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Popping On Top Brings Top-Notch Haul

Staff photo by FRANK SARGEANT

Captain Rick Grassett of Sarasota shows a big Sarasota Bay trout taken with a plastic shrimp fished under a popping cork. Grassett says the noisy floats seem to attract larger fish.

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By FRANK SARGEANT

Tribune correspondent

Published: November 16, 2008

SARASOTA - "I really hate bobber fishing," captain Rick Grassett admitts as he picks up a rod with what has to be called, well, a bobber. "But sometimes, that's what it takes to catch bigger fish."

He heaves the gaudy orange float, bigger than a golf ball, out on to the choppy gray surface of Sarasota Bay, lets it settle, and then gives a mighty jerk on his rod, bringing a resounding "BALOOP!" from the popping cork.

"When you jerk it like this, the shrimp jumps up near the surface, and then it drifts back down nice and slow, and that's when they usually eat it," Grassett says.

And sure enough, the words are scarcely spoken when the cork sinks obligingly into the sea, indicating that something has grabbed the plastic shrimp below.

Grassett sets the hook, and a minute later, reels in a fat 3-pound trout, a real trophy compared to the thin 14-inchers we have been catching on conventional jigs for the past hour.

"If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid," he advises, handing me a rod with a cork. A few casts later, I reeled in a nice trout of my own, only slightly smaller than his big one.

We found steady action on larger fish once we switched to the corks. Grassett says it's common in winter.

"I think the little fish grab the jig before the bigger one can get to it," he says, "but the size and the noise of the cork may put off these smaller fish at the same time it catches the interest of the bigger ones."

Grassett most often uses what's called a "Deadly Combo," a DOA rig that includes both the jumbo cork and a 3-inch plastic shrimp. He notes that you can also do well with real shrimp on the same rig, but that pinfish and catfish can be much more of a problem with the reel thing.

"You can catch three or four fish on one plastic shrimp, sometimes more, but you're constantly rebaiting with live shrimp," he notes. He said artificial bait such as Berkley Gulp! can also be effective under the cork rig.

He said one secret of success with the plastic shrimp is to rig it with a slight kink in the back, which he says causes the shrimp to sink straight down after it's twitched upward.

"Some people push it all the way forward over the eye of the hook, and if you do that it straightens the body, and that changes the action of the lure," he said.

Grassett said the cork rig is a good outfit for kids and inexperienced anglers, because the action is so basic. Pop the cork, wait five to 10 seconds for the shrimp to sink back to the depth of the leader, typically around 18 inches to 2 feet, and then pop it again. When the cork suddenly sinks, you set the hook and reel in your fish; there's no guessing about whether or not the fish has the lure.

It's somewhat difficult to cast the cork rig because of the bolo effect of cork and lure, and it's also common to get a line loop over the tip of the rod if you don't work the rig properly.

"Keep the rod tip close to the water when you pop the cork," Grassett said. "That gets rid of 95 percent of the tip loops."

He said the best areas to fish the rig are over grass of moderate depth, typically 3 to 6 feet.

"You don't want the lure to settle into the grass, but if it just ticks the tops or flits along a foot above it, that usually draws the fish up," he said.

Grassett said the fish continue to bite so long as water temperature is in the 60's, and that sometimes they bite better in the middle of the day, after the water has warmed up a bit, than they do early in the day.

For more on winter fishing on Sarasota Bay, contact Rick Grassett at (941) 923-7799 or www.snookfin-addict.com.

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