Bait Rigs

You have heard about running cut bait, but you don't know how.  You ran it once and it didn't work.  Your buddy ran it once and it didn't work.  Well, here is the original "3 fly" cut bait rig from the people who invented them, Double G Tackle.  This system does work, it's easy to do, and in my opinion, one of the best ways for a small boat with limited lines to put fish in the cooler.

I fished with bait at least 20 times last year and was not skunked once running bait.  To some guys that's not a big deal, but to you weekend warriors, you know it is.  It feels good to be able to confidently say, "Yeah, we can go fishing tomorrow and I'll get you some fish".

And bait is not just for Kings.  I caught several Lake Trout on bait last year and my biggest steelhead of the year on the lake was taken on a Dolphin Opti-Dodger with the clear/red Twinkie rig on a high diver.

Check out our Twinkie rigs, and try them out this summer.  You can buy cut herring at many places across Michigan or you can buy it here later on in the year.

Cut bait is not the only way to catch fish, but it can be a deadly addition to your arsenal out there.

I am going to jump right into the debate over bait rigs.  I want to dispel some BS that I have been reading on the web and hopefully get some more people catching fish.

Bait rigs have suddenly gotten more popular.  This is obviously because they catch fish.  George Metzler invented the Twinkie Twinkie Rig and had a very large portion of the market.  Other players have entered the market.  Most are talking about the features in their own product that they believe makes their product better, and that's great.

Some however obviously don't see anything better about their own product so they are running down the Twinkie Rig.  I keep hearing that so and so said that Twinkies have this or that problem.  The problem is, I and my customers know better, because we run them all the time.

The fact is, the Twinkie Twinkie bait Rig is a simple, cost competitive, reliable and effective rig.

All fish taken on my boat by bait rigs

I have been fishing with Twinkie rigs since August of 2003.  In 2004 they probably took 3/4 of my fish.  I am a sport fisherman and I am by no means the world's greatest expert (For that see George Metzler, the inventor of the Twinkie rig) and the following are my opinions based on hundreds of fish caught. 

Questions:

How do I run it?

I recommend that you run 2 downriggers and 2 dipsys, nothing else.  You can run long lines, copper or lead core and things like that away from the boat, but near the boat run nothing else.

I always run the Black Onyx/Clear Red Twinkie, a blue, a green, and the white glow to start.  You will notice that is the "starter pack".  Then I let the fish tell me what is hot.  If you are anywhere around the fish, YOU WILL CATCH FISH.  You will catch fish in the middle of the day, you will catch fish all day long.

These flashers make real big circles, and you do NOT want them tangled.  Run fairly short leads off of the cannonballs, 10-15 feet.  Run short leads off of the dipsys, like 5 feet.  Remember, you have to get that fish in the boat, and that long twinkie makes that hard with a 12 foot lead off of the dipsy.

Every time the rig goes in the water, check the rotation of the bait.  If it is not turning you will not catch fish on it. 

Is it the only way to catch fish? Is it going to be the "hottest rig" on a particular day?

Maybe, maybe not.  I am always hearing that so and so caught more fish using this or that so "bait is not the best thing there is".  It is, in my opinion, your "best bet" to go out and catch some fish this weekend.  Yes, on a particular day there will probably be a guy with a hot program really slamming the fish.  Good for him.  With this program, any day you go out, you will do well.  Some days you will do REALLY well.  Some days you will be the only one doing well.  Other days, you will do well, but a lot of people will do better.  That's the way fishing is.  The only sure thing is the grocery store seafood counter.

I could give you some BS that bait is the best thing ever and will out perform everything else.  I could even give you a website address where you can read BS like that, but the fact is, anyone telling you that any rig will always outperform everything else is full of you-know-what.

The time when bait rigs really shine is when nothing else works.  The middle of the day, the fish are there but have "shut down", I have several times pulled in fish when no one near me did.

The fact is, if I go out and fish bait, I don't get skunked.

Do I have to fillet and brine my own bait?

I have done this in the past.  You fillet the whole bait and brine it in non-iodized salt and "20 Mule Team Borax" and just enough water to make it liquid.  It works great, the fish comes out nice and firm and tough and everything.  In my opinion it is a waste of my time.  Any time I spend doing this I could be fishing or doing more pressing things to prepare for fishing.  If you want to save some cash, and it does work out to be about 1/2 the cost of bait, it works great, go for it.

I use Rhys Davis strips.  I dump the whole package in a zip lock bag.  I open a can of cheap sardines in oil on the frozen strips and let them thaw.  (This is optional, I often fish without doing this.  I think it makes the bait smell more fishy and I think it helps.  If I don't do it I still catch fish just fine)  Last weekend I fished all day on 5 strips, 1 strip having been taken off at the head by a King.  All 4 strips were still nice and firm when they went back in the bag.  If I fished the next day, they would have gone right back out.

Do I have to modify the Twinkie Rigs or can I use them right out of the bag?

I use them right out of the bag as is when they are new.  When they have been used a while I rebuild and modify them as shown on the Twinkie parts page.  I have never had any problems with the new ones. 

Do I have to adjust the bait head every time?

I never have had to adjust a new head.  They can get bent.  They can get spinning really fast, but usually they just stop spinning.  They get bent, in my experience, most often extracting the rig from the fish.  Right behind that is my fishing partner's big feet stepping on them, and sometimes the kings chew them up.  A simple bend of the back of the head puts them right back spinning as they should.

New One - Just heard this one yesterday!  Do the crimps cause the mono to break?

I heard a very authoritative explanation of how if you use the crimps on mono it HAS to break.

Early in my engineering career I learned the difference between theory and reality.  Well, that's the theory.  The reality is after 2 1/2 seasons of running these and catching hundreds of fish, and 2 years of selling them, literally thousands of them, guess how many broken ones I have seen or heard of from customers broken at the crimp?  NONE, nada, zilch, zero.  This is a total non-issue.