Fish voodoo: the Zombie rig

I know it’s almost August and the king mackerel tournaments began in May, but suddenly it seems as if fishermen have decided to get serious quickly.

Is it just desire for better results or necessitated by the increased expense of competing in our slow economy with such high fuel prices? I don’t know.

For whatever reason, it appears fishermen are deadly serious about getting the most out of their time on the water, especially during tournaments.

The desire to win has them looking for new ways to entice kings to bite and re-examining old tactics. One of the former ways that comes and goes in popularity is trolling ribbonfish using a “zombie” rig.

I don’t know who came up with the rig’s name, but it fits — look up “zombie” in Webster’s Dictionary and the definition is a re-animated corpse. I didn’t think of it as reanimation, but that’s what it does.

Like other fishermen, I was looking for a way to put a little more movement into a dead ribbonfish being slow-trolled at 1 to 2 knots. The problem with trolling at this speed is the bait is moving so slowly the quarry has time to really check it over before striking.

By putting extra movement into the bait, it appears more natural and easily passes a “fisheye” inspection. The end result with re-animating ribbonfish is getting more strikes and catching more fish. But anyone can make it happen without scheduling a midnight meeting with the neighborhood witch doctor.

While the name and exact configuration varies a little from region to region, most knowledgeable king mackerel fishermen conjure up a similar mental image when someone mentions a zombie rig. In its simplest form, the zombie rig is a tandem rig that uses a live bait, rigged forward of a dead ribbonfish but on the same leader, to put some movement in the ribbonfish.

The zombie rig focuses on several characteristics of predator fish to create success.

Most fisheries biologists agree predator fish prefer catching and eating fresh meat. They’ll fall for dead natural baits and a variety of lures, but they definitely prefer fresh, natural forage.

King mackerel fishermen, especially tournament anglers, obviously concur, as they often travel many miles and sometimes spend hours looking for live baits rather than using lures or dead natural baits.

Another trait exploited by the zombie rig is the predisposition of king mackerel (and almost all other predators) to pick off weaker individuals as prey. The zombie rig employs a live bait forward of the dead bait to generate some movement in the dead bait and make it appear alive. Since the live bait appears to drag the dead bait, the rig appears to be struggling, and therefore easy prey.

The zombie rig also exploits the alarmed and frantic movements and accompanying pulsations a smaller fish makes when being pursued by a predator. Ribbonfish, especially larger ones, are at roughly the same level in the food chain as king mackerel. They feed on just about any fish smaller than themselves. Many anglers catch big ribbonfish while trolling for kings.

When a baitfish sees a larger predator zooming at it, it must react quickly to avoid becoming dinner. Imagine if the predator, in this case the dead ribbonfish (but the baitfish doesn’t know it’s dead) is tethered to the baitfish and can’t get away. The baitfish continues to try to escape and struggles until it’s exhausted. That commotion produces a vibration in the water that alerts nearby predators and creates movement in the ribbonfish, making it appear to be chasing the baitfish.

Most predator fish, including kings, are opportunistic feeders and will home in on the commotion to see if it’s a feeding opportunity. If the rig looks good and the baitfish is really struggling, many times a predator is seduced into striking.

While I don’t understand the hierarchy of fish, it’s amazing the larger predator almost always strikes the smaller predator that appears to be chasing the baitfish and is absorbed in catching it. It must be some sort of genetic link dealing with the food chain, but only a couple of times have I had a king strike the baitfish rather than the ribbonfish.

This brings to light a third characteristic of king mackerel and many other pelagic predators — they’re competitive. In several heavily-feeding groups of kings, I’ve seen larger fish turn on and eat smaller kings. Occasionally the bite-off, that doesn’t quite look exactly like the bite of a shark or barracuda, is another king.

Many king mackerel fishermen tell stories of hooking a large king while reeling in a smaller king or Spanish mackerel. Some king mackerel fishermen will confess to occasionally using smaller kings for bait; others divulge using Spanish mackerel.

Like smaller kings and Spanish, ribbonfish are a competitor in the king mackerel’s food chain, and often produce strikes from kings only seeking to remove a rival from a limited food supply. The zombie rig tempts kings, especially larger ones, by staging a situation where they can take out a competitor, plus get an easy meal.

If you don’t think king mackerel react to ribbonfish as more than food, take the time to note where your ribbonfish are hit by them. Smaller ribbons may be eaten whole, mid-size ribbons are typically hit near the middle moving forward and large ribbons are almost always hit just behind the gills. For larger ribbonfish, the first intent of the strike is to kill the ribbonfish; eating is secondary.

A mature ribbonfish has a set of choppers that would turn a barracuda green with envy and they aren’t the least bit shy about sinking them into just about anything. Surely it happens at other locations, but off southern N.C., king mackerel fishermen occasionally have their live baits, especially pogies, eaten by larger ribbonfish.

So they’re definitely competitors for a king’s food. Eat it, kill it, or kill it and eat it, ribbons definitely draw strong reactions from feeding kings.

After the basic premise of rigging a live bait ahead of a dead bait on the same rig, almost anything else on a zombie rig can be modified to personal tastes. It’s basically a tandem rig that utilizes the swimming motion of the live bait to produce some movement for the dead ribbonfish.

The desired result is to make the ribbonfish too attractive for the king to ignore. Most of the time a king attracted by a zombie rigged ribbonfish eats that ribbonfish, but sometimes once they get closer to the spread of baits, they see something else they prefer and attack it so the zombie rig is actually an attractor (teaser) and a rig for catching fish.

Making a zombie rig can be as difficult or as easy as one wants it to be. Mine have been successful and it’s straightforward and simple.

I prefer using the largest ribbonfish I can find for my zombie rigs and it shows in the dimensions. My zombie rigs have Size 5 (44-pound) and Size 6 (58-pound) coffee-colored single-strand wire leaders; five Size 4 Eagle Claw treble hooks (four L777s in silver color) and one (L774 in bronze); a 1-ounce butterbean bucktail in chartreuse, yellow or white; two Billfisher 70- or 100-pound stainless-steel swivels; and a bunch of haywire/barrel twist connections.

Beginning at the end that attaches to the line from the reel, the rig begins by twisting a swivel onto one end of a 4-foot length of Size 5 leader. The L774 treble and one of the swivels is twisted onto the other end in a common loop. A 2-foot length of Size 5 leader is twisted onto the other eye of the second swivel and the butterbean bucktail is attached at the other end. This is the front section of the rig and is what holds both baits.

Switching to the Size 6 leader, it’s attached to the eye of the bucktail and the first section extends back 8 inches to one of the L777 treble hooks. The remaining three L777 treble hooks are added on 5 1/2- to 6-inch sections of the Size 6 leader to complete the rig.

There are four L777 treble hooks trailing the butterbean bucktail and the last is 24 to 26 inches behind the eye of the bucktail. Obviously this is a rig for larger ribbonfish.

If using smaller ribbonfish, only use three L777 treble hooks to make the rig shorter.

Some folks also like to spray paint the Size 6 leader silver. I sometimes do this, especially with regular ribbonfish rigs but haven’t found it makes a difference with zombie rigs.

May dead ribbonfish rise up, swim and help you capture tournament-winning king mackerel.