Recently, I put up a review for Salty's Pompano Rigs and explained how I liked them. There will be a few more rig reviews coming out soon, but today, I wanted to switch gears on you and talk about the floats you see on these rigs. Depending upon whom you speak with, a float is a debatable object that is or isn't required to be used to catch fish. It is just another tool in your toolbox for attracting fish, in my humble opinion, but there are so many varieties that it is hard to say which one is the best of the best.
On most Pompano Rigs you purchase or see being utilized, you will see a float, bead, or a combination of them on each drop. They are dual-purpose in that they give your bait a little buoyancy in the strike zone, and they are thought to be an attractant to fish. Again, depending on whom you speak with, they will tell you which one is the most successful or the ones to avoid if you ask about it. You will also hear that one color is for one species of fish while the other will drive them away. Anglers have found what works for them after their practical use, and while their advice is probably reliable, you should do your testing before you take it as gospel. Sorry, we got a little off track there.
While researching floats to use and which ones to buy, I came across someone on Facebook that mentioned SnJ Pompano Rigs. Just a heads up: Their site is down right now due to them getting new assignments and settling in. They will be back at it very soon so don't give up on them. I heard that they were local to Navarre, Florida, which gave me a little more of a jolt to support them, but when I found out they were an Active Duty Military family, I was already yelling at the computer to hurry up and take my money (being a retired Marine, I will always want to support the military, veteran, and first responder small businesses). What they were making though, was a brilliant twist on floats. They were laser etching them with striations to look like shells.
Pompano are known to eat coquina clams when they get churned up in the surf. If you haven't seen these little things, you usually pull them up when you're raking for sand fleas. They are a myriad of colors and are quite pretty to look at. Inside these little things are the delicious (I'm assuming here) morsels for the Pompano to munch on. Well, SnJ took that idea and made it into a float! So when your rig is sitting there in the strike zone, the Pompano have an extra thing to attract their attention! That's rather smart, don't you think?
I have several of the different types of floats they make in my collection. The clam is one of my favorite ones, but the other is the multi-color bullet-style float. The green & yellow, in particular, have been extremely successful floats on my rigs. I have about four rigs with at least one of these floats on a dropper along with something else (details in another formulating article to be released soon) attached to the other drop. I have found several times however, that my SnJ's have hit marks from fish strikes. With that, I have also reeled in fish with no bait on the mesh of my Fishbites artificial bait. This has led me to wonder if they were striking the float at an angle and got hooked up to be brought in (another field test that will be coming to your viewing eyes soon).
Their work has even attracted the eyes of several YouTube channels and has recently been picked up by HeySkipper fishing for sale in his online store. This is a testament to how great their product is, and I am very excited to see where that particular venture takes them. They do also make entirely tied Pompano Rigs for sale and ready for purchase. A recent build they did incorporates a lovely pearl-like bead between the hook and float. The color, I believe, gives off a nice shine that is very eye-catching in even cloudy conditions to assist in attracting fish.
I'm delighted with their floats and will continue to use them each time I go out. The color combination and designs, I do believe, make for a great addition to your bait in the strike zone to attract fish. I haven't had one fall apart on me yet, and one rig, remarkably, lasted a lot longer than it should have (I've changed the hooks on this rig but not the floats). I have caught Pompano, Kingfish, Croaker, and Black Drum while using SnJ floats in both the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. I believe that they will work in just about every zone for surf fishing but won't have a concrete answer until I finally can fish more zones.
Have you purchased or used the SnJ Pompano Rigs or floats? Please drop a comment and let me know your thoughts on them as well. I appreciate you stopping by and checking out this week's product review. If you have any products that you would like me to review, drop me an email at ourneverendingsummers@gmail.com, and I will see about trying to get my hands on it. Until next time, go forth and do good things!
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