A “popper-knocker rig” with an Eagle Claw Finesse jighead suitable to couple with a smaller Gulp! Shrimp or a Gulp! Crabby. Other options include finesse worms rigged wacky style, larger shrimp, and various other finesse softbaits like the Berkley MaxScent Flatworm, with some options requiring jigheads with longer hook shanks.
June 18, 2025
By In-Fisherman Staff
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When I fish for smallmouths scattered over shallow rock reefs, especially large reef complexes, I often have with me on the boat deck an 8-foot rod rigged with what I have long called “popper-knocker rigging.”
I first started tinkering with this rigging in freshwater after using it in various forms for redfish, speckled trout, black drum, and jack crevalle in coastal saltwater environments from South Carolina to Florida to Louisiana and South Texas in the early 1990s. It’s still a killer rigging for inshore applications. But it isn’t any more popular in freshwater now than it was back then, so the likelihood that this column is going to change that is slim, indeed.
But what the hay? Perhaps a handful of you will be intrigued enough to try it. There are a few situations where it really shines, at times. But when you’re the only one among millions occasionally tinkering it’s hard to be emphatic about promising many specific outcomes for a variety of fish species.
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Before a host of commercial versions could be easily purchased, anglers made their own rigs. You have a popping cork sliding on a 10- to 12-inch section of 20-pound leader . Above the cork is a pair of plastic beads . A swivel completes the rig on the top end.
Below the cork is another pair of beads with the addition of an egg sinker sliding either between the beads or below the beads, another swivel securing that tag end. Below this rigging is a fixed leader 18 to 36 inches long with a hook or a jighead . Fixed leader sections longer than that are difficult to cast, thus requiring a rod of at least 7 feet (better 8 feet), with a bigger reel loaded with 10- or 12-pound mono (in the early days) or lighter braid (15 pound) after it was introduced, allowing longer casts.
Once the rig and bait settle at long distance after the cast the rod tip is whiplashed up from 9 o’clock to 12 o’clock, causing the popping cork to whack-whoosh and spit water, along with a distinct “ca-chinking” of the beads. You get a whack-whoosh-settle cadence going, typically only allowing the bait or jig a moment to set still. Then again at times just kill the rig and let it ride. As the rigging gets nearer the boat or bank, drop the rod tip and hold it to the side to do the rod-tip whacking.
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These days an online search for “popper rigs for redfish” brings up a host of designs. For smallmouths I use a rig with a slim float running on a section of wire about 10 inches long with two brass beads below and two plastic beads above. The heavier brass beads settle the float. The float also has a brass a ring top and bottom to intensify the click-clack as the beads make contact.
A second float rig on deck is all about stealth by comparison to the knocker rigging. A standard marabou hairjig hangs below an Adjust-A-Bubble. Tipping a light jighead below the float might be a 4- or 5-inch finesse worm rigged wacky style. Better still over the years has been 3-inch Gulp! Shrimp . And last year the hottest thing I put down was a 2.5-inch Gulp! Alive! Crabby, which has been discontinued, although you still might be able to find some online. Smallmouth candy. The Crabby coupled perfectly with a 1/10-ounce Tungsten Ned-style head . Eagle Claw calls theirs a Finesse Head .
If the popper-knocker is going to produce, you almost always have to be aggressive with it. Get a rhythm going—rip-settle, rip-settle, rip-settle, settle, settle, settle; rip-settle, rip-settle, rip-settle, settle, settle. Almost everyone I’ve fished with is at first way too timid about ripping the cork, so it makes a ruckus. Smallmouths can be exceedingly curious at times. They swim over to check the commotion, see the darting, dancing shrimp or crabby and can’t resist a sample.
The popper rigging usually isn’t the only float setup I have on the deck, though. No surprise, sometimes smallmouths aren’t all in on the aggressiveness of the popper rigging. So I also usually have a rod rigged with an Adjust-A-Bubble casting float, usually with a light hair jig down the fixed leader hanging below. The Bubble allows leader-length adjustment by turning the knob of the top of the float. The Bubble also works well in conjunction with a wacky finesse worm.
If there’s distinct wind, just cast upwind of the area you want to cover and let the float dead drift. Or let it dead drift 20 feet then retrieve it 20 feet before letting it dead drift again to cover new water. Field Editor Matt Straw has written extensively about “bobbering” smallmouths, so I won’t go into this more here.
Popper-knocker rigging has also been good on river smallmouths at times in moderately clear water, working along cutbanks, along current edges, past cover or boulders, and over rocky/sandy flats. (On the Upper Mississippi River a 3-inch Gulp! Hellgrammite can also be dynamite.) The rigging is also a killer for white bass in weed pockets or along timber edges and rocky breaks, with a light-colored hair jig hanging below. When they’re schooled and feeding, white bass create a commotion, so the popper-knocking calls them right it. Admittedly, though, marauding white bass often bite whatever you throw in there.
Sometimes a little bit of crazy catches fish. (You might just fit right in.)
