0:00
One of my favorite types of rigs to use out on the beach while surf fishing is the Carolina rig
0:05
And in this video, we're going to be going over all the details of the Carolina rig
0:09
how you rig it up, what type of tackle you need, and exactly how to use it
0:13
And we're diving in right now. Hey, what's going on, y'all? Tyler here with Tight Lines and High Tides
0:18
If this is the first time visiting our channel, be sure to go ahead and click that subscribe button
0:22
We here at Tight Lines and High Tides aim to bring you as much useful and relevant information
0:27
on the sport and hobby of fishing as possible. So if you want to learn more about fishing and you want to increase your fishing IQ
0:34
make sure you click that subscribe button to follow along. But enough about that. Let's go ahead and dive back in and talk about some Carolina rigs
0:41
So the Carolina rig is a bottom fishing rig that's been around for years and years
0:45
When most people think about the Carolina rig, they actually typically go right to freshwater fishing
0:51
and particularly like freshwater fishing using artificial lures. But actually, the Carolina rig is also really effective and really popular with saltwater fishing
1:01
And it's, again, one of my favorites when I go surf fishing. And the reason I like the Carolina rig so much is because, number one, it's really easy and quick to rig
1:11
There's not very many components to rig this thing up. And number two, it's just really effective
1:17
And the reason that it's so effective is because it provides a really, really natural presentation of your bait or your lure
1:24
So now that we know what the Carolina rig is, I'm going to show you guys exactly how we like to rig it up out on the beach
1:30
So there's a few different variations that a lot of different fishermen use. This is the one that we like
1:36
You can certainly make it your own however you see fit. But this is how we rig it up
1:41
And what we do is first we take our main fishing line. So this is our braid fishing line
1:47
I use Power Pro on my surf rods, but this is about a 25-pound Power Pro braid
1:52
I take my first glass bead and I put it directly on my main fishing line and
1:59
what this glass bead does is a couple things but most importantly I like it on
2:04
there because it helps protect the the tip of my rod just in case I'm not
2:09
paying close enough attention and I happen to reel the line up a little bit
2:14
further than I should this bead right here will protect the end of my the tip
2:19
of my rod from any sort of damage to the guide. So I think that's important. The other thing it
2:25
does is actually adds a little bit of noise and color to the rig for those fish that might get
2:29
attracted by that sound. Next up is we're going to take our weight. And so what I'm showing here
2:36
is just a basic three ounce egg sinker. People use bullet sinkers like this. Egg sinker works fine
2:45
as well. The weight that you choose is basically dependent upon the surf conditions of the day
2:52
Generally, you just want to make sure that it's heavy enough to weight the lure down
2:58
and keep your bait close to the bottom. You're not letting that current kind of push it around
3:02
So on more active current days or rougher days you go with a little bit bigger weight and on those calmer days you can step that down a little bit But all we do is we feed the main line right
3:14
through your lead. Pull on through there. That's all there is to it. Next what I do is on the other
3:23
side of the weight I add another glass bead. And the most important thing for this glass bead
3:29
is going to be protecting the knot that we're going to create here in a second
3:35
from being damaged by the lead. So a lot of times these leads have kind of rough
3:40
holes right here that can cut and damage the the knot in particular as it bangs
3:46
across or bangs on the swivel. So we want to protect that as much as possible
3:51
which is why we add that second swivel on there. And like I said again another
3:57
benefit of these of these beads is the extra sound that it makes as it's kind of
4:06
bouncing around in the water it adds a little bit of sound there and could
4:10
attract some other fish some fishermen opt not to go with any beads at all and
4:15
that's perfectly alright it's your preference the only thing I would say if
4:18
you opt to go without the bead make sure that you have a nice clean hole here and
4:24
make sure that this hole is nice and small for your lead that way it doesn't damage damage your
4:30
knot very much but like i said we like to add that second bead there okay next thing up for the
4:37
carolina rig is we're going to go ahead and attach our barrel swivel so what i have here is a number
4:42
five barrel swivel and again i'll put a link to a link for this in the description down below
4:49
I use anywhere from a number seven all the way up to maybe a one-aught barrel barrel swivel for
4:57
most of my setups. I like to keep it pretty small and I think that you know somewhere around the
5:02
number five range is plenty for most of the fishing applications that we do on the beach
5:07
But all we do with this to attach the main line to the swivel is using an improved clinch knot
5:13
just tie this around and connect that main line to your swivel
5:25
You know there's a lot of different knots that fishermen like to use. We use the
5:29
improved clinch knot. I think it is easy enough, works plenty good, and a nice secure knot
5:36
cinch that on down and then we'll trim up trim up this tag in the best we can
5:44
okay all right so there we have it we have our basic setup beads weight all attach the main line
5:58
