it if it’s not enough. Removable splitshot sinkers can be very helpful in this regard. The reasons to use less weight are myriad: In bottom fishing, heavy weights are no fun to reel up. When casting, a heavy weight makes a subtle presentation difficult at best. Under any circumstances, the more lead is on your line, the more likely a fish is to notice the resistance when it takes the bait. This is truly one of those cases when less can be so much more.

 

Jigheads are one of the most versatile items you can have in your tackle box, and you should always keep an assortment of sizes on hand. The idea behind a jighead is simple: Mold a bit of lead onto a hook near the eye. But combining the weight and the hook into a single piece of gear created something totally different from a hook and a sinker. One of the most common uses for jigheads is rigging soft plastics. Any type of plastic lure — shad, grub, worm, jerkbait or whatever — can be set up on a jighead. Live or dead shrimp or baitfish can also be used in conjunction with jigheads. Different configurations of weight and head shape will have a major effect on how the rigged lure or bait moves through the water, and there are hundreds of styles commercially produced in weights from 1/100 of an ounce to a couple pounds. For local anglers, the 1/16- to quarter-ounce sizes will be used most frequently, though it’s not a bad idea to have a few heavier ones for deeper water or strong current. Any color will work, as long as it’s red (or yellow, white, pink, etc. — whatever your preference. But red is better. Just sayin.)

HOOKS

A lot of anglers who are relatively new to fishing in salt water make the same mistake: They use hooks that are far too large. Really, you should be sizing your hook to your bait and the fish you plan to catch. Think about the bait first. You go to great pains to keep your shrimp or whitebait lively and frisky, because a more active bait generally draws more attention from hungry predators. Why, then, would you want to weigh your bait down with a giant hook? Rather than being able to swim freely, your bait will be anchored in one spot. For use with live bait, you are usually best served by the smallest hook that will hold the fish. And that can be a surprisingly small hook. Under most circumstances, a well-made No. 2 hook is more than sufficient for redfish up to about 10 pounds. If you’re fishing around heavy structure, you may need to go up a size or two because you have to use a stronger drag setting. Even big, powerful fish like sharks and tarpon can be taken on relatively small hooks. A 4X strong 7/0 hook is plenty for even the biggest tarpon and for sharks up to a couple hundred pounds.

LEADERS

How many different types of leader do you carry with you? Leader material is a crucial part of your fishing success. It needs to be unobtrusive enough that it won’t prevent fish from biting but strong enough to keep fish from chewing or abrading though it. Look in my tackle bag and you’ll find fluorocarbon in 25- and 30-pound (for general flats fishing and bottom fishing snapper), 20-pound (for targeting redfish or chummed snapper), 15-pound (for freshwater fishing), 40- and 50-pound (for snook fishing and bottom fishing grouper), 60-pound (for Spanish mackerel, snook around heavy cover, deeper grouper and smaller tarpon) and 80-pound (for bigger tarpon and any time my 60 gets broken). There’s also single-strand wire in No. 7, 9 and 15 (mackerel, kingfish and small sharks, and larger sharks, respectively), AFW knottable Surflon wire in 20- and 90-pound test (in case there isn’t time to make a regular wire leader), and monofilament in 30-, 40- and 60-pound (same uses as fluoro, but for fishing at night or in dark water). Over-prepared? Maybe. I prefer to see it as ready for anything. The one thing I don’t have: Pre-made wire leaders (aka tourist rigs).

 

How often do you check your leader for fraying or abrasion? You should be inspecting it after every fish you catch or hook, and if you snag on a mangrove or oyster you should check it them too. Actually, it’s a really good idea to get in the habit of looking at it every few casts. A chafed leader is a heartbreaking but all-too-common way to lose a fish. While we all know to run our fingers over the leader after catching a snook or tarpon, other species can and do leave bite marks or gouges in leader material. Mangrove snapper, redfish and trout fishermen often get out of the habit of checking because their targets rarely chomp or abrade through leaders, but that’s when they’re at risk. Even a whiting can run your line against sharp barnacles or oysters, so it always pays to take a brief moment to ensure your leader is in top shape. If there are any marks at all, don’t risk it — just retie it. Be sure to use quality material meant for tying leaders, which will have more abrasion resistance built in. Yes, the bulk spools of monofilment and fluorocarbon are cheaper by the yard, but how much are those savings worth when you lose fish?

