30 rigs and lure set-ups
Rigs and knots
Thirty rigs and lure set-ups, each drawn to the knot. The first six cover most days on the beach, pier or boat. Then come specialist rigs for rough ground, wrecks, wrasse, LRF and estuary flatfish, rigs to tie at home, and lure set-ups for when bait is scarce. Every knot they use is in Knots.
Before you tie
- Shock leader. Allow 10lb of breaking strain per ounce of lead: 50lb for 5oz, 60lb for 6oz. Make it long enough for five or six turns on the spool plus your casting drop.
- Rig body. 60–80lb clear mono is stiff enough to keep snoods off the body and survive shingle and rock.
- Knots. A uni or tucked half-blood for swivels and hooks. Join leader to mainline with a uni-to-uni or a leader knot, and wet every knot before you pull it tight.
- Crimps. Match crimp size to the line and close them with crimping pliers. A power-gum stop knot can be used instead and is easy to move.
- Rules. Check sizes and bass rules before you keep anything. They change, and differ by area: see Rules and each region page.
Key
Hook sizes, small to large
Common rigs
The workhorses. Between them they cover clean sand, mixed ground, range and the float.
Paternoster · flapping rig
Two-hook flapper
Sand and mixed ground, short to medium range
Distance paternoster · up-and-under
Clipped-down two-hook
Shallow storm beaches where fish sit beyond the breakers
Pulley dropper · Pennell pulley
Pulley rig
Rough and mixed ground, rock gullies, surf beaches
Running leger · zip slider rig
Running ledger
Clean sand, estuaries and piers, mostly short range
Slider float
Sliding float rig
Rocks, piers and harbour walls, summer
String of feathers · sabiki
Mackerel feathers
Piers, rocks and boats when shoals are in, summer to autumn
Specialist rigs
Less common, but each solves a problem the standard rigs can't.
Double-hook snood
Wishbone rig
Clean ground, fished from a flapper or clipped body
Weak link · rough-ground rig
Rotten-bottom rig
Heavy rock and kelp
Boom and trace · wreck rig
Long flowing trace
Boats over wrecks and reefs, drifting
Weedless soft plastic
Texas rig
Rocky marks and kelp beds, late spring to autumn
LRF drop-shot
Drop-shot rig
Harbours, pontoons and pier walls; light rock fishing (LRF)
French boom · flounder spreader
Spreader rig
Estuaries and anchored boats on sand and mud
Tie-at-home extras
Twelve more rigs to prepare at the bench.
Rays and smoothhound
Up-and-over rig
Clean and mixed ground with big baits
Winter rig
Three-hook clipped-down
Surf beaches in winter
Pulley dropper
Pulley rig with dropper
Mixed and rough ground in winter
Mullet and garfish
Controller float rig
Harbours, piers and sea walls on calm days
Free rig
Carolina rig
Sand patches and lighter rock from the shore
Mullet and flounder spoon
Baited spinner
Estuaries and creeks, slow retrieve
Boat
Uptide rig
Anchored boats in shallow water (under about 15m)
Black bream
Bream rig
Inshore reefs from late spring to summer
Wrecks and reefs
Pirk and muppets
Deep wrecks and reefs from a drifting boat
Tie at home
Conger trace
Wrecks, reefs, harbour walls at night
Catch and release only, by law
Tope trace
Inshore boats over sand and gravel, summer
Rock marks
Paternoster float rig
Rock marks and harbour walls into kelp
Lures
For when bait is scarce or not working. Lures fish best from May to October, when the hunting species are in: mackerel, garfish, pollack, coalfish, bass and wrasse. In winter, use the LRF micro jig in harbours, or a scented soft plastic on the drop-shot or Carolina rig. Each plate shows the set-up on top and how to fish it underneath.
Both coasts
Casting metal
Piers, harbour walls, rocks and beaches; May to October
Pollack and coalfish
Paddle-tail on a jig head
Rock edges and piers over weed, especially at dusk; north-east and Yorkshire rock, Great Orme, Anglesey
Fishing into kelp
Weedless swimbait
Kelp beds and rock gullies at low water; North Wales, Flamborough, Northumberland
Bass at dawn
Surface stickbait
Calm beaches, reefs and estuary mouths at dawn and dusk; best in the west
Searching water
Shallow-diving minnow
Surf, gullies and estuary mouths; North Wales, Fylde and Cumbria for bass
Harbours all year
LRF micro jig
Harbour walls, pontoons and marinas, any month
Rig tips from the bank
Tips from anglers who fish a lot, each checked against at least one other source.
