Before the November ice makes fishing from your boat’s deck a problem you may want to consider heading out for a day of bass fishing with a three way rig. These rigs can help you catch huge bass (over sixty pounds) in broad daylight or at night. Standard bait found all over New England such as porgy, hickory shad, cup and eels can help you land a striped bass that could wind up being more than forty inches. Just think of the great tales you’ll have to tell your friends and family. The East coast is rich in big stripers and the methods and tackle to land them are numerous.
Once you find a location that fish like, the rest is simple. It is the type of fishing that, with some straightforward directions, your grandmother could use to snag a fish, providing she could land it. A 3-way rig was the downfall of one of the heaviest bass ever landed, a 76-pounder caught on a reef by Captain Bob Rochetta at Montauk Point. This is the second-heaviest striper ever recorded, second only to a 78-pounder landed at a New Jersey jetty by Al McReynolds. The three-way rig has been used successfully to catch fish between 55 and 70 pounds in bass-filled waters at Plum Gut, The Sluiceway, Valiant Rock, and Sugar Reef, to name a few.
If you think that a three way rig is hard to fashion, think again, it’s actually quite simple. The name explains it all – the starting point is a three way swivel, one from your main line, and two leader lines. One of these lines is created from a dropper loop – simple enough to design, a loop to attach your sinker to which allows bounce during a running tide. Experiment with weights – depending on the area you are fishing you can utilize as few as four ounces or as many as twenty. The second line will be home to a fluorocarbon leader generally about five feet in length. Remember to balance out your line – decide if you’re looking for the unobtrusive approach or if you’re looking for a stronger approach. It’s not that difficult to find the right balance between the two. Generally a fifty pound line is best for this leader as it offers exactly the right balance for most. Depending on the weather, you might find that a thirty pound fluorocarbon line is best on a day that’s especially clear and you’re in clear water.
This type of rig can get very expensive and this is one downside of it. However, you can control costs fairly simple to avoid turning this fun hobby into one that requires massive spending. When you factor in the cost of Gemakatsu hooks, Seaguar Fluorocarbon line, and a three way Spro Swivel, you can soon find your costs mounting up. But, if you set your rig up so that your main line is your heaviest (55 lbs is ideal), your leader line is heavy (around 50 lbs) and your dropper loop is your lightest (30 lbs is preferred) you can cut down the cost of losses by merely snapping the dropper loop losing only your sinker. The bottom line is that the sinker is the least expensive item on your rig and is the easiest to replace cost-wise.
For the main line, use naught but braided line. Using braided line has a few distinct benefits for this application. One is that its smaller diameter offers less resistance against a moving tide, letting you use less weight to keep the bait in the strike zone. Possibly an even bigger advantage is that braided lines offer minimal line stretch. With monofilament, you can typically expect up to 10% line stretch. With almost no stretch with braid, you can feel everything that is going on, and you get excellent hook sets. You can plainly tell if you are fishing over a sand bottom, mussel bed, or boulders as a result of the line’s sensitivity. There are many effective brands available, such as Fireline, Stren, Daiwa, and Power Pro. The definite advantage that Daiwa has is that the braid is weaved from eight strands, while many others use four. Most braids feel as though you have to break them in before they are useful, but Daiwa is a very limp and smooth line.
There are many reels on the market which are great for fishing. Some of the more popular ones include; Shimano Calcutta Spinning and BG90.
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