As said before, it is always a good idea to try different baits to see which one is the most effective. This is the opportunity that the flapper rig offers, so make sure to take maximum advantage of it. But you can also use the dropper loop rig with any kind of cut bait or natural bait, such as sand fleas, crabs or squid strips. However, many anglers prefer to use setups with multiple mosquito hooks for this. We’ll go over the strengths and weaknesses of each of these surf fishing rigs below, so you can decide which one is best for you. Fish finder rig for surf fishing If fishing at short range from high venues like piers, the top hook is likely to be lifted off the bottom by the angle of the mainline. Make the top snood slightly longer than the bottom snood to allow for this.

In my experience, the double drop is one of the more tangle free setups, which makes it a good choice for surfcasting. Another difference is that the flapper rig is mostly used by sea anglers in the UK, while other double hook surf fishing setups, such as the high low fishing rig, the pompano fishing rig, and the paternoster rig are more commonly used by US anglers. The flapper rig is best suited for surf fishing which doesn’t require long casting distances over 40 or 50 feet. The total length of the flapper rig should be between 3 and 5 feet (depending on how many hooks you rig on it).The Pompano rig is one of the best surf fishing rigs, and although it was originally developed for targeting pompano from the beach, it also catches a wide variety of other surf species.

In this article I’ll show you the best surf fishing rigs, and will also cover how to fish them, and how to choose the ideal setup for your purposes. What are the best surf fishing rigs?Personally, I only use the flapper rig when I have more than one rod (Which I usually do). I tie the 2-hooks version of this rig on one rod, and another rig (Generally the fish finder rig), on the other rods. The number and sequence is a matter of choice, but a common choice is to thread on a sequin, then a small luminous bead, another sequin and another bead onto the hook snood. Another big advantage of the flapper rig is that it allows deploying baits at different depths and thus targets both the bottom-feeding species and those who prefer to hold in shallower waters. What are the limits of the flapper rig ? For big fish or rough ground, one hook is the logical choice while for small fish taken over clear ground three hooks offer better odds of successful fishing.

The fish finder rig is most often fished with cut bait or dead bait, but you can also fish it with live bait, including live shrimp or live baitfish. The metal crimps (or the stop knots) are necessary to fixate the distance between the snoods and prevent them from sliding up or down the rig body, and the beads are there to protect the crimps and increase their durability. Tie the hooks to the snoods and then to the swivels; the snood lengths should be around 300 – 500 mm depending upon the length of the trace body. If you need to fish with longer snoods then it will be necessary to either lengthen the trace body, which may restrict casting. or reduce the number of snoods to two. Deploying 2-3 hooks at the first sandbar during the first hour of your fishing trip may give you a bunch of small progies and breams that you can use later to catch sizeable reds or blues. Logically, bigger baits mean heavier baits. Heavier baits should afford greater enhancement of the rig’s function, and even fewer tangles. This all seems true to a certain extent, but having fished donkey-choker hookbaits years ago, I feel compelled to issue a mild warning to big-bait virgins. A boilie of 24mm or larger can cause all sorts of issues in terms of your rig surviving the cast unscathed. The large diameter of the hookbait results in a much bigger impact as the rig hits the surface, and in this case can cause the silicone to move, kink the hooklink, and undermine the TLC already applied during careful construction. Then again, a boat drop circumvents this, so if rules allow rig drops, it’s not an issue.Then open your bail and slowly release line, which allows the current to carry your baited circle hook parallel to the beach. It consists of a steel wire with a removable double hook as well as a float to keep the rig off the bottom. This is attached to a 3 way swivel with a leader line, as well as a heavy bank weight. This rig is a flapper, meaning the hook snoods dangle when you cast rather than being clipped up or down for aerodynamic purposes. If you need to cast long for flatfish, use the one-up, one-down clipped rig (January issue) or a wishbone rig which will appear in a later issue. E Trap your snood swivel between a pair of beads, followed by a pair of crimps (or stop knots – these allow you to adjust the distance between snoods). The dropper loop rig is perfect for fishing with large live bait fish, such as pinfish, bunker, menhaden, grunion or mullet, and is often used to target big types of fish in the surf, such as bull reds, tarpon, shark, or stripers.