DOUBLE YOUR PLEASURE -- RIGS THAT CAN CATCH TWO

There's no real question that August, the hottest of the summer months, can be one of the toughest for fishermen in the Southeast. But one thing that summer weather means, in a lot of cases, is schooling fish, and taking advantage of them with rigs designed to provide twice the opportunities tocatch fish is something not to be missed.

Double rigs are terminal-tackle alterations made to try and take advantage of the fact that often, especially during the summer, fish are often feeding in schools, and if you can hook one, having another lure or bait in the water can often mean a second strike at the same time.

There are four or five different double rigs worth mentioning because of their ease of assembly and their abililty to produce fish in freshwater and salt. As far as saltwater is concerned, almost every surf fishermen has in his possession some standard two-hook bottom rigs. You tie or clip your running line to a swivel tied into the rig, clip a sinker on the bottom, and thread a couple of snelled hooks with leaders into wire or monofilament arms, then dress them with live or cut bait of some kind. Usually, strikes come on the bottom hook first. Sometimes, when dealing with schooling fish such as spot or croaker, you may catch fish two at a time. The "speck rig" for trout is standard fare at coastal tackle shop. It consists usually of two bucktail jigs or hair jigs of some sort, tied on leaders of different lengths. You cast the rig out and retrieve it by bumping it along the bottom or twitching and winding. Again, it's usually the larger bucktail tied on the bottom of the rig that gets the first hit. In case of speckled or gray trout, which are often found schooling during the summer, when the first trout hooks up, that second bucktail swings freely and wildly, often enough to draw a strike from another fish.

Those are the simplest double rigs around. The others, however, may be just as effective, plus, not as well known, and their primary applications are in freshwater. One I've have good success with is a double-bucktail rig used by fishermen who troll for striped bass in reservoirs. During the summer, most feeding activity takes place well down in the water column, at the general depth where most of the lake's baitfish are taking place. At Badin Lake, one of North Carolina's better striper holes, that could be 10 to 12 feet. At Buggs Island, probably the best all-around lake in the Tarheel State for stripers, that could mean 20 to 30 feet deep.

What's consistent is the fact that most summertime stripers are schoolies, whether they're 4-pounders at Lake Norman, 6-pounders at Badin or 12-pounders at Buggs Island. They roam and hunt in packs.

Fishermen get lures down to stripers using leadcore line, planers or downriggers. The business end usually consists of a triple-swivel, with leaders of two different lengths connected to bucktails. Often, fishermen dress the bucktails with a plastic-worm trailer; for years, a lemon-lime Hawg Caller has been the trailer of choice at Buggs Island and Badin. The effect of the two lures is the same as the speck rig, except that they're being pulled through the water. One bucktail, usually one on the longer leader, draws a strike, and as the fish struggles, the other bucktail jerks through the water with no real pattern. That's often enough to draw a strike from another striper.

The same principal applies to topwater rigs popular with some bass fishermen. Doyle Hodgin of Durham invented his "Front Runner" several years ago because he knew that fish feeding at the surface were often aggressive enough to fight over prey. So tying on a minnow-shaped piece of plastic (with trebel hook) a foot or so ahead of a topwater plug was a good way to imitate one tiny baitfish being chased by a bigger one. Schooling largemouth or white bass will often strike at both lures simultaneous, and doubles are not unheard of.

Another topwater rig that operates on the same wavelength is a double-Fluke rig. Tournament pro Wally Szuba of Cary showed me that one at Buggs Island earlier this year. He rigs a soft-plastic jerkbait like a Zoom Fluke in standard fashion, Texas-style using a worm hook. Because of the shape of a Fluke-type bait, the shank and bend of the hook are exposed. To the bend, he ties his favorite standard terminal knot, measures out a leader from one to two feet long, then ties on another Fluke.

He casts this monstrosity to likely spots -- shallow, rocky shoals at Buggs Island are a good example -- and when he lets the rig sink a few inches and starts twitching it back, both Flukes dart and dip seductively. A bass is liable to strike at either one -- or often both.

The last double rig won't catch many doubles, but it might catch a few extra fish for a Carolina-rig maniac. Chris Bullock, a former regional BASS Federation champion from the Pitt County town of Greenville showed me this one several years ago. It involves a jig that's hard to find, but a concept that's not hard to imitate.

Instead of using an egg sinker or bullet weight above the swivel, Bullock threaded on a Bomber Slick Jig, a jig that had no line-tie. Instead, it had a hole bored through the middle of the jig. If you wanted to fish it like a regular jig, you threaded your line through the hole and tied a swivel. The shank and eye of the hook were molded into the body fo the jig.

That style of jig fishing never caught on, but Bullock recognized that the Slick Jig would be a perfect substitute for an egg sinker on a Carolina rig, because it would provide the necessary weight, plus put another lure on the line.

Bullock said that quite often, he missed strikes on a Carolina rig and didn't know why, until figuring out one day that a fish he'd hooked in the belly had actually picked his egg sinker up, mistaking it for food. The bite felt the same, so Bullock set the hook. Only this time, the hookset was in the fish's underside, because that's where his lizard was when the fish picked up the weight.

By substituting a Slick Jig for a worm weight, Bullock reasoned that more fish might pick up the jig, and the ones that were already picking up the egg sinker would be more easily caught if there was a hook. He reported catching a number of fish the next year on the Slick jig.