We connected our cracked crabs to Carolina-rigged 5/0 kahle hooks. The rig allows you to get the bait on the bottom, while the hook’s curvature snags in the corners of redfishs’ mouths nine out of 10 times, Capt. Bill Lake said.
Weight, like the right bait and the right hook, is something that matters to Lake.
“Very rarely do we ever use more than a ¾-ounce weight …,” he explained. “If you go to 1 ounce or 1 ½-ounce you’re taking away from the sensation of when a fish is biting. You lose a lot of sensitivity with a bigger weight.
“You have to use just enough weight to get your hook to the bottom, but not enough that’s over kill.”
Weight selection also is important to presentation.
“You want it to move in the current a little bit,” Lake said. “You have to picture in your mind the hook and crab coming up, waving off the bottom 12 or so inches from the weight. The fish are definitely on the bottom all the time. We fish these holes and never catch them up in the water column.”
