Captain uses two tools to stay on the shallow rig bite

One of the more challenging aspects of fishing shallow-water rigs is keeping your boat in the right spot to stay on a hot bite.

“Anchors will definitely hold your boat still,” said Capt. John Falterman, “but they can turn off the fish with all the commotion, not to mention having to figure out how much anchor rope to put out and where your boat’s going to wind up once you’ve got your anchor deployed.”

Instead of traditional anchors, Falterman prefers to use rig hooks or his MinnKota Riptide Ulterra trolling motor to hold his boat in precisely the right spot.

“With my Ulterra, I can Spot Lock up current or down current, and it will hold me locked within a foot of where I lock it,” Falterman explained. “I can take fish off, walk to the back of the boat, do anything I want to do without having to worry about my boat moving.”

Falterman went on to explain that his trolling motor could also lock onto a specific contour under water and follow it.

“Say I’m catching fish on the edge of a shell bed where it drops from 9 to 10 feet,” he said. “I can put it on that contour line, and it will follow it in a circle around the rig.”

A less advanced way to hold still on a rig without having to worry about turning off the bite is with a rig hook.

“Most of these shallow rigs have pilings around them with some kind of cable wrapped around them,” Falterman said. “With a rig hook, you can go up to the pilings and hook onto them. Your boat will obviously pull back into the down current side, but if you set it right it can keep you in the right spot and off the rig itself at the same time.”

About Chris Ginn 778 Articles
Chris Ginn has been covering hunting and fishing in Louisiana since 1998. He lives with his wife Jennifer and children Matthew and Rebecca along the Bogue Chitto River in rural Washington Parish. His blog can be found at chrisginn.com.