What this rig is all about:
Tripletail fish are good eating and therefore anglers seek out this fish for its delicious meat. The fishing rig proposed in this article is designed to target these tripletail fish. Read on to find out how to set it up and some trips and tricks on how to land a keeper fish.
Here is a list of materials/items that you will need to make this rig:
Links include pricing info on Amazon and are the suggested products for this rig.
- 30 pound braided main line
- 20 pound monofilament leader line
- 1/0-2/0 circle hook
- Split shot weight
- Barrel swivel
Recommended rod and reel (buy on Amazon with the links below):
A 7 foot inshore rod should do the trick.
PENN BTLII4000701M Battle II 4000 Spinning Reel Combo, Inshore, 7 Feet, Medium Power
Setup guide:
- Tie your braided main line to the swivel. You can use any secure knot that you like but I prefer a palomar knot. Check out this video to tie that knot:
- Now, rig up your 6-10 inch leader with the 20 pound monofilament line. The finished length of the leader should be 6-10 inches so cut enough line to do that. Tie the hook at the end and then tie the other end to the barrel swivel.
- Finally, crimp a split shot weight onto the leader line near the swivel. The size of the split shot is dependent on the current, wind, and even the distance you want to cast from. In some cases, you don’t even need a split shot weight on the line. You just need to make sure you are accurate with your cast and that the bait stays close to the surface of the water.
How to use this rig:
Tripletail hang out in the upper ends of the water column so when using live bait, you want the leader to be relatively short so that the bait is high in the water column. Otherwise, the tripletail won’t see it. Live shrimp is a good bait to use. Any type of white colored artificials like a bucktail jig head will work well too. This specific rig is for live shrimp though.
A great location to find tripletail is a shallow wreck or reef in intercostal water. They will also hang around buoys from crab pots, channel markers, and pilings waiting for prey to drift by. These are all great examples of where you can find them, so when you do, cast your bait around those areas. The tripletail likes to mimic the debris around these wrecks to prey on smaller fish. Sometimes they can even look like floating plastic bags. In addition, they are aggressive fish and are notorious for diving into structure once they are hooked so you need to get them away from that when possible.
That’s the absolute simplest rig when fishing for tripletail and it works very well! Go out there and test it out! Let me know if this rig is working for you and rate it at the top of this article.