Best Way To Rig A Popping Cork For Redfish, Flounder, Snook, & Trout

hey this is Tony here with salt strong and in this video I'm going to give you some tips on rigging and using popping corks for fishing inshore these are very effective for trout snook tarpon and redfish very effective and the main idea of these is to make noise in order to draw attention to whatever lure or bait that you might have attached to the popping cork now there are different types of sizes colors and shapes of the popping corks this is your standard large oval shape in a green chartreuse color they also sell them in a bright orange pink and even yellow and all kinds of different colors but the color to me really doesn't matter the color is more just for you to see the fish aren't really honed in on the popping cork itself however sometimes you will get strikes on the popping cork the fish will actually strike the cork itself but you really want them to get to that lure and honesty I don't really want to draw too much attention to the cork itself that's just really to make the noise to draw the fish to your lure now there's also a more smaller size popping cork this is a small more narrow oval type of cork better for if you're casting in the wind because it's a lot skinnier and it won't catch the wind as much as the larger cork will another thing about these corks some of them are weighted and some of them aren't which means the weighted ones if you see on the bottom here they have these metal or brass beads on the bottom that helps weigh it down and keeps it sitting upright when you do stop the retrieve of the popping cork if you don't choose to use a weighted one it will just have these regular plastic or glass beads on the bottom instead instead of those metal beads down there so these popping corks they can actually be used with artificial bait or live bait so I'm going to show you both ways on how to rig them up first I'm going to show you artificial lures my top lure to use with the popping cork is a gulp shrimp in a new penny color 3-inch size great lure it draws a lot of attention with the color and also the scent disbursement of the gold products def only helps draw those fish in as well when combined with the noise of the popping cork so I like to go with a gulp shrimp and then I will rig it on a red one sixteenth ounce jig head I like to go a little light with the jig head that way the lure or the soft plastic kind of Falls a little slower after you retrieve the cork and do a couple twitches so the lure falls nice and slow then you can twitch it again if you go with too heavy of a weight you're gonna twitch it and the lure is gonna fall straight to the bottom it's not gonna be sort of a natural presentation so that's why I like to go with the lighter jig head plus you have enough weight on your line with the popping cork and your lure and everything else on there so you won't have a problem casting it out now I will also use the gulp jerk shads on the popping cork and I'll rig them on the standard three owner twists lock hook 1/16 ounce size and it's a three OTT and I will rig the gulp jerk shad on there you can also rigged the gulp shrimp on there as well and if you need to use a little more weight to get it down a little quicker if you need to I like to go with the same jig head that I would use for the shrimp it works just as well with the gulp trick shed now when you are tying your leader to the popping cork you're gonna tie your mainline to the top of the popping cork the side that isn't weighted and then the side that is weighted that's where you will attach your leader material I like to go with fluorocarbon 15 of 20 pound is plenty plenty strong enough to pull in redfish snook trout tarpon if you are targeting snook more particularly you might want to go probably twenty-five to thirty pound fluorocarbon just so they don't cut through that line as easily as they would with 20 pound now I have a rod rigged up here already with a popping cork and a jig head get it out here this is a matrix float this is a popping cork as well you can see it makes that noise it's got the weights on the bottom and I tied it to my mainline with a polymer not to the braid and then used a tri lean not to attach the leader to the bottom of the popping cork now the length of your leader is really gonna depend on how deep you're fishing how far down you want that lure to go now if you are fishing in the grass you don't want that lure especially if you have a jig head you don't want that lure going into the grass then you're gonna start snagging grass so if you are fishing grass it's probably a wise choice to go with the weedless hook that way you don't get tangled in any grass and you're not pulling any grass with your lure now the standard size is about anywhere from 18 inches to 2 feet of leader and then when you tie your jig head or your hook on with the jig head I like to go with a tight knot on there cinch down because as this lure Falls if you sense that since that knot down really tight you'll notice the hook sits at a horizontal level right there and that looks more natural as the baits falling and goes into the water if you have it to the top it's just gonna hang straight up and down it doesn't look normal so a little word of advice when you do everytime you bring the lure in just kind of adjust that knot to the top of the jig head there and cinch it down that way it sits nice and level and a more natural presentation so as far as rigging the popping cork with live bait same goes for when you're rigging up artificials as far as the leader goes and the knots the only difference is I like to go with a number two circle hook that circle hook is great because you don't have to set the hook the fish will grab onto that bait and hook itself it's kind of hard to set the hook with a popping cork because that cork will cause a lot of drag in the water and that will reduce your ability to get a good hook set so go with that circle hook I like to go with the number two it's nice and small it's nice and light and it's a thin wire this is the owner moudou light circle hooks thin wire nice and light so you can hook a small finger mullet or a pin fish it won't weigh them down because if you use a big heavy hook you have more of a likelihood of killing that bait because it's going to drag them down and put a lot of stress on them also when you do rig that live bait on here if it's a bait fish you want to hook it in the top of the base of the tail you don't want to hook it underneath the fish because that will cause it to swim upside down won't be natural and when you hook them in the tail they'll swim naturally away from the popping cork and they'll pretty much give that popping cork its own action as they swim away from it so you don't really have to do much that bait will actually move the cork and create that noise and help draw those fish into it in this clip you'll see I'm using the large oval float popping cork with about two feet two and a half feet a leader and a gulp shrimp on a one sixteenth ounce red jig head so the best way to cast this rig you kind of have to keep the rod tip low behind you and then just kind of sling it out almost like a baseball swing if you do a short snappy cast like you normally would with an artificial lure you're going to end up tangling up the lines gonna wrap around the cork or possibly the braid above the leader so just keep that in mind when you are casting it out now the way to retrieve this there really isn't a set pattern set in stone on how to retrieve it it really depends on the conditions so you can do a really quick fast retrieve like you would if you were working a topwater lure or you could do a few twitches and just let it sit pause for a few seconds or even up to a minute or two and just let it sit there or you can drift it behind you and let the court kind of pop in the waves as it's drifting behind you and that will draw in the attention of the fish as well so that's a great thing about using a popping cork if you're fishing with small children or if you're fishing with someone that isn't really experienced it's a very easy rig to use and it'll catch you some fish so that will wrap up this video on rigging and using a popping cork if you have any questions about this please feel free to leave a comment down below also if you're interested in catching more fish in less time guaranteed then definitely check out our salt strong insider club until then I'll see you on the next video

Channel: Salt Strong

Views: 632,033

Keywords: popping cork, popping corks, how to rig a popping cork, how to rig popping corks, redfish popping cork, cajun thunder popping cork, best popping cork, popping cork rig, how to use a popping cork, popping cork bait, popping cork review, popping cork fishing, popping cork technique, popping cork redfish, saltstrong123#, popping cork rigs, popping corks fishing

Id: h3GUjDoGkBE

Length: 8min 54sec (534 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 26 2017