A Rockfishing 'Must Have'

[Fiskadoro]

Good Lord. The last thing I want is a dirty needle on my kayak.

I just use an easy to make rockfish release rig.
Rather then explain it I just made you guys a jpg.



Not brain surgery but here's a couple of points:

I run this rig on it's own rod with straight thirty mono. I usually use a 12 ounce sinker, and leave the rod in freespool in a holder with the clicker on. When I get a fish I don't want I hook point down through both lips then just drop it. With the clicker on it goes down at a relatively moderate rate. As soon as the clicker stops I throw it in gear and take maybe five cranks to get the fish off, and the weight off the bottom.

As the rockfish sinks it will pull away from you out of your fishing zone on the bottom do to the drift. That said if the drifts slow as soon as the fish is off the weight will cause it to swing towards you. A couple of times this became an issue when I was hooked to big fish, and did not have time to reel in the release rig. I run spectra on my fishing rigs, I like to run the release rig on thirty mono because it tends to keep it further away out from my strike/fishing zone, and it's easier to untangle if a fish wraps into it.

Another weird problem I've had is occasionally sharks or possibly big lings will attack the fish on the way down. Just reel and they come loose but a few times I've had them come back and hit the weight like it's an Iron and bite it off. I know it sounds crazy but it does happen, and if you only have one heavy weight it kind of ruins your day. I used to use fairly light mono for the weight in case of hangups, but I switched to spectra, and it's not been a problem since then as spectra doesn't cut very easily.

I can appreciate the idea of your needle device. It's supposed to save fish. However my take is if your poking holes in fish and dropping them over the side of the boat their rate of survival can't be that great.

Rockfish are territorial bottom dwellers. They are not used to swimming in open water. I mean when you have them up top they are hurt, have the bends, maybe blinded, probably extremely disoriented and they still have to still swim down several hundred feet to find their structure again once you release them on the surface.

Hook them and drop them with the rig and they are released at the right depth right back on bottom structure.

Jim