What this rig is all about:
Snook are a popular game fish known for their fight and are found in the Western Atlantic Ocean all the way from North Carolina to Florida and into the Caribbean. They typically live in tropical waters and are known to hang out around mangroves, sea walls, and pylon structures like bridges or piers. This tutorial will teach you how to setup up a finesse snook rig for some fun, light-tackle fishing.
Here is a list of materials/items that you will need to make this rig:
Links include pricing info on Amazon.
– DOA Cal Shad Tail 3 1/2-Inch soft plastic bait
– 10 pound braid for the main line
– 20 pound fluorocarbon leader
– scissors or some type of cutting tool
Recommended Reel and Rod:
– Shimano Sedona 2500 10 pound reel
Optional:
Tips using this rig:
Work the lure around mangroves and structures where you think the snook is. Perform periodic jerking and reeling motions to maximize the chance of a strike.
This rig will be suitable to catch small to average sized snooks (around 1.5 feet or so) and will give you a good fight. Since this setup is on the light side, you can try backing off the drag and let the snook run for a bit when it is hooked. When fishing 20 pound leader and 10 pound braid near structure, its best to finesse them out rather than try to coerce them out.
It’s best to be a bit more patient with this rig and expect some awesome fights.
Setup guide:
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- The first step is to cut about 1 foot (excluding the scope of line needed for tying 2 knots) of 20 pound fluorocarbon leader line with your scissors. Tie one end of the line to your 1/8 ounce jig head. You can use whatever knot technique you like but a palomar or clinch knot is suggested. See the below video to tie a palomar knot:
- You can now tie your leader to your main line (braid) using an FG knot. Follow this YouTube tutorial to make this connection between the two lines. An FG knot is great for tying fluorocarbon line to braided line.
If you want a bit more modularity with your rig, you can instead, opt to connect the leader to your main line with a snap swivel. The only downfall to this is that the swivel tends to get caught in the guides of your rod when reeling the line in.
- The last step is to hook on the DOA Cal soft plastic bait. It’s advised that for lighter color water, you should use lighter color bait. Likewise, darker colored bait is advised for murkier, darker water. The picture below depicts conditions perfect for using lighter colored bait like a Pearl Chartreuse tail
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Hook the soft plastic lure on and you are ready to go fishing for some snook! Check out the finished setup below:
If you are having success with this rig, let us know and rate it at the top of this article. Thanks!