Tips for Catching Rig Snapper

EDITOR'S NOTE: To take the biggest fish of your life on fly tackle, fish with Captain Cliff Jones, one of only two fly-fishing guides in Orange Beach, Alabama. Or, if you want to catch speckled trout at night under the lights and experience an altogether different form of fly-fishing, head to Orange Beach now.

QUESTION: When you're fishing around gas and oil wells, there are two tradeoffs: if you use heavy line, you get fewer bites but you land more snapper, right?

ANSWER: Not necessarily. I think if you get fewer bites, you're going to land less snapper. If you use heavier line, you may not get any bites at all.

QUESTION: One of the reasons these rig fish are so skittish is because everybody mainly uses heavy line, now, don't they?

ANSWER: That's right.

QUESTION: And you think the snapper can't see the light line as well?

ANSWER: Correct, because it's different. They're not used to it.

QUESTION: But they're going to break off, right?

ANSWER: You will break snapper off. If you're using light line around structure with something like red snapper, you may as well count on getting broken-off a bunch.

QUESTION: Is that the reason you like Trilene Big Game line?

ANSWER: I like it the best because its limpness lets my bait fall naturally with the least amount of resistance.

QUESTION: How heavy are you setting your drag, Cliff?

ANSWER: About 25 percent of the line test.

QUESTION: How do you get those fish away from the rigs?

ANSWER: Prayer helps a lot, and angling skill does too. And you will lose the fish -- often a lot of them -- I don't care who you are. You may lose as many as half of the snapper you catch.

QUESTION: What size will those snapper be?

ANSWER: The snapper will be between barely legal, 16 inches, up to any size. Of course, the larger fish will more than likely break off.

QUESTION: How big is the biggest snapper you've caught using this tactic?

ANSWER: I caught a 21-pound snapper from a rig off the coast of Mississippi.

QUESTION: And you got the snapper away from the rig? Is that the secret?

ANSWER: I got lucky. That snapper just went the wrong way.

For more information on saltwater fly-fishing, contact Captain Cliff Jones at P.O. Box 1027, Orange Beach, AL 36561, (334) 981-1827, or e-mail himÿat nautico@gulftel.com. You also can visit his website at www.offshoreflyfishing.com.

Tomorrow: Saltwater Fly-Fishing