This “How To” article was submitted to our Blog from “Tyler”… a.k.a. the “SNAPPERMAN”!

Thanks Tyler!!

CLACKER RIGS

Clacker rigs, usually fished with a shrimp at the bottom down south on the flats for redfish and seatrout, but they are killer up north as well.

The commercial ones consist of a heavy piece of wire with beads and a float on it, then a couple feet below is a lure. These work, but if you want to make your own, get a snapper popper and insert a couple of those insert rattles used in soft baits. I do better with the snapper popper because it makes more noise and casts farther. I can also adjust the height of the float to determent what depth my lure is at. You usually want to have your lure about a foot off the bottom.

Clacker rigs are fished by twitching the float on the surface and making as much noise and commotion as possible. As you twitch it, it also causes the small lure to rise and fall like a struggling baitfish. The noise attracts the fish but the killer wounded bait fish action is what gets them to strike.

I use them in less then 8′ of water in the back bays and on the flats. Use it when it is dead calm, or fish it in a place with some current and let it get sucked into a shallow rip, or over a small hole or drop off. Also works well in small tidal creeks and around drains.

For the lure at the bottom, I use gulp! sand eels and gulp! shrimp, hawg shad, small soft plastics, teasers, flies, spearing, peanut bunker, or any other small lure or small bait fish threaded onto the hook. The key is that it must be light and unweighted, otherwise it will hinder the dying baitfish action. It will also cut back on your casting distance.

I also add smelly jelly to the lure I am using except gulp (it has the scent) and flies(it mats the hair and gets it all gunked up and kills the breathing action of the hairs) even though the sound is the main attractor, I think it helps, especially in murky water

I use it the most in the spring when fish are spread out over the flats in search of food. The fish are very lethargic since the water is cold and will only hit slow moving lures. Often in the spring when fish are spread out the water is also murky. This makes it difficult for the fish to find your lure. If you use a big bait to get the fish’s attention or a popper they will ignore it or simply follow it.

The clacker rig attracts the fish and it has a slow action that triggers the fish’s instinct to attack.

It also works well when game fish are feeding on small hard to match bait fish that are schooled so dense it is hard to get you lure noticed. Catch one of the spearing, sand eels, peanut bunker, etc. or use a lure around the edges of the school.

The noise helps your presentation stand out and get noticed. You can now also present a small lure that you might not have been able to cast very far. This also works at night around a full moon when schoolies are crashing small baits on the flats.

I usually catch bass, blues, and fluke with this method, but it works with weakfish, porgies and flounder as well. If you were targeting weakfish I would use a pink gulp sand eel or a pink gulp shrimp. Fish it around dawn or dusk in known weakie hangouts on a preferable tide. I never did well with weakies but that’s probably because it mainly fish the north shore but I have caught some summer run weaks on the south shore.

I hope this helps you catch a bunch of fish on new type rig if you haven’t tried it before.