Idea for Surf Fishing Rig

[Daviddf]

Hi Fishos, 

I've been doing a fair bit of surf fishing lately off the great ocean road with some pretty good results chasing Salmon. 

But many times i've had my hook snagged and other times i've had my bait nibbled by pesky crabs (i caught one by accident). This fact along with the consideration of the angle of the line in the water leads to be to believe that my droppers are far too close to the bottom.

Ive been looking at other rig ideas and i found one that seems to offer a solution. 

The idea behind it is to use a float attached to the end of my dropper leader where the hooks are attached on a separate line from that where the sinker is attached. Using a 3-way swivel, i have my mainline attached to the top of the swivel, the line with the sinker on the bottom of the swivel and on the right side of the swivel i have my separate line with the hooks and float at the end. 

This should allow the hooks to be elevated and presented towards the middle of the water with the aid of the float, and not limited by the angle of the main line held from the rod on the beach. 

I am wondering if anyone has tried this arrangement before and if anyone would like to offer their opinions. 

Cheers. 

 

[savit]

Google images for 'fishfinder', 'helicopter', 'high low' fishing rigs - look at the rigs with floats.  Usually it is a single hook at the end instead of float. They are rather popular in US.  Consider impact of current and waves in the surf to your rig .

[Daviddf]

that's the point of connecting the separate line, its to be used in conjunction with a sinker on the bottom as normal. the line with the float can't drift away, it can only float to the top. The usual floating rigs   with hook on the bottom don't utilise 4oz sinkers designed for the surf - hence the design showed in the picture i attached. 

Cheers. 

[savit]

What I meant:

[Daviddf]

aha i see, cheers!  

[Guest Guest123456789]

If you have a long rod (12 foot plus) you should be able to have 1 metre plus of line between sinker and swivel. This means a 30cm trace will keep the bait off the sand and out of reach of crabs.

The further out you cast the longer the line from the sinker needs to be to account for the angle.

Also the line needs to be kept taught otherwise a sagging line will see the bait touch the sand. To achieve this use a heavier star sinker (size 3+) and low diameter braided line (20lbs max).

The float idea is a good one bit my concern would be unnatural bait presentation to the fish and tangling with the main line. I’ve never tried it though so it could work.

[Rob81]

Main species of crabs Ive caught off the beach are blue swimmer crabs. Not sure which species you are trying to avoid, but if its blue swimmers it probably won't make a difference as they can swim. Sometimes you will see them swimming long distances on the surface of the water.

[Volitan]

last year and the year before were really bad for surf (sand) crabs where I usually fish so I often used a rig with a small float near the hook. The float is held in place with a float stopper as is used in blackfish fishing, one above and one below the float.

The floats are about 20mm diameter and are made for the purpose. They’re painted bright flouro yellow and red, the idea of which is that they actually attract fish, rather then scaring them off.

The rig works well enough. Sand crabs don’t seem to swim very high up the water column so you only need to be about 500mm up.

this year there are virtually no sand crabs, just a few blue swimmers which I don’t mind catching, so no need for floats.

i bought my floats in NZ, not sure if they are available here.

 

this is the crab species I’m referring to as surf or sand crabs. A real nuisance. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/489745-Ovalipes-australiensis

Edited July 14, 2019 by Volitan
Misidentified crab

[savit]

1 hour ago, Volitan said:

last year and the year before were really bad for surf (sand) crabs where I usually fish so I often used a rig with a small float near the hook. The float is held in place with a float stopper as is used in blackfish fishing, one above and one below the float.

The floats are about 20mm diameter and are made for the purpose. They’re painted bright flouro yellow and red, the idea of which is that they actually attract fish, rather then scaring them off.

The rig works well enough. Sand crabs don’t seem to swim very high up the water column so you only need to be about 500mm up.

this year there are virtually no sand crabs, just a few blue swimmers which I don’t mind catching, so no need for floats.

i bought my floats in NZ, not sure if they are available here.

 

this is the crab species I’m referring to as surf or sand crabs. A real nuisance. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/489745-Ovalipes-australiensis

I used to use similar size floats to prevent 'cleaned' large hooks rigs from 'anchoring'. The floats were white/red - I guess can be repainted. $1 each in tackle shops or 4 for $2 in Big W.

[Volitan]

These are the floats I use, and how I rig them.

The other thing is a bunch of float stoppers, in case you haven’t seen them before.

[Daviddf]

Thanks for the replies, lads. 

I wonder how much weight that small round float will hold up? 

Hopefully the float i have in mind isn't unnecessarily large, as it would probably start to impede my cast distance too much. 

I am using a 10ft rod at the moment but have a 12ft in mind for use. 

Cheers. 

[Volitan]

On 7/23/2019 at 1:54 AM, Daviddf said:

Thanks for the replies, lads. 

I wonder how much weight that small round float will hold up? 

I’m not sure because I usually fish with beach worm so my baits are small.

in the shops in NZ there are lots of pre-made rigs for sale and usually they have two floats, usually one red and one yellow.

 

for casting distance, you could consider an impact shield, which will tend to make all the elements of your terminal tackle line up one behind the other. At least it will stop your rig helicoptering.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Volitan

[Daviddf]

cheers mate! 

[savit]

May be consider Surf poppers with added bait(if bait is small).