Last year about this time I mentioned my experiments with what I called "popper-knocker" rigging, a popular setup for speckled trout and redfish in estuaries around the Gulf Coast and Southeast Atlantic coastal region. The basic rig, which can be made at home consists of a popping cork in conjunction with bead-and-sinker rigging. On each pull the cork pops the surface while the bead combo gives off a beady "caa-chink." Popping corks have been used as attractors for some freshwater species in certain parts of the country for a long time. The addition of the clacking part of the assembly hasn't been employed much, though.

This sort of rigging as an attractor for freshwater fish seems such a natural to me, given the overwhelming popularity of rattles, rattling lures, Carolina rigging and such, that I keep experimenting with it, and suggest here again that you might do the same. I haven't the time to fish in each situation you face. I'm enthusiastically positive, though, that this form of rigging will find a comfortable home in freshwater.

Adding to this story, the past year, we did a spring trip to film redfish on the inshore waters near Charleston, South Carolina. The guide we worked with, Captain J.R. Waits, introduced us to a Precision Tackle product called Cajun Thunder, which is an upgraded commercial version of the basic popper-knocker rigging.

Cajun Thunder rigging consists of a seven-inch portion of wire with two heavy brass beads for weight, below a sliding float, and two plastic beads, for additional noise, above the float. One Cajun Thunder design offers a cigar-style float; another offers a 2.5-inch oval float. The cigar design offers less resistance than the oval design, for fishing smaller baits. We used this design to fish with shrimp and with leadhead jigs in South Carolina. The oval design will suspend a bigger bait.

The idea for redfish and trout is to attract the fish with commotion of the float in conjunction with a metallic clicking noise that anglers believe imitates the "clicking" noise given off by shrimp as they swim. Again, this is one of the most popular riggings for reds and trout in inshore waters--a proven performer. And again, I know that at times, freshwater fish also are attracted to the noise. Indeed, according to Bill Hall, who runs Precisiona Tackle from their offices in Montgomery, Texas (936-597-6145), the bigger noisy float rig is beginning to catch on among anglers fishing big shiners for bass in Florida. Use the noise to draw the fish closer to have a look, then eat the shiner.