A Couple of Rigs and Comments for Red Drum (Pic's)

[Capt Rick Hiott]

Here are a couple of the ways I rig for the giant Red Drum. (35" and above)

For bait,,I use cut mullet or half a blue crab in the spring when the giant red drum first show up, and then later in the season I'll use live or cut menhaden, live or cut mullet, bluefish, a live croaker is great too.
I use 6oz-8oz of lead on the rig. Remember, your circle hook has to be on the bottom!

I also never use anything smaller than 30lb mono on a reel. You can use spinning or conventional, but I prefer conventional for the greater line capacity.
These fish should be brought up to the boat as soon as possible so have your camera ready. The quicker the better. The fish should be back in the water in less than 20 seconds!

As you know, hot summer water holds less oxygen.
And one other thing I cannot stand to see,,,,,I NEVER use a mechanical tool in the mouth of these great fish to lift, weigh, or control them in any way. These fish should never be lifted by their bottom jaw! NEVER!

I use my wet hands to support the fish. No towels or nets.

We have to take care of these fish,,,like Charlie Wenner, (DNR Marine Biologists) says ,,,"Big fish make little fish, and dead fish don't reproduce".................






(I also use this rig offshore for other bottom fish).
Copyrighted.

[Capt Rick Hiott]

I forgot the pic.

This is the size Red Drum I'm talking about.....

[Steve]

I'm not a fan of the carolina rig posted. I don't want the weight sliding on the lighter line, don't want to take a chance of it chafing the lighter stuff. I have broken the line casting in the past.
I use a rig like that, but with the weight sliding along the first stretch of 3' 80# shock leader (I use 2).

I think both of these rigs (pics) would work fine from a boat though. I'm sure they have been for years too! Great write up and pics Rick, thanks!

[Sam]

Great post and pictures of your rigs, Capt. Rick. Excellent advise when dealing with any fish you want to release. We definitely need more posts that educate folks on proper fishing techniques.

I have held up many fish by the gill plate in years past and now that I know better, regret it.

I have a few questions:

• Are you using these rigs primarily from a boat or are you using them for beach fishing as well? I would be the first to admit that my boat fishing experience is quite limited, but would a pyramid sinker be good for drifting from a boat?

• Why do you use only 20lb leader to your weight and 30 for the main line? I understand that you may get snagged up and it would be better to lose your sinker than your whole rig (fish included!)

• Is the 30lb test mono so you can pull the fish to the boat as quickly as possible? In the surf, I use 17lb test (mainly for casting distance, wind and current resistance and line capacity for the size reel I use.) and have caught several reds all around the 45"-48" range with no problems on the release.

• How does colder water hold more oxygen than warmer water? I understand that a fishes metabolism goes up as the water temps do, and it would use more oxygen, but was unaware the actual oxygen levels decreased.

Thanks again for your site participation and I look forward to your ( and anyone else interested ) responses.

[ffemtreed]

• How does colder water hold more oxygen than warmer water? I understand that a fishes metabolism goes up as the water temps do, and it would use more oxygen, but was unaware the actual oxygen levels decreased.

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I am pretty sure that by definition warmer water doesn't hold more or less oxygen than cold water, however the process of heating up water causes it to lose dissolved oxygen and thus having the effect of warm water has less dissolved oxygen in it. Of course I could be wrong, this is all in the back of my brain from my college chemistry classes.

[Sam]

How much less oxygen? Is their a noticeable difference?

This is kind of "out there" considering the massive amount of water, but wouldn't warmer water have more critters utilizing more oxygen considering the increased metabolism?

Hmm.. On the other hand, would warmer water encourage the growth of plant life, which would convert carbon dioxide to oxygen?

I know this is off topic, but certainly relevant to fishin!

Where is Critter Gitter to straighten this out for me?

[Capt Rick Hiott]

Let me go get the info from my buddy Charles Wenner (SCDNR). He can explain it better than I can.

[captcl]

Capt. Rick,
Ever use the rig attributed to Owen Upton? With that rig your egg sinker is statioary so chaffing would/is not a problem. I've caught some flounder with it up here but we don't (or I have'nt found) the back bay reds like you have . Your tips are great. Thanks!

[Capt Rick Hiott]

Here is the reply I received from my buddy Charlie Wenner from the SCDNR.
Grab a beer and pull up a chair.

