There are quite a few effective rigs for big bull drum, but I believe I have narrowed it down to the 7 best rigs for bull reds. Simply find your own best option from the list below, and tweak it to make it your own.
- Fish Finder Rig
- 8nBait Distance Casting Fish-Finder Rig
- Owen Lupton Rig
- Old Drum Rig (Lupton Rig) adapted For Surf Fishing
- Carolina Rig
- Knocker Rig
- Cannonball Rig
1. Fish-Finder Rigs
A fish finder rig is a staple of the saltwater fishing community. This over-arching design oftentimes gets modified for a multitude of specialty situations. The standard fish-finder rig is always a great, easy to make rig, that gets the job done. Below are the components I would use to adapt the fish-finder rig for bull redfish.
Fishfinder rigs, or slide rigs, consist of a hook, a section of mono or fluoro, a swivel, a bead (optional), and a sinker attached one of several different ways. The weight could be attached to the main line using a sinker slide, a swivel, or even directly attached. I prefer to use sinker slides when fishing for bull reds.
A key aspect of a fish finder rig is that the sinker is above the swivel. Therefore, the bait can drift or swim away from the weight to entice more bites. They also allow a large fish to fully take in the bait before feeling the sinker.
Fish Finder Rigs
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Bait can swim or drift free | Can limit casting distance |
| Good for heavy current | Line can twist on cast |
| Easy to tie | Sometimes tangles up on line |
| Good for surf fishing | |
| Just lose leader/hook when hung |
2. 8nBait Distance Casting Fish-Finder Rig
In areas where you need to cast really far, in order to get your bait where the bulls are, you’ll need something with a shorter leader. This is where the 8nBait rig comes in.
This adaptation of the fishfinder rig, or slide rig, is popular along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. East coast anglers sometimes need to cast a great distance from the beach in order to reach swarms of huge drum.
To improve the casting distance over a normal fish finder rig, you can really shorten the leader down to a very minimal size – 1 to 6″. What this does is move the weight very close to the bait. Doing so creates an extremely compact payload that will prevent helicoptering during the cast. Those North Carolina guys regularly cast 8 ounces of lead, not including the weight of the bait, on this rig. Thus the term “8nBait” was born.
This shortened fish-finder rig is an extremely effective one. The weight of the sinker is not the most important aspect here, as you could use 6 oz, or you could use 10 oz. The shortened leader is what makes this rig tick.
This is just a really good rig for old drum, with not many disadvantages.
8nBait Rig
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Extended casting distance | |
| Good for heavy current | |
| Easy to tie | |
| Good for surf fishing | |
| *Just lose leader/hook on break off | |
| Bait can somewhat move around |
3. Owen Lupton Rig
The Owen Lupton rig was designed by a fisherman by that name from Pamlico County, North Carolina. It was developed with conservation in mind to protect these brutes as they move inland to breed. It’s intended purpose is to specifically target old drum in as humane a way as possible, with minimal gut hooking.
The design of this “Old Drum” rig is such that it discourages fish from taking the bait in too far before swimming off. As the fish feels resistance from the large sinker, it will stop taking the bait deeper and will swim along. At that point, the heavy lead weight helps to drag the hook over to the corner of the mouth. Simply apply some pressure to set the hook.
Some anglers claim they occasionally lose fish with this rig because they think the fish eats up to the weight, and then rejects the hook once they bite into the sinker sandwich. However, this is a proven rig that has been around a while, and it seems to work as well as the others, if not better.
For more information about this rig, and for instructions on how to tie it, check out my article about that here.
Owen Lupton Rig
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Improved casting distance | Not good for surf fishing |
| Fewer gut hooks | Sinker rolls in heavy current |
| Good for light current | Crimping tool and sleeves needed |
| Satisfies NC Pamlico Sound regs. | Lose whole rig on break offs |
| Good for boat fishing | Sinker sandwich “may be” an issue |
| Good hook up ratio |
4. Old Drum Rig Adapted To Surf Fishing
To adapt the Lupton rig, discussed above, for use in the surf, or in other heavy current, simply swap out the egg sinker for something more stable. Below, I used a sinker slide in conjunction with a 4 sided pyramid sinker. You could also use a tongue weight, storm sinker, or even some sort of spider weight, such as hurricane or sputnik sinker.
