This past season I went fishing twice with MFCC member Calvin Toran-Sandlin. During both trips we fished gnarly rock strewn areas. 

I'll write up a full post about the experience as soon as I can, but in the meantime I wanted to share a little video footage from our first trip together. 

In this video, you'll get a look at some of the gear and lures Calvin regularly uses when fishing the boulder fields of Cape Cod for big striped bass.

Video Transcript

(00:00):
So on a night like tonight, we're going to be fishing in wetsuits. That's going to give us better access to some of the structure we want to cover. So I'm working primarily from my surf belt here. I like to keep it fairly light and minimalized so that I have movement in the surf and that I'm not weighed down. I keep my tools on my belt and I keep a bag and pouch that I can rotate through as the conditions dictate. So for tonight, we have a few different options. I'll be carrying a variety of soft plastics. This is a classic nine inch black sluggo. It's McKenna rigged, which is the two hook style. We're running Dacron through it just to give us that secondary hook in case we have a fish that short strikes.

(00:47):
So you've got Dacron running through that, huh?

(00:49):
Yes.

(00:51):
What do you use a needle?

(00:52):
So I'm using a rigging needle essentially the same way you'd rig an eel or rig a bait for offshore trolling except on a smaller scale, and some guys would use weights in these little nail weights. I'll rig some with that for this application. Shallow water, a lot of structure. This one is completely unweighted other than the hooks, which I'm using fairly heavy gauge hooks for it.

(01:16):
And I see you've got a split ring on the front of that.

(01:21):
This one in particular I do. It's something I've experimented with. It's not something I include on all of my rigged baits, but sometimes at night, especially with these heavier gauge hooks with the smaller eye, it just makes it a little bit easier to engage it on the clip when I'm fishing.

(01:40):
Got it.

(01:41):
We have a few other soft plastic varieties, paddle tails on light jig heads. This is a three-quarter ounce jig head so that we're not dragging bottom as we fish. This shallow structure, it's a large paddle tail. It's the no live bait needed something. I've pretty recently begun fishing. You can rig these on a heavier jig head. In this situation, I'm rigging it fairly light with just a small three quarter ounce jig head that'll keep it above the structure while allowing me to cast and make an effective presentation. Extremely effective bait. I've had a lot of decent fish on this. This season will also carry a variety of plugs with us. In an area like this where we have a lot of water movement and sweep, we carry a lot of darters. This is the classic super strike zigzag darter. It digs fairly shallow and holds very well in moving water, so that's going to be one of our go-tos.

(02:40):
Another great option on a night like tonight is the classic red fin. This one's beat up. It's caught a lot of fish and I have faith in this plug in particular, so that's why I'll be carrying it. This one isn't loaded because I don't have a lot of wind, I don't have a lot of surf to contend with. If I was fishing heavier conditions, I might load it with water or shot and that would give me a little more leverage in the surf to punch it through the wind and hold it in a little rougher conditions. We'll also carry some, if I can get it out, some lighter wooden needle fish plugs these cast very well. And this one in particular, it's a wooden Gibbs needle fish. It's a slow sinking variation perfect in these shallow boulder field environments. This one particular has a dress hook on it, add a little bit of bulk and a little bit of flare in the water.

(03:36):
One other plug, I like to carry a little less traditional. This is a super strike little neck popper. And the little neck popper is a classic daytime plug to reach out and attract fish attention. But at nighttime, I can swim this one through the boulders. It swims just under the surface, creates a waking presentation that the fish key in on. And this one particular I've dressed with an eel skin and that eel skin, it adds to the profile of the plug and it creates a very attractive motion in the water that the bass absolutely key in on. This is one of my go-to lores when I'm looking for big fish, especially in these calm, shallow structure filled waters.