Salt Strong has built a content brand on tiny rig tweaks that solve specific problems, and this week's clip is one of the cleaner ones. The hack: take a hard-bodied topwater, strip the rear treble off it, and tie a short section of leader to the rear hook eye with a Pole County tweaker trailer riding behind. You end up with a topwater that walks the dog and a small soft-plastic that hangs in the strike zone the way a popping cork trailer normally would.
The rationale is straightforward. "A little topwater trick is to use your topwater lure basically like a popping cork," the Salt Strong angler explains on camera. "You can remove that rear hook so you can tie on a section of leader and then have a trailer such as a paddle tail or a stick bait or in this case a Pole County tweaker on a light hook — three out, one-sixteenth ounce Hoss Helix hook — and you leave the front hook on the topwater."
That decision — leaving the front treble on — is the difference between this rig and a true popping cork. A cork only signals; it can't connect. Salt Strong's hybrid signals and converts.
"Often times a fish will completely disregard the trailer and go after the topwater or they'll disregard the topwater and go after the trailer," he says. "That's a big benefit over using a popping cork. Popping cork, often times a fish will hit the cork, but you can't hook them because there's no hooks on the popping cork."
The lure in front is a Moonwalker, attached with a non-slip loop knot to about a foot of leader running off the main braid. A Trilene knot pins the second leader section to the rear eye of the Moonwalker, with another loop knot at the trailer end to free the tweaker up. Salt Strong is explicit about not running braid straight into a topwater because of constant tangle issues over the lure body.
On-camera, the rig posts twice. The first red eats the topwater itself — "biggest fish of the day on topwater" — and a second, slightly bigger fish nails the trailer rather than the front lure. "That fish hit the tweaker trailing behind the topwater. That's awesome," the angler says as the second redfish thumps the rig. The retrieve isn't the gentle walk-the-dog default that a lot of anglers default to. The trailer needs to swing properly to look alive.
"For the retrieve on this rig, I was doing a handful of very aggressive pops to get the lure trailing behind it to come up enough and then settle on a slight pause," Salt Strong says. "Much more aggressive retrieve than using a topwater by itself."
The rig is presented as a member discount play in the back half of the clip — Moonwalker, Pole County tweakers and Hoss Helix hooks all sold through the fishstrong.com store, with the company's standard pitch about being the largest saltwater fishing club in America. The fishing case, though, is straightforward enough that it doesn't need the merchandise tail to stand up. Two lures in the strike zone, two presentations on one cast, and the door open for reds to hit either one.
For inshore anglers fishing fall-style mornings, post-spawn flats and shallow bay edges into June, the rig is worth a session. It's also a useful answer to one of the more common topwater complaints — short strikes — by adding a stinger-style trailer that gives the fish something extra to commit to.