5. Carolina Rig
I personally think the terms Carolina Rig and Fish-Finder Rig, more or less, apply to the same setup. However, I’ll use the terms to differentiate between 2 variations.
The fish-finder rig is primarily used as a stationary rig for when you need your bait to stay in one place. In contrast, the Carolina Rig is used when you want your bait to slowly move along the bottom. To accomplish this, you’ll utilize an egg sinker on your main line, as opposed to one of the other more stable sinker options.
Using an egg sinker not only allows your rig to move along the bottom, it is also less likely to hang up than larger profile sinkers.
Carolina Rig (with egg sinker)
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Bait can move around | Bait could move out of target zone |
| Simple to tie | More prone to tangle |
| Egg sinkers are less likely to hang | Sinker rolls in heavy current |
| Good for inshore fishing | Not good for surf fishing |
| Won’t lose sinker if a break off | |
| Hook swings freely in light current |
6. Knocker Rig
The knocker rig and the cannonball rig, discussed below, are nearly identical. However, the knocker rig is always tied using an egg sinker. Additionally, the bait on a knocker is not necessarily pinned next to the sinker while the rig is on the bottom. In contrast, the cannonball rig is typically fished with a much heavier sinker with a lot of tension on the line. Therefore, the bait is usually pinned next to the lead weight when on the bottom.
The knocker is certainly one of the easiest rigs that I know of to tie. While you could tie it directly to your main line, it’s more commonly pre-tied using a heavier leader material, and then later attached to your lighter main line with a swivel.
The best feature of a knocker rig is that it helps to prevent you from getting tangled and hung up on the bottom. So, fishing around a lot of structure is where the knocker rig really shines.
With a knocker rig, you should usually try to use the lightest weight that you can get away with.
Some people use a bead to protect the knot from damage, and to prevent the sinker from getting stuck on the knot. However, for these 2 reasons, I prefer to use a snell knot to attach my hook. With a snell knot, the sinker is in direct contact with the steel hook, and thus there is no knot contact to be had. After all, part of the beauty of this rig is that you can bang the lead into the hook to free a snag. So, why wouldn’t you want the lead to have direct contact with the hook? Snell knots are super easy to tie if you take just a few moments to learn how.
Knocker Rig
| Avantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Extremely easy to tie | Bait can’t stray far from sinker |
| Great for fishing around structure | Sinker can get stuck on hook knot |
| Good for casting distance | Sinker can get stuck on swivel knot |
| Good for less current | Sinker rolls all over the place |
| More compact during the cast | Not good for beach fishing |
| Ability to knock a hook free | Lose the whole rig in a break off |
| Minimizes line twist during a cast |
7. Cannonball Rig
The main difference in a cannonball rig and a fish finder rig is that the weight is positioned on the leader material, whereas with a fish finder rig, the weight is positioned on the main line. What this does is allow the weight on a cannonball rig to slide all the way down to the hook, creating a very compact package. This eliminates some of the helicoptering effect you get with other rigs, and allows for further casting.
Cannonball rigs are good for surf fishing when your rods are placed in sand spikes.
Although this rig might look strange, big reds will definitely pick up a nice piece of bait pinned right next to a sinker. For all they know, that lead weight is just another rock on the ocean floor.
Knocker Rig
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Further Casts | Lose whole rig in a break off |
| Good for placing in sand spikes | Bait is typically very stationary |
| Less likely to hang up |
Conclusion
There you have it, 7 of the best bull red rigs. It seems like literally everyone tweaks these to their own liking. So, don’t be scared to pick one and modify it to suite your own taste. There is definitely no exact right way to rig any of them.
Now, go catch a monster
Augustus Clay
If you’d like to know what bait to put on your rig, you can learn about that here – Best Baits For Bull Reds
