The "Brian F-Yeah!” Rig
O.K., so what George is talking about is my fairly recent modification of the basic B/S-Rig, specifically designed to catch on those days that require more than a 5-6oz bucktail to hold bottom, without having to pay out a ton of scope. That's never a good idea when fishing over rubble, as it works against your ability to lift the rig over the really rough stuff.
The inspiration for this rig (and its name) came from a old fishing buddy that no longer fishes on my boat for some reasons that I won't go into here. And it certainly wasn't about his ability to catch fish, that's for sure!
Anyway, on a particularly rough day some years ago what he did was to take the B/S-Rig and position-swapped the sinker and the bait - meaning that he put the sinker on the dropper loop and put the hook for his GULP! on the sinker loop.
Being a smug sh*t that was totally comfortable in my ignorance, I laughed and laughed. Right up until he out-caught me seven-to-one that trip - nearly filling out the boat's limit by himself.
Yeah, and so not being a total dope, I gave this humbling experience a ton of thought, all that following week. A drubbing like that requires it. The very next trip we had another rotten day with a fast drift, and so I tried it his way. I found that it caught O.K., but because the rig fished so low to the rubble, the hook would frequently catch a piece of bottom and I'd have to give up the rig - and then spend precious time tying on a new one. There had to be a better way.
The "better way" became the "F-Yeah" rig. Remembering an old cod fishing trick, that using a longer leadered hook on hard-running tide days produced more hits, I came up with the mods that this rig became. Incorporating this thinking, what I found was that on a fast drift the longer leader to the hook allowed more free motion to the bait, thus producing more interest from our flat friends.
Here are some pix for reference - there's some stuff going here that needs 'splainin':
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Let's go through the mods to the B/S-Rig that turn it into the F-Yeah Rig. I’ll give my reasoning at each step. It's tied as follows:
a/ first I pull a couple of feet my 40lb Big Game mono from its factory 1/4lb spool. This is the line I use for both the B/S and F-Yeah. Why? Because when used with 20lb braid, if snagged in the rough bottom I fish, the 40lb mono is often times strong enough to "bull" the rig free. Or if its hopelessly hung, it will usually let go at one of its knots - sparing my braid main line. It's very common to have the rig (B/S or F-Yeah) break at the bottom of the dropper knot - thus saving your $1.50 6" Grub. Hey, getting back something is way better than having the main line break, thus losing everything.
I would forget the "finesse" leader materials like fluoro (no need in 80 - 90 feet of water), as well as any leader strength less than 40lb test. Who wants to be endlessly retying-on fresh rigs, eating up precious drift time? Time spent without your rig fishing on the bottom, is time wasted. Avoid this at all costs.
b/ Next I make a big dropper loop, and I mean big.
c/ Then from the dropper's knot I go approx 14-15" and make a two-turn Surgeon's loop to carry the sinker.
d/ Back to the dropper loop - find the knot end and cut the LOWER part of the loop, tight to the knot. This creates the hook's "leader." Cut the bottom part of the loop because, well, see above. At least you sometimes get the worm back. Better than nothing.
e/ Put your hook onto the the "leader" and adjust the length so that it ends up with the hook just above the Surgeon's loop. If you followed the recipe so far, that would make the "leader" right around 9".
f/ Tie your hook onto the leader. I like a 5/0 Gamakatsu bait holder for this, seeing as you can no longer easily find my preferred Mustad 3400BN. I use a 5-turn Improved Clinch Knot, but feel free to use any knot you like - a reverse snell is nice, or even a well-tied Uni-knot would be fine.
g/ Go up 10” or so from the dropper loop and tie on a small barrel swivel. No need for a ball bearing version, unless you truly are “bucks up.”
h/ Optional - I've found that putting a glow bead and a small styro float above the hook has had a positive effect on my results - this is shown in the pix. The glow bead adds attraction, and the styro float adds that tiny amount of buoyancy that keeps the hook up off bottom crap snags as the boat rolls in the inevitable wave action that rougher days always produce.
Though I recently have been using silicone skirts on my "normal" B/S-Rigs, I do not on the F-Yeah. I believe it adds more water drag, which I am trying to minimize in the first place.
The styro float in the pic is NLA, as the Northport tackle shop that used to stock them closed up after its owner passed away. Never fear, substitutes are available as follows.
Where to find suitable styro floats and glow beads? Here's some links that can help -
Floats - get the #7 size. I bought the #6 size and have to use two on the leader in order to get the buoyancy I'm looking for:
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Glow Beads - get the 10x7mm size:
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Special Bonus Tip -
Here are the clear beads I put on my main line, ahead of my rig's swivel. Why? Because using these beads prevents the swivel from hitting my tip-top’s delicate ceramic ring - potentially cracking it, or knocking it right out of its metal frame. Stupid sh*t happens on boats, this prevents one of those unfortunate events from putting your favorite setup out of action on an important trip.
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Let's see, what more can I add? Oh yeah, the reason I call it "Brian's F-Yeah Rig" is because back whenever BriBri would boat a real good one, he would repeatedly yell at the top of his lungs
"F YEAH!," thereby alerting every boat within 500 yards that our drift line just produced a whopper. Yep, that was great. My buddy KenScot used to get a hell of a kick out of this. Me? Decidedly less so. Brian was and still is a very "unique" dude.
Anyway, tie up some of these and give 'em a try on those "problematic" drift days. You can thank me later. Don't use them on calm days as the hook droops too much without the fast drift, (even with the styro float) thus making a less than attractive, um, attractor.
Baaaah!
