Float Fishing Made Easy

The Anchor Rod

The anchor rod is basically a stout eight, nine or ten footer. Some people use an eleven or twelve footer but that seems to make it harder for the other fishermen to get around such a tall rod if you have a fish on, unless someone drops the rod down, and some people don't drop their anchors for others. That's where a lot of common courtesy comes into play.

Basically, you tie an anchor (pic 1) on the end of your line and chunk it as far as you can.  Let it settle on the bottom for a few seconds, hold the rod tip down over the railing and slowly crank line back in.  Jerking back on the rod as you slowly reel line will usually allow the anchor to dig into the bottom.  Viola!  You just anchored.  
When you're ready to drop a bait into the water, the anchor rod will be lifted and inserted into PVC pipe that's usually mounted on the railing at the end of the pier. (pic 2)  It stands tall and proud as a monument to the fishermen who are willing to spend endless hours on the end of a pier waiting for a reel to scream.

The Rig

The essentials that I use to make a rig are: wire (I use 43lb Malin solid wire), I have tried wound wire but have had too many crimp failures, wire snips, trebble hooks (#4 or #6 2x),
a ball bearing barrel swivel, a ball rearing big snap swivel and a 16 penny nail.  (fig 3)

The first thing I do is thread the wire through the eye of a trebble hook and make a soft bend in the wire.  The length of the wire depends on the type of bait you're using.  The first two hooks I link together are the head and tail hooks.  The first hook goes in behind the head and the second hooks in between the dorsal and tail fins.

This is where the nail comes in handy. I insert the nail into the bend of the wire 1) to give me something to hold onto besides the hook itself. 2) it creates a nice loop when we make a haywire twist.






We can hold the nail now and twist the short end of the wire around the longer lead. This makes a pretty haywire twist and leaves the hook on the loop at the end of the wire. Make at least 5 twists and snip the remaining end off. (always do this after a haywire twist)

The nail keeps me from ramming a trebble into my fingers.



Repeat the same thing on the other end of the wire and your rig should look like this



Next is the trailer/stinger hook.  My personal preference is to drop the trailer hook down the side of the body of the fish. Some put the trailer behind the tail fin and some put it above the fish.  Here again....this is a personal preference.
I usually make the trailer leader 1 inch shorter than the body leader.
Again...use the nail and make a haywire twist off the eye of either of the hooks

Attach the final trebble onto the end of the shorter lead you just twisted.  Your rig should look like this.
Now here's where you can make a decision as to whether you want a tail trailer, or a body trailer.  If you twist your long leader into one of the end hooks, the trailer will be behind the tail.  If you wire into the middle hook, the trailer will hang down next to the body.  This will make more sense in the next step.




This step is attaching a longer leader to the hooks.  This is the wire that will allow you to fish deep or on the surface. Again....a personal preference.  I use about 5 feet of wire for this step.  For the sake of taking pictures step by step, I'll use a shorter wire.  Pretend it's longer.

Loop the wire through the eye of the hook (I'll use the center hook so the trailer hangs next to the body of the bait fish), use the nail again and make a haywire twist.

OK, Our rig should look like this.

Now we attach a ball bearing barrel swivell to the end of the long leader.  Again use the nail and haywire twist.  Open the snap swivell and hook it to the barrel swivell.  The snap swivell will tie directly to the fighting rod

Here is our completed rig







I use a clothespin release.  Again...a personal preference. The clothespin release is what connects the fighting line to the anchor line.  I open the link connector and put it around the anchor line. Now I can slide the release down the anchor line with the fighting line clipped in the clothespin. By shortening the fighting line I can raise the bait higher in the water.  By stripping line I can lower the bait and run it deep

The Fighting Rod