These are the only four rigs you need for speckled trout fishing, whether you love live bait or swear by artificials.
It was so early in the morning, I couldn’t even see the fluorescent-orange cork that my fishing partner, Eric Dumas, had threaded onto my braided line. I knew it was out there somewhere, but it was well-hidden amongst the inky shadows at the base of the train trestle in eastern Lake Pontchartrain.
“Just watch for it to go under,” Dumas said. “You don’t have to worry about these fish nibbling around on it. They’ll suck it down quick.”
“Fat chance,” I mumbled. “Eric,” I queried, “how am I supposed to watch it go under when I can’t even see it? Are you sure we had to get out here this early? I could have still been in bed dreaming about these lovely ladies rather than out here hoping they pull down a cork I can’t even see.”
Dumas assured me that it would be light enough to see the cork in mere moments, and that in the meantime I should just feel for something tugging on the other end of my line.
Twenty minutes and no tugs later, I finally figured out why Dumas had instructed me to cast my sliding-cork rig toward the south shore. As soon as the bright-orange float settled into the water, it had already moved more than 5 feet toward the north shore.
The current was ripping down the side of the trestle fast enough that even if I could have seen it earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with it. Apparently, Dumas and his good buddy, Chas Champagne, had been stroking some monster trout using the falling tide and a floating cork to their advantage, and Dumas was hoping for more of the same.
Unfortunately, the trout weren’t providing more of the same this particular morning. But rather than offer up a litany of excuses about why the fish weren’t biting, Dumas simply adjusted our game plan. He tried to explain what he was doing to me as he put down the sliding cork rigs and started getting out the Carolina rigs.
“These trout were biting under the sliding cork first thing in the morning on a falling tide,” he explained. “Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen today, though, especially since we’re at the end of the tide. We’ve got a pretty good break before it starts coming back in, and we’re going to work this place over with these Carolina rigs. If they weren’t suspended, they’ve must be on the bottom.”
Bingo! Dumas and I slowly started slinging some big trout into the bottom of his boat. The frequency of bites increased with the incoming tide, and we were soon trying to close the lid on an overstuffed box full of beautiful trout.
As we rode back toward the Rigolets Marina, I probed Dumas about how he knew to put down one rig and pick up another. His solid reasoning coupled with the only proof I needed in the ice chest made me realize that there is a time and place to fish a slip cork and a time and place to fish a Carolina rig.
And although we didn’t throw them on this day, I knew a tightline rig and a popping cork had their own little niches carved out as well. Together, they make the four basic rigs all saltwater anglers should know.
Sliding cork
The first of two cork rigs in the “four to know” is the sliding cork. Long recognized as a staple in the saltwater world when anglers desire to get a live bait down to fish holding in deep water, the sliding cork should always be attached to at least one rod in your boat if you have live bait aboard. It is great for fishing live bait off the bottom in current to cover water when fish are suspended off the bottom.
Dumas, a veteran Pontchartrain angler who has lit up the louisianasportsman.com message board the past year with pictures of all the giant trout he catches from the east side of the lake, said a sliding cork couldn’t be any easier to rig.
“First you want to put on a bobber stop on your line,” said Dumas. “After that, slide on a bead, then the cork. At this point, I like to thread on a 3/8-ounce egg weight before I tie on the hook. A kahle hook works well, but I sometimes tie on a treble hook to help catch the light-biters.”
Dumas adds the egg weight above the hook to keep the bait down in the strike zone. He has also discovered that spooling his reel with 40-pound-test Power Pro makes it easier to hook fish.
“It’s not a matter of feeling a bite better or setting the hook quicker,” Dumas said. “I like the Power Pro because it floats on the surface, whereas mono will sink. This allows me to get a better hook-set because I don’t have to reel in all that mono slack before jerking.”
Dumas most frequently fishes a sliding cork by casting it in current lines and allowing the cork to move parallel to structure with the flow. He believes this rig keeps most “junk” fish off his hook as the bait, mainly live shrimp or live croakers when he can get them, is suspended at the same depth as the trout.
“To find the right depth, I move the bobber stop until my bait just hits the bottom,” Dumas said. “Then I pull it down about 1 1/2 to 2 feet. From there, I’ll continue to slide the bobber stop down about a foot at a time until I get on the bite.”
Popping cork
The second of our cork rigs, the venerable popping cork, has graduated from a basic egg-shaped float with a weight on the bottom and an embedded rattle to a full-blown accessory complete with titanium wire and colorful star-shaped beads. If the sliding cork is a mainstay for live-bait anglers, the popping cork is a must-have for all anglers.
One angler who relies heavily on a popping cork to put trout in his boat is Capt. Allen Welch with Hooked Up Charters in Venice. Welch likes to keep it old school with the old egg-shaped cork with weight and rattle because, in his words, it doesn’t get any simpler or easier.
