This rig is great for inshore fishing – if you use it correctly!
Winter 2024
By Ben Baker
A longtime professional fishing guide calls the popping cork a revolution in speckled trout and redfish angling. At the same time, he says most people do not know how to fish the setup.
Popping corks come in a variety of colors and shapes. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
Pat McGriff is a fishing legend on the Big Bend in Florida. Since the early 1980s, he has guided people for whatever swims in the coastal water. He has worked with giants in the industry, like reel maker Penn and lure companies. To say he knows inshore fishing is to say an encyclopedia has some information.
When it comes to the popping cork, Pat has three rules most people either ignore or simply do not know. His rules are use fresh bait, keep it away from the boat and leave it alone.
That sounds simple and it is. But it is also not the way so many people, especially freshwater anglers, are taught to fish.
A popping cork on a wire with plastic beads sounds like baitfish at the surface trying to escape, while a predator is smashing it on the surface.
FRESH
Pat fishes with live shrimp and pinfish. While his customers concentrate on trout and reds, he fishes the other side of the boat with slivers of chicken gizzard on a bream hook to catch bait. He buys live shrimp.
His rule on the pinfish is three casts and change baits. Watch the fish he says. Once the pinfish starts turning gold with black stripes, get rid of it. Toss it in the bottom of the boat because if it goes over the side, seagulls immediately become your best friend.
But, as long as the pinfish is white it is good to go.
Of course, if the fish comes back to the boat and is dead, get rid of it too.
Watch the shrimp. Pinfish will eat the whole shrimp if they can. Smaller ones will pick off the legs. Change the shrimp regularly. If the pinfish are too much, switch to pinfish as bait.
The trout and reds will tell you want they want to eat, he says. Some days that is shrimp. Some days that is pinfish.
During the summer, the redfish want crabs. As the water cools and the crustaceans get scare, the reds realize they have to eat and switch to pinfish.
That’s not guesswork. That is decades of dressing redfish at the dock and opening the stomachs to see what is inside.
A Redfish taken on a popping cork rig in the Turtle River at Brunswick. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
AWAY
Get the rig away from the boat.
“Cast to Jesus,” Pat says, demonstrating a high arcing cast that lands a cork and pinfish a long way from the boat. Don’t look at the water or your cast. Look away as you cast. Once cast, then look for the cork.
Most strikes occur well away from the boat. True, some are caught close to the boat, but that is not common. Trout are ambush predators and they can see the boat and people standing on it. They reason this could be a predator or a predator could be using it as cover.
“What is the most important thing to a trout?” he then asks. “Not being eaten.”
To make that cast on a spinning reel, “Load the rod,” he said. Let a foot or two of line out between the cork and the rod tip. When the line hits a 45-degree angle behind your back, make the cast.
“It will go in a straight line and it will not tangle,” he said.
When the rig hits the water, pop the cork three times fast. This does mean you must need a finger on the line to hold it while you pop. Then and only then, set the bail.
The three immediate jerks simulate a topwater strike. The falling bait looks like something trying to escape.
What if you get a strike immediately when it hits the water? Do not set the bail. Wait, there is more about that below.
LEAVE IT
Inshore saltwater fishing is not bass fishing. Constantly popping the cork like working a jerk bait “will wear you out,” Pat said.
Instead after that first three jerks, leave it alone. Wait for the cork to come back upright.
“You can’t change the rules. That is the rule. I didn’t make the rule. The trout know the pinfish will try to get back down into the grass. If it does not, the trout knows something is wrong,” he said. “Adjust your hat. Take a sip of beer. Just wait.”
Leaving it is the hardest thing to do because you have to ignore it even when you get a strike.
Popping corks work great for redfish, as well as trout. Photo by Karl Anderson.
“You’ve got to give him time to eat the bait,” the guide said.
When the cork vanishes, open the bail. Give a slow count to eight, if you are using pinfish. Get to three if it is a shrimp. Set the bail and reel in the slack. This is important.
With the slack gone, reel until there is pressure on the line. With your arm straight out, set the hook with a moderate jerk and keep reeling the whole time.
Pat uses long-shank hooks, around a No.4, and hooks the pinfish just under the eye for small ones or from the bottom of the mouth through the top for larger baits. Shrimp get hooked just in front of the black dot in the head shell.
MISSED STRIKE
Sometimes the fish takes the bait and lets it go. With pinfish, it means the trout or red delivered a kill strike and is coming back for the meal.
Instead of reeling in, give the rig three short jerks and stop. This makes the bait appear disoriented and wounded, which it is. The stop lets the bait sink as if it is trying to escape to the grass.
Following Pat McGriff’s tactics can put more seatrout in your boat when using a popping cork.
Ben Baker is the Executive Editor of B&H Publications, including the Wiregrass Farmer Newspaper in Ashburn. He also is a member of the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association. Ben can be contacted at redneckgenius@gmail.com.