Just by coincidence the same day Capt Al Lorenzetti informed me about us receiving the QuickRig tool to try out. I also received a call from a client of mine, Andy Alper asking me to come down to West Palm Beach and chase down some Sailfish on his new 54 Viking “ He’ Lade”. No more stars needed to align, I packed my bag and headed south. Conditions were great for a boat ride 82 degrees with a slight south breeze and 76 degree water temps, but I knew this was not sailfish weather. After acquiring some local knowledge and some live goggleyes we were off to test out our new tools.

I first heard of the QuickRig tool last summer when I was fishing the offshore tournament trail. While at the White Marlin Open I was told that in all future billfish tournaments J hooks would be banned and we would have to rig all our dead baits with circle hooks. Not something I was looking forward to and I immediately started the search for a simple solution to the tedious bridling process. The QuickRig seemed to be the answer. But would it work for live baiting?

The QuickRig kit that we have came with an assortment of three different sizes of Bait Bridling Clips, 8/0 Charlie Brown Circle Hooks and the QuickRig Tool. The tool itself is a set of spring loaded pliers with specially placed grooves to accommodate the clips. It is made from aircraft aluminum and is very light and sturdy. The clips have a small notch in the center were you need to place the circle hook. You simply place the clip into the tools forward groove, push against the shank of the hook and squeeze. You must match the right sized clip for your hook, if you use a large clip and a smaller sized hook the clip can slide past the barb of the hook and your bait can swim off. I recommend you do this part of your rigging at the dock, it takes a little bit of a steady hand and the hooks are sharp. The next step is to place the outer edges of the clip into the larger grooves of the tool. Grab your live bait and place the rig and clip to its beak and squeeze. The clips ends penetrate the bait and cross over one another to lock the bait to your circle hook. The most important part here is to place the rig on with the hook facing the right way. It needs to have the point up and the shank laying along the top of the baits head. If you make a mistake in this process the hook point will back up into the bait and not work properly. With the 8 inch goggleyes we were using for bait I decided to place the clip right behind the nostrils and just before the eyes, it seemed to be the hardest part of the bait and I figured it would hold best. I would assume it be placed in the same location on our live bunker as well. Once rigged the bait swam naturally and looked totally unaffected by the rig. Our drift thru the Gulf Stream was over 3 knots and we never had our frisky baits pull off the clip. The rig did its job well. As for the Sailfish, that’s a different story we didn’t raise a single one. We did go 1 for 1 on mahi and were cut off a few times by big Kings.

With the push to be more conservation minded and use circle hooks, I’ve always been hesitant, feeling that putting a large live bait on a circle hook would take up too much of the hooks gap and cause the hook to be ineffective. The QuickRig has taken away my last excuses. You just have to remember to fight that urge to set the hook and just engage your reel and let the fish come tight. If you happen to pass me on the great south bay and hear me screaming expletives you can probable assume I forgot to follow that last bit of advice.

Capt Dave Zarrello

Fins Up Sportfishing
http://www.finsupfishing.com