REELS

How much drag do you need? In recent years, tackle makers have been producing reels with enormously strong drags — 40, 50, even 100 pounds of resistance. It stands to reason that when you’re fighting big fish, the more drag you have the better — right? Here’s a fun experiment: Go grab your favorite heavy-duty outfit — you know, the one that you think you need to upgrade to a mega-drag model. Crank down the drag as tight as you can, tie the line to your bumper, and have a friend start driving slowly down the road. How do you like that? More importantly, how long do you think you could take that kind of strain while fighting a fish? One of the main reasons your reel has a drag is to allow you to wear out a fish while not getting too worn out yourself. The heavier your drag setting is, the tougher it is for you to hang on to the rod as the fish peels out line. If you set your drag a bit lighter, the fish still has to work against the pressure but you won’t tire as quickly. It’s pretty near impossible for an average angler to hold onto a rod for more than a minute or so while a big strong fish pulls against 30 pounds of drag, let alone 50 or 100. I don’t care if you’re a bulked-up MMA fighter, you’re not holding 100 pounds of drag.

 

Dual-drag spinning reels (Baitrunners, Live Liners, Bait Teasers, etc.) are a great way to expand the versatility of your tackle arsenal. Dual-drag reels have a drag system like any other spinning reel, but then there’s a second drag that can be set much lighter — almost like the free-spool setting on a conventional reel. This allows you to use the reel much like a conventional, which means it’s far simpler to allow a fish to run with the bait for a moment before setting the hook. Although these reels are popular for targeting sharks, tarpon and kingfish, in most other countries they are used for carp. Our own redfish, which are often compared to carp, are sometimes a lot easier to catch when you can let them run with the bait. This is especially true when cutbait is working best. However, perhaps the best use of dual-drag reels is for pier fishing. Think about it: You cast out your bait and then set the rod up against the pier railing. What happens if a big one hits? We’ve all seen rods go right over the rail. But with a dual-drag reel, you can hear the light drag singing with no risk of the rod going into the drink. Now you’re fishing smarter.

RODS

There’s no such thing as the perfect fishing rod. With so many factors involved, almost any given fishing situation has a different ideal rod solution. For example, let’s look at just length. A long rod makes distance casting much easier, but fighting a fish is less tiring with a short rod. Most area anglers choose rods between 6.5 and 8 feet, but big-fish specialists often use rods as short as 4.5 feet, while some prefer 9-foot models for their casting ability. The way a rod bends is also highly variable. It’s called action (or sometimes taper). A slow action rod bends along the whole length; on an extra fast rod, only the tip bends. Generally, faster rods are better for artificials and slower rods, which snap back less, are best for fishing live bait. For many anglers, it just comes down to personal preference. This is where having a good relationship with your local tackle shop comes into play. Not only can they give you good advice based on your preferences and style of fishing, you can probably get a demonstration of one or more of the possibilities before you buy. If you’re on really good terms, you might even be able to fish it before you fully commit. On the other hand, you could just grab one and hope it works out. Good luck with that.

The perfect fishing rod would be so strong you could bend it in half without breaking it, so sensitive you could feel a gnat land on it and so light you didn’t even realize you were holding it. Since nothing is perfect, we have to compromise. Fiberglass is strong, but it’s heavy and insensitive. High modulus graphite is light and sensitive but brittle. Carbon fiber might be able to do all three, but the technology to build that rod doesn’t exist yet (today’s carbon fiber rods are composites reinforced with carbon fiber, not straight carbon fiber). Your best bet is to feel as many rods as possible. A good tackle shop will help you demo rods in the store until you find one that feels right. Ideally, you should attach the reel you plan to use before doing any testing — it’s amazing how different a rod can feel with different reels hung on it. Once you select a make and model, play with different lengths and actions. For fishing that involves casting, you’re generally best off with the longest rod you can easily transport, which is probably a 7-foot or 7-foot-6 model.

ULTRALIGHT TACKLE

A lot of anglers like to maximize the sport of fishing by using tackle that’s as light as possible. Some argue that such tackle is more sporting because it gives the fish more of a chance to defeat the fisherman. Although such an argument makes some sense, there are times it falls flat. For example, when you’re pursuing large fish such as tarpon and sharks for catch and release. A fight that lasts more than 30 minutes is unnecessarily stressful on a fish and reduces its chances of surviving. When the water is warm, it holds less oxygen, and fights longer than a few minutes can be fatal for fish. Now, when the water temps are in the 70s, I'll be out there with sometimes ridiculously light gear (4-pound Nanofil is fun on open flats). Just pick your time — and your place — carefully.

Still have questions? This site is a work in progress and more information will be added over time. Meanwhile, email me and let's see if we can get you some answers.

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