Sabiki Rigs for Fishing Herring and Bait Fish
The Sabiki setup is a essentially a monofilament line with multiple tiny fly hooks attached. Each of the small hooks are equally separated down the line by roughly 8″. The flies don’t need to be baited or scented, as they mimic a school of krill or tiny shrimp in the water. The Sabiki rig is meant to catch smaller sized or bait fish and often multiple at a time! For me here in Pacific Northwest I use the Sabiki rig to catch Herring and anchovies for bait and eating.
How its fished
The Sabiki rig is typically vertically jigged out of a boat or water craft of some sort. You can also cast the setup from shore and jig it back toward you. The Sabiki rig is almost weightless as its only a few feet of and flies, so in order to cast it or even get it deeper in the water column you have to add a weight. As it’s a light rig you don’t need much weight and really that weight is dependent on the water depth your fishing and if there is any tide you’re dealing with. Typically I put 1/2oz to 1oz on the bottom of the setup to fish it properly. But again if you’re fishing in the ocean and there is a ripping tide you may want to need to put a heavier weight like 2oz to even 6oz to get the rig to the bottom.
To actually fish the setup, I put the setup in the water and open my reel bail until the weight hits the bottom (or the roughly the depth I believe the bait fish are), and I slow jig my rod tip up and down and slowly retrieve line. That jigging action is very important in order to ensure those Sabiki flies are bouncing around in the water. Often times you’ll get multiple hook ups on a single drop or cast out. You should have a pail (e.g. 5 Gallon bucket) ready to extract your catches and get it right back into the water.
Video of me using a Sabiki Rig to fish for Herring
In this video I’m casting a Sabiki rig from shore and targeting Pacific Herring. Not only do these make great bait for Salmon, Lingcod and other bottom fish but they’re great to eat as well!
Sabiki Rigs Online