right to our swivel and now we're ready for our leader. All right, when it comes to leader line for the Carolina rig, this is how I'd use it. Number one
6:11
my favorite type of leader line is going to be fluorocarbon leader And I really like the Seaguar brand And from a weight perspective most of the fishing that I do on the beach
6:24
I use about a 25-pound fluorocarbon leader. You know, if you're catching those bigger fish, you might want to step it up a little bit
6:31
But I think the 25-pound pretty much is for your general purpose
6:35
Surf fishing is the perfect size. from a length perspective you know one of the downsides of the carolina rig is that it tends
6:45
to be a little bit more difficult to cast out there because of the position of the weight
6:52
in relation to your hook which is going to be out here some so if you have a really long leader
6:58
attached to your to on your rig you're going to have a little bit more difficult time casting it
7:05
out. When you throw it out there, it might helicopter around and do some line twists
7:10
You're not going to get as much distance with this Carolina rig as you would, say, a top
7:15
bottom rig or maybe a knocker rig. So what I say for surf fishing for the Carolina rig is I like to use anywhere from about a
7:26
12-inch to maybe up to a two-foot piece of leader line for most of those fishing
7:35
So I tend to stay around the 12 to 18 inch range
7:39
And here's how I do that. So if you're not too good at eyeballing the length
7:44
we can take this Seaguar Blue Label package of fluorocarbon. And what it does is it has this sleeve on it that kind of holds the line in place
7:57
It's got a little notch here on the top, and it's got a notch here that holds the tag in of your spool in place
8:04
So when I want to measure out the right amount of length of leader line for my Carolina rig
8:10
I take it out here and I go pop it out of this little notch right here. I go one time
8:17
and then one more time right here and then I push it back down into the notch in the middle of the
8:24
spool and then I cut this guy off right here at the edge and boom I have a perfect right at 18 inch
8:33
piece of leader line. Okay, so from there I just attach in my leader line to the
8:43
other end of the barrel swivel again using an improved clinch knot
8:51
There we have it. So now we've got our leader line attached to our swivel and
8:57
we're ready for the good end. Alright so there you go about an 18 inch
9:03
piece of leader line ready to go. Now we're going to attach whatever hook or lure we're going to use
9:11
So like I said, with this bigger three ounce lead, this is where I'm doing
9:15
most of my cut or natural bait fishing or live bait fishing So when I doing that type of fishing a lot of times I going to use some sort of a circle hook So right here I have an octopus circle hook that I have snailed onto the end
9:31
right there. My lines with a snell knot on the end here. A really popular hook. I really like to use
9:36
that one. I also use just normal inline circle hooks such as these circle hooks by owner. A
9:45
really sharp, really good hooks. So attach those the same way, your preference there. Or
9:50
kale hooks. A kale hook is another really good one that I like to use with surf fishing
9:56
especially when I'm doing a lot of live bait fishing. It has a little bit of the benefits of
10:00
a circle hook where the fish can kind of set themselves. It has pretty good success on reducing
10:07
the amount of gut hooks. But also if you're more of an active fisherman and you have that
10:11
a rod in your hand, you can still set the hook with a kale hook with a pretty good success
10:17
unlike the circle hook. But we'll attach this guy like we do every other hook
10:23
And there you have it. Now we have successfully set up our very first Carolina rig
10:29
with a kale hook and a three ounce lead. and that's all there is to it. All right so now let's say that we don't want to use
10:41
live or natural bait but instead we want to use something like this DOA shrimp. We want to do a
10:46
little bit of artificial lure fishing using the Carolina rig. Well that's all right that's kind
10:51
of the benefit of the versatility of the Carolina rig that's perfectly all right and we'll set it up
10:57
pretty much the same exact way as we just showed only we'll attach the artificial lure. There's a
11:03
couple little deviations that we're going to do though in order to make it more effective using
11:07
artificial. What I like to use is this longer or bullet shaped sinker in the three quarters up to
11:16
one and a half ounce weight range depending on the conditions that I'm casting in. So this is a
11:22
one ounce lead that I like to use. It works really well. I do the same thing, again optional
11:28
with the beads on either side of the lead. Attach that, or these are hooked right onto our main line
11:36
Attach again with some cinch knots to our barrel swivel. A nice 12 to 18 inch piece of leader line
11:46
Again, 25 pound fluorocarbon leader line. And then I can attach that directly to the DOA shrimp hook
11:58
however you want to attach it but just hook that artificial lure to the end of your line and then
12:05
you work it just like you would a freshwater setup and that's all there is to it all right
12:10
and just like that you guys now know how to set up and rig a carolina rig for surf fishing i really
12:16
hope you enjoyed this video and if you did be sure to click that like button and let us know
12:20
also if you have any thoughts or comments please drop us a comment down below and if you want to
12:25
to hear more from us and see more of our videos, be sure to click that subscribe button
12:30
And until next time, tight lines, y'all
