Tautog Tackle: Rigs, Jigs and Rods

Tautog fishing is a close-quarters fight. The fish lives in the rocks, takes the bait in the rocks, and the moment it's hooked it turns and heads straight back into them. Your tackle has two jobs: let you feel a very light bite in deep, rocky water, and give you the power to pull a strong fish up and out before it wedges itself in. Simple and strong wins.

Rod and reel

Rod: a stout rod with a strong backbone and a sensitive tip. Six to 7 feet is standard from a boat; go to 8 feet on a crowded party boat to keep your line away from your neighbors', or from a jetty to lift fish over the rocks. The rod should handle the sinker weight the water calls for, which can mean 8 ounces or more in deep water and current.

Reel: most tautog anglers use a conventional reel; spinning reels aren't well suited to heavy sinkers in deep water. Opinions differ on speed: some anglers want a low gear ratio for raw cranking power, others a fast reel to get the fish off the bottom before it can get into the rocks. Either way, it has to be strong.

Line and leader

Braid is the standard now. It has almost no stretch, so you can feel a tog picking at a crab in deep water and drive the hook home. And it's thin for its strength, so it cuts through current and holds bottom with far less weight than mono. With braid you can often hold bottom with half the lead you'd need with mono of the same strength.

• Everyday tog fishing: 30- to 50-pound braid.
• Big fish on deep wrecks: 50- to 80-pound braid.

Leader: tie on a few feet of heavy, abrasion-resistant fluorocarbon as a topshot. It adds a little stretch that helps keep the hook from tearing out. Use 50-pound for most fishing, up to 80-pound for trophy fish on wrecks. A 3- to 5-foot topshot is typical.

The tog rig

Keep it simple. Every swivel, snap and bead is one more thing to snag. Most experienced tog anglers tie their own rigs with no hardware at all.

Single dropper rig

1. At the end of your leader, tie a surgeon's loop or perfection loop and slip on a bank sinker. Use enough weight to hold bottom firmly with your line straight down. More weight gives you better control than not enough.
2. A few inches above the sinker, tie a dropper loop.
3. Loop on a hook snelled to 12 to 15 inches of fluorocarbon.

Some anglers add a second dropper about 18 inches above the first. Others prefer both hooks right on the bottom, where tautog feed.

Tandem-hook rig

Tautog are notoriously hard to hook, and a two-hook rig on one bait puts a hook near the fish's mouth whichever way it grabs the crab.

1. Take a 2-foot piece of fluorocarbon and snell a hook on each end.
2. Fold it in half and tie a loop in the middle.
3. Attach that loop to a dropper loop tied about 4 inches above the sinker.

Both hooks now lie on the bottom, 6 to 8 inches from the main line. Put both hooks into one crab, through the leg sockets.

Hooks

Tautog have small mouths for their size. The traditional choice is a short-shank Virginia-style hook: size 2 to 1/0 when the fish are 1 to 3 pounds, 2/0 to 4/0 when bigger fish are around. For big crabs and trophy fish, some anglers go to 5/0 to 7/0 octopus-style hooks.

Breakaway sinker

On deep wrecks you'll lose rigs, period. Many trophy anglers use a breakaway rig, built so the sinker breaks free when it snags in the wreck. You lose the lead but keep the fish.

Tog jigs

Jigging for tautog has caught on in the last several years because it lets you fish lighter and feel more.

• What it is: a compact, short-shank jig head of about 1/2 ounce to 3 ounces with a crab pinned on the hook. The jig is the weight and the hook in one piece.
• Weight: use the lightest jig that holds bottom. A lighter jig gets more bites and snags less. If 2 to 3 ounces won't hold in the current, switch to a rig.
• How to fish it: drop it into the structure, keep the line straight up and down, and bounce it along the bottom. Edges of rock piles and the broken edges of wrecks are good places for a jig.
• Bait: half a green crab or a whole Asian shore crab, pinned through the leg sockets.
• Tackle: a 7-foot medium spinning or conventional rod with 20- to 30-pound braid and a long fluorocarbon leader of around 30 pounds.

From shore

On jetties, bridges and piers, the same rigs work. A long spinning rod helps you reach past the rocks and lift a fish over them. On piers and bridges, a simple sliding-sinker rig with an egg sinker above the hook works well. Wear studded or cleated footwear on wet jetty rocks.

Expect losses

Tautog structure eats tackle. Tie a dozen rigs at home, bring plenty of sinkers, and don't fish rigs or line you're not willing to lose.

For bait, see Crabs and Other Baits for Tautog. For the hookset and getting fish out of the rocks, see Hooking and Landing Tautog.

Before you go

Tautog size limits, bag limits and seasons are set by each state and change often. Check your state's current saltwater rules before you go.