The amount of gas that dissolves in water depends on temperature and salinity. When water is warmer and saltier, it can hold less oxygen. When there's as much in the water as the water can hold, it's called saturated. Some times water can be supersaturated - like the water in the surf where the waves break and continually put more oxygen in the water than is usually possible. If you take some of that supersaturated water and let it stand without disturbance, the excess dissolved oxygen will be released from solution. There are two ways that you can easily express how much oxygen is in the water. One is by concentration - that is generally expressed as milligrams of dissolved oxygen per liter of water or parts per million - how much oxygen is in a million parts of water. For example, if you have 1,000,000 pounds of water in which there are 7 pounds of oxygen dissolved, the concentration is 7 parts per million. The other way it is expressed is in percent saturation. A body of water at certain conditions can hold so much oxygen. Say that the water is polluted and there's a lot of material in the water that uses up oxygen. Say if the water was in perfect shape, at that temperature and salinity (salt concentration) the water could hold 10 parts per million of oxygen - that's the amount that it's possible to dissolve in that water. You go and measure the oxygen in the water and there's only 1 part per million. The percent saturation = the measured amount divided by the amount that the water could possibly hold times 100 to get a percent. In the above case you have a field measurement of one divided by 10 (the amount that is possible for the water to hold) times 100% - this would give you 10% saturation. So the concentration of oxygen in the water is 1 part per million and the percent saturation is 10%. Fish wouldn't do very well in this water.


For a variety of technical reasons (a cop out on my part because if you explain something simply, you really don't understand it yourself), water with a high salinity can hold less oxygen than fresh water at the same temperature. Water with the same salinity but warm can hold less oxygen than colder water at the same salinity. Salinity is the amount of salt dissolved in the water. Ocean waters have 35 parts of various salts (mostly table salt) in a 1000 parts of water (35 pounds of salt in a 1000 pounds of water). In estuaries, freshwater from inland rivers mixes with ocean water and the salinity is reduced (the dissolved salt is diluted).
The following table gives values of oxygen that can dissolve in fresh water at two different salinities and four different temperatures. Salinity is measured as parts per thousand (ppt) and oxygen is measured as parts per million. The values are the amounts of oxygen that make these water samples saturated.

Temperature	Oxygen
	fresh– salinity = 0 ppt	ocean– salinity = 35 ppt
32	10.2	7.8
50	8.2	6.4
77	6.3	5.0
86	5.9	4.7

Lets say you go fishing in August during the afternoon low tide in Hamlin Sound. The day was very hot 95+. The rays of the sun bake the dark mud and as the water flood over this hot bottom, the water temperature in the shallows could reach 95 degrees fahrenheit. Hamlin Sound has salinities that are very close to values in the ocean, somewhere around 35 parts per 1000. At this temperaure (95 F) and salinity (35 ppt), the water is saturated when it has a concentration of 4.2 parts per million. When temperatures are high, the metabolism of red drum is higher than it would be in cold water. Think of metabolism as burning up sugars in the body to produce energy and to maintain the fish. As metabolism increases, the need for oxygen increases. So a red drum in the shallow 95 degree water has a fast metabolism to begin with and requires more oxygen to live than the same fish in the winter because the winter has colder water and the fish's metabolism slows down. You through out your finger mullet on a circle hook to a 20 pound fluorocarbon leader and hook an eight pound fish. You fight him for 15 minutes. That fish is probably history - fighting increased the metabolism above what is was in the warmer water and the at the higher temperature the water can hold a little bit more than half that it could in the winter. It's a double whammy. So if you're going to go for real light tackle fishing, may I suggest that you do that in the cooler weather when the fish require less oxygen and the water has more oxygen dissolved in it.


Also, when fish fight they build up an oxygen debt. You know how your legs feel when you run a mile. They ache and burn (if your heart hasn't exploded). That is because your muscles have built up an oxygen debt from burning the sugars that provide the energy. This debt is caused lactic acid. After you stop running and catch your breath, the pain in your legs goes away. This is because you have taken up more oxygen than you needed and the lactic acid was burned up. Fish do basically the same thing.


Have you ever seen a fish that has fought like a trooper in warm water get stiff as a board at the end at the fight? That's the lactic acid (oxygen debt) that causes the fish to get stiff (think of your aching muscles after running). There's some more complicated things that go along with this, but that's the basic picture.



It dont get any better than that! Dam he's good! Thanks Charlie!

[Oldmulletbreath]

I am a Hatteras Surf Drum fisherman. Most of us use a "fishfinder rig" 7/0 to 10/0 circle hook, 1 to 3 inch snelled leader to a 150 barrell swivel. This is tied to a shock leader the length of your rod the length of your casting drop and three to six turns on your reel, I use 50lb test to 17 lb running line.Weight is attached by using a 125lb to 200lb snap swivel slideing on your your shocker.

Most folks are throwing highend 12 to 13 foot rods capeable of throwing 6 to 10 ounces plus bait.

The short leader allows longer casts,there are other tweaks you can use to this rig but that is the basic rig.

This is a terrible picture but it shows the size of some of the bruzers we catch.

[captcl]

That's a great explaination Capt! Should cause a lot of anglers to think about their targeted speices, the time of year(season), the water temp (bottom temp), the stage of the tide, the time of day or night, and then overlay all that on the avialable(or unavailable ) bait that should be present (as per target or unintentional speices)add luck and your fishing!