Perhaps it was an oversight, perhaps it was providence, but a package that renowned saltwater angler George Poveromo received from Rapala contained a few Clackin’ Raps. Yep. Bass baits. “I thought the same thing – it’s a freshwater lure,” says Poveromo, host of George Poveromo’s World of Saltwater Fishing on the NBC Sports Network. “But, ‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘I’ll throw it in my tacklebox.’”
He’s glad he did. On a filming trip in the Louisiana Gulf Coast in August, he caught a 42-pound bull redfish on one of those Clackin’ Raps.
Inspiration hit after he and his host angler, Mike Frenette, had already boated several 20- to 25-pound reds, calling them in with popping corks rigged above soft-plastic grubs on jigs. A go-to tactic in the Gulf, popping corks make noise that helps fish find baits in water that Poveromo says looks like Yoo Hoo chocolate drink.
“When I saw those redfish and how they were biting, I said, ‘That Rapala’s gotta be just killer. I’m throwing it out there,’” he explains.
A flat-sided, lipless crankbait, a Clackin’ Rap differs from similar looking baits in that it contains a sound chamber that contains a large, single bearing, rather than multiple smaller bearings. The result is a unique sound and cadence. “I was thinking that the vibration the Clackin’ Rap makes would help the fish find it in the dirty water, because they rely so much on sound in that water,” Poveromo explains.
Good call.
After only a few casts, Poveromo hooked into a 30-plus pounder, which came off boatside with a big headshake.
“Not to be dejected, I threw it back out there again and started working it,” he recalls. “Four or five casts later, boom, I’m hooked up again.”
This one wouldn’t get away. At first, Poveromo thought it was smaller than the first fish. But once it got near the boat “and knew it was hooked,” he says, it began one of several long runs towards shore.
“I didn’t think it was going to stop until it got on the sand,” he says, laughing. But then it turned and ran back into open water and made several more runs. He knew it was a big bull red, but had no idea how big until he finally got it near the bow and it began thrashing violently, coming partially out of the water.
“When I saw the size of the fish, when it thrashed, I think my eyeballs were the size of basketballs!” Poveromo says. “It was a huge, old redfish.” So big it wasn’t even red anymore. Rather, it was more of a shiny, copper color, “like a new penny,” Poveromo says.
“At that point, I started freaking out a little bit, because I’ve got this big thing on this light outfit, and then it took off and ran again.”
That’s the other thing. He was throwing the No. 8 Clackin’ Rap on spinning gear rated for 8- to 10-pound-test line – “basically sea trout gear” spooled with 20-pound-test Sufix 832 braid and a 30-pound-test Sufix Invisiline Fluorocarbon leader.
View Sufix 832 Braid View Sufix Invisiline Fluorocarbon Leader
Boating the fish was a challenge too. Frenette had a net, but it looked way too small to Poveromo.
“I said ‘How are you going to get this fish in that net?’” Poveromo recalls. But Frenette deftly maneuvered the fish’s head into the net and the fish swam down into it. “We got him into the boat and I was on cloud nine,” Poveromo says. It measured 48 inches – about 42 pounds.
“It was the biggest redfish of the trip,” Poveromo gushes. “To catch a redfish that huge, and to do it on an artificial lure, that’s just an unbelievable feat, at least for me. That was something else!”
Although Poveromo had never before targeted a saltwater species with a Clackin’ Rap, he plans to keep doing it.
“Having caught the redfish on basically a bass lure, now I’m seeing all these applications where that would do super well in saltwater,” he says.
He thinks snook and tarpon will eat it also. In mid September, he was planning an offshore trip to target blackfin tuna with it.
“I think the blackfin tuna will slam this lure,” he says. “So I’m going to try.”
He’ll make long casts with the Clackin’ Rap and then let it fall about 200 feet before working it back to the boat with a twitch, reel, pause, repeat cadence. “If they’re there, I’ll for sure catch them,” he says.
How he did it…
Launching out of Venice, LA, Poveromo and Redfish Lodge of Louisiana’s Frenette ran to a shallow bar about 20 minutes out into the inshore portion of the Gulf.
With the boat in about two to four feet of “very brownish with no clarity whatsoever,” they located fish by spotting fish-oil slicks on the water surface.
“When the reds would crush baitfish to eat them, the oils from the baitfish would ooze out and float to the surface, creating and oily sheen,” Poveromo explains. “So you would know where these fish were at.”
Because redfish feed on the bottom, Poveromo would allow his Clackin’ Rap to sink after the cast. He’d then engage the reel and slowly swim it a little bit, and then drop it.
“You don’t do a fast retrieve, because those reds are really lethargic,” he says. “I would give it a little bit of twitch from the rod tip. As the rod was falling back, I’d continue to wind until I felt it was like maybe a foot or two above the bottom, then I would pause and then do it again.” At all times, he kept the bait about a foot from the bottom, which was mostly mud and presented little danger of snags.
When Poveromo felt the Clackin’ Rap begin to vibrate on the pull, he’d twitch his rod tip “to give it a little panic-type of an action, make it look like an injured baitfish,” then drop it back to the bottom.
“A big thing is the subtleties of working baits,” Poveromo says. “The subtleties are what really make a difference in catching a lot of fish.”
When the big, bull red hit the noisy Rapala, “it was an exceptional bite,” Poveromo recalls, fondly. “There’s nothing I could do but let the fish run and tire just gain what I could. There was no way to muscle that fish.”
“Once I saw the fish, that’s when the fight slowed down to like years!” he says. “Once you see how big it is, you don’t want to lose it. You’re thinking, ‘This is an incredible trophy,’ and all of a sudden your nerves start working on you. I had to tell myself, ‘However long it takes, it takes, don’t lose this fish!’”
Watch Poveromo land the 42-pound bull red in the 14th season of “George Poveromo’s World of Saltwater Fishing” on the NBC Sports Network. Click this link to learn more about the show.
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