“I fish the popping cork a lot,” he admitted. “One of the things that makes me reach for it first is when I read the fish as being not very active or aggressive. A popping cork allows me to hang a bait right in their faces to make them bite.”
Rigging the egg-shaped popping cork is just a matter of pushing the little red shaft that runs down the center of the cork to attach the metal hook to your line at each end of the cork. The newer popping-cork rigs, like the Bass Assassin Kwik Cork, come pre-rigged with brass and glass beads threaded on a titanium wire with twist-ties at each end. Simply tie your main line to the top end and a leader line to the other.
“A popping cork is best when you’re fishing off-colored water where you have to attract the fish first with sound,” Welch explained. “There are times when the water is really dirty that I have better luck with concave-type corks rather than the egg corks because they make a louder sound, which helps the fish find the rig easier.”
Welch most frequently hangs a purple/chartreuse V&M Lil’ Marsh Minnow about 18 inches below his cork. However, there are times during the fall and early spring when he does better with a shorter leader.
“You’ll actually see them hanging out under your cork looking at it like they want to eat it,” said Welch. “When I see that, I’m bringing my bait up toward the surface more. I’ll also try something that falls a little slower in that situation. A DOA shrimp works well for that rigged on a floater hook.”
Tightline
The first member of our “four to know” club that doesn’t require a cork, the tightline rig is probably as old as fishing itself. Welch reaches for this basic rig when he believes the fish to be more active and willing to chase after a lure.
The rigging directions for a tightline rig are rather short. Tie your line to a jighead, thread on your favorite plastic bait and you’re done. The intricacies in tightlining come in knowing when and where to fish it.
“A tightline works in the same places as the cork,” Welch said. “Good places to fish it are over oyster reefs and around roseau cane stubble. Sometimes you get hindered with the sailcats and hardheads with a popping cork, but you usually don’t have that problem with a tightline.”
Welch fishes a tightline most often between June and November when the water color at Venice clears up a good bit. The fish often sink down a little deeper during this time also, and there’s nothing better for fishing deeper fish over structure in clear water.
“I use a tightline a lot out on the oil platforms,” Welch said. “I’ll start fishing it down at about a three-count, then keep going deeper and deeper until I find the fish. I would say the harder the current, the closer you want your tightline rig to be to the bottom. This also goes for the fall when the fish are in the passes with current.”
Selecting the right jighead is an important consideration when fishing a tightline. The key is to fish as light a weight as you can feel under the given conditions. The faster the current, the heavier jighead you need. Welch starts with a 3/8-ounce weight, and adjusts lighter or heavier as needed.
Welch does best fishing a tightline with 40- or 50-pound-test Power Pro to help him feel the light bites, which come frequently in the river during the fall. Trout are notorious for biting very lightly this time of year — almost feeling like something just brushed your line.
Carolina rig
Actually the most versatile of our must-have rigs, the Carolina rig is just as at home in salt water for trout as it is in fresh water for bass. Primarily a live-bait rig for saltwater anglers, a Carolina rig is awesome for fishing live bait in really deep water like that around the Rigolets Bridge, the L&N Train Bridge and Seabrook.
To rig a Carolina rig, thread your main line through a 1/2- to 1-ounce egg sinker, depending on the current. Thread on a bead or two, then tie your main line to a swivel. To the other end of the swivel, tie about a 2-foot length of leader line and finish it off with a kahle-style hook.
Dumas believes the rig to be at its best in water from 15 to 30 feet deep. He has found that fish in this depth tend to not suspend as high off the bottom as those that are 8 feet or shallower.
“You’ll catch more hardheads, sailcats and drum when you’re fishing a Carolina rig,” Dumas said, “but if the trout are on bottom, then you just kind of have to put up with it. It’ll be worth it when you reel in a couple of 5-pound trout. The other fish are more of a problem when you’re fishing live shrimp. That’s why I try to use live croakers when I can get them.”
Anglers fishing with live croakers need to be patient when they first feel a bite. Don’t jerk on the first bite you feel because that’s just the trout munching on the bait to kill it right before spitting it out to spin it around. A trout will attack a live croaker from any direction, but it’s going to swallow it headfirst. Therefore, wait until you feel the rod load up a little bit before setting the hook.
“Sometimes on Pontchartrain, you’ll even get fooled when fishing live shrimp,” Dumas added. “Those baby croakers will get on your shrimp and peck the legs off. It’ll drive you crazy and make you want to set the hook with every peck. And I think the smart trout out here will actually pick up a shrimp and try to get you to pull the hook out of it so they get a free meal. In either case, make sure to feel the weight of the fish before pulling.”
Dumas always fishes a Carolina rig by picking the weight up off the bottom then setting it down. He has noticed that most of his bites come on the fall, and sometimes he won’t even know a fish is on until he picks it up again.
As you can see, the members of our “four to know” club will take care of you no matter the season and no matter if you like live bait or artificial. Get to know these four basic rigs, and you’ll up your odds of catching trout no matter where you go.
