Be Ready for Anything with a Ready Rod
By Capt. Cefus McRae, Nuts & Bolts of Fishing Series
Imagine this scenario… you’re bottom fishing for snapper and grouper. You’ve anchored the boat over some great live bottom and you have your hands full wrestling big bottom dwellers up to the boat. All of a sudden you see a big brown shadow cruise by the boat…a 50 pound COBIA !!! You look around and there’s nothing but bottom rods rigged with 16 ounce weights. Mr. Cobia swims on by, and you’re left with a big frown on your face.
Now bass fishermen are probably the most well-equipped for scenarios like these because they have come to appreciate the importance of having several rods…rigged and ready…to address changing conditions on a moment’s notice. Ask a tournament angler and they’ll most likely tell you they keep six or more rods on standby at any given time. In the case of a bass angler, it’s often because they are using different weight rigs and their baitcasters are balanced for a specific weight of lure. Or, they know the time it takes to change out lures, is time they can’t be casting for a tournament-winning fish.
Whether you prefer fishing fresh or salt, you never know when a totally different situation will present itself. Unless you are prepared, by the time you’ve got a rod selected, un-tangle the line from the guides, tie on a plug or jig and make the cast, the opportunity to cast to the fish is long gone.
The Solution? A Ready Rod.
My Crevalle 24 Bay will hold 38 rods. That’s usually enough to get the job done. And I try my best to dedicate at least two of them as Ready Rods…and just like my life jackets, I have them easily accessible, rigged, and ready at a moment’s notice.
By my definition, a Ready Rod is simply another rod, rigged and ready to cast to a fish that presents itself in a manner different than the way you are currently fishing.
If you’re bottom fishing over a wreck, then have a spinning rod rigged with a big popper or live bait set-up that you can quickly pitch out to a wandering cobia, a tailing redfish or a sailfish that happens by. If you’re downlining live baits for stripers for instance, then have a jerkbait or big chugger ready in case the school starts crashing baitfish on top.
The opposite can work in your favor as well. Suppose you’re having a great time casting to Spanish mackerel and you look at the sonar to discover you’re drifting over some interesting looking bottom. Have a bottom rig ready to ease over the side and send a lively pinfish down to see what’s there. You just might pick up a big snapper, grouper or amberjack as a bonus.
For my arsenal, I rig up two spinning outfits…one with a heavy jig that I can quickly attach a plastic trailer to…and another one rigged to handle live bait. I also keep a downrod handy rigged with an egg sinker and a live bait hook. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve trolled over an area…hooked up and then discovered the main group of gamefish is about 30 feet below the surface. Having a rod ready to drop a bait immediately can be the difference between fishing, and catching. All these rods stay out of the way in my t-top rod holders, but anyone on the boat can grab one when the opportunity arises.
The point with a Ready Rod is to have ‘something’ ready to throw to a fish that is there for a brief moment. And a Ready Rod could produce the biggest fish of the day.
Tight lines and calm seas,
Captain Cefus McRae Writes about Fishing Nuts & Bolts of Fishing Series