Grip or plain lead on rough ground?
It depends on the ground. Over kelp, use a plain lead: it slides through. On rock with a tide running, a grip lead with its wires bent back or straightened often snags less. Either way, fish a rotten bottom so a jammed lead costs only the lead.
Make the lead the weak link
Hang the lead on a short length of lighter line, or open its eye slightly so it pulls off an impact-shield clip. A couple of overhand knots in the link weaken it further. Use old or homemade leads on the worst ground.
Floating beads against crabs
A couple of small pop-up beads just above the hook lift the bait off the bottom, out of the crabs' reach. A few beads pushed inside a whole squid float it up as a big-fish-only bait.
A scratching rod beside the big bait
Small hooks (size 2 to 6) with tiny strips of mussel, lug or squid often out-fish the big-bait rod and tell you what's about.
Shy cod bites
Switch to a sliding (pulley-type) paternoster so the fish feels less resistance.
A circle hook as the top pennel
It turns and catches rays, hounds and cod in the corner of the mouth. Use inline circles, and wind into the fish rather than striking.
The dongle rig
A circle hook on a loop, with a short, stiff length of heavy mono (the dongle) that clips into the bait clip. Rays and hounds get hooked in the mouth instead of the gut.
Worm stops
Above the hook, put a sliding float stop, a bead and a sequin, and push them down onto the head of the worm. It can't blow up the snood on the cast. On unclipped rigs, a tiny tip of squid or a few turns of elastic stops the worm sliding off the bend.
Clip-down or long snoods?
A matter of range. Clip down for distance; long unclipped snoods present a bait more naturally when the fish are close and there's tide to stretch them out.
Power-gum stops instead of crimps
Two power-gum stop knots side by side fix a snood swivel or a float depth and can be slid or retied in seconds. Tie them straight off the spool and wet them before sliding.
Pulley rigs
Keep the snood about 10cm shorter than the rig body. On rough ground, a long rig body keeps more mono and less braid against the rock, and leaves spare to trim.
Clips and knots
On an up-and-over rig, use a proper hangover clip rather than a bent bait clip, which can flip open mid-fight. Avoid cheap crane swivels on cast rigs. Sit the leader knot outside the tip ring at the drop, or a few turns onto the spool, never in the small rings mid-cast.
Beads above small wrasse hooks
A couple of small floating beads stop a big wrasse swallowing a small hook.
Sea float without tangles
The lead link must be longer than the hooklength. A short piece of silicone tube over the hooklength stiffens it.
Lure tips
Pause, or go lighter
If a steady wind isn't working, try lift-and-drop: most pollack hit on the pause or the drop. In a swell, try a lighter jig head for a slower sink.
Slow jigs on an LRF rod
A 10g rear-weighted jig worked two lifts, two winds, then a drop. Most hits come as it falls. Zinc jigs are longer for their weight, so they sink slower.
Missing nips?
Go up a hook size so less tail trails past the hook, and fix the soft plastic with a screw lock or a dab of superglue so it can't slide.
Work through your lures
Start with a surface lure or your confidence lure, then a shallow diver, then a shad on the bottom. Count the lure down and fan your casts like a clock face.
Colours
Clear or near-clear lures in gin-clear water on bright days. At night or under heavy cloud, try something luminous, charged with a torch.
A cheap silver metal
A cheap silver casting metal is the best search lure: cast it first to find the depth and current. Swap its trebles for single hooks.
The shadow line
At dusk, work a lure in and out of the shadow a cliff or harbour wall throws. Pollack and bass ambush from it.
Feathers
Small feathers out-catch big ones, and four is plenty. On a shelving mark, count down and keep them off the bottom. When one mackerel hooks up, hold it a moment and give a couple of small lifts to fill the string.
These tips are in our own words, cross-checked against each other and other sources.
Line strengths, hook sizes and weights are starting points for UK shore and inshore boat fishing. Scale them to your tackle, the ground and the tide. Diagrams are schematic and not to scale.