If you are going fishing in a freshwater lake or pond you should remember to keep things simple and use basic rigs that will help you and your family catch fish quickly. Here are the three great basic fishing rigs to use when baiting your hook with natural or live bait on local lakes and ponds:
Basic Bobber Rig
This is your most simple set-up for using earthworms, crickets, or any small natural or live bait for catching bream, perch, crappie and small bass and catfish. It’s the rig most of grew up fishing with – just tie on a small hook (around size 6) and pinch on a split shot for weight about 6 inches above the hook. Then clip on your bobber or float.
You can easily adjust the depth of this rig based on the depth of the water you are fishing and to find out where the fish are feeding. Remember that when fishing live or natural bait it is usually not important to hide the hook point, just leave it expose so you get a solid hookup on your bream, crappie or small bass or catfish.
Basic Fishfinder Rig
This is the rig to use when you want to fish the bottom with natural or live bait in still, calm water for crappie, catfish, perch and bass. Just slip a small egg sinker onto the line, in most ponds and lakes when fishing the shallows you don’t need a very big egg sinker at all. Egg sinker sizes under ½ ounce and smaller are usually fine.
Then pinch a split shot on the line to stop the sinker and after the split shot tie on your hook. Your hook size will vary based on what you are fishing with: earthworms, small crappie minnows, larger bass minnows or cut bait for catfish.
Swivel Fishfinder Rig
If you are in deeper water or water where there is a strong current like a river (or where you need to cast further) the basic fishfinder isn’t going to work for you. With that rig the heavy current will cause the egg sinker to push the split shot back up the line toward your hook.
When casting bigger live baits or cut baits for nice-sized bass or catfish you need to go to a fishfinder rig with a barrel swivel. Just thread your egg sinker onto the line (the weight of the sinker will depend upon the current-in really rough current you might be using an ounce or more) and then tie on a barrel sinker.
To the other end of the barrel sinker tie a leader of monofilament or fluorocarbon line. If you are fishing for big catfish or something like striped bass you might want to make the leader line heavier than your running line-say 20 or 25 lb test.
Then at the end tie on your hook. Your hook size will vary with the size of the live or natural bait you are using, and you can go from number 4 hooks up to the bigger 1/0 and larger models depending on your target fish species.
All three of these fishing rigs are very easy to tie and simple to make, and accomplish the main goal of your cast: getting the bait quickly and naturally down to where the fish you want to hit are feeding.
For more great fishing tips and articles see my blog A Dash Of Salty
