Umbrella Rigs?

Being new here I will be a bit of a pain for a little while with questions.

Spent the bulk of my fishing career in saltwater 90% of that offshore. Been doing it since the late 70's. Done about all of it too...dragging plastic for marlin down to trout in the surf!

My dad is 80yo and we had not done much fishing together in a long time. But late in June I bought another boat that has worked great in Lake Somerville. So it has really ignited his enthusiasm again for fishing.

The Hybrids seem to be pretty elusive. We caught some up to 26" but not consistently though. I not looking for secret spots, I need to know where to look and how to do it.

Which has lead me to these umbrella rigs. I've pulled them a few times out deep for tuna...I have two coming for this weekend. I have one spot that last Saturday we got into Hybrids late morning, then came back hours later and caught them again.

I was planning to troll these things...FYI for you north Texas guys...Somerville is only 25 feet deep. The area I found is 12 feet and comes up to 8 feet.

I use Ron’s nekidtackle.com Texoma transformers usually. I also use captain macks rigs at times. Texoma transformer has silver willow leaf blades to attract fish better at times than other rigs. Both hold up well except the 2 oz captain macks. Big striper will break the arms off sometimes at the center.

I reread your post and realized I didn’t answer your question. Lol Hybrid striper will bite any bait a sandbass or striper like. We caught one that weighed 12 lbs mixed in with striper on a topwater pencil popper in June at Texoma. They normally prefer big baits but will bite small at times because they are lazier than striper or sandbass. For some reason they will hit an umbrella rig moving around 2.5 to 3.5 mph at times also.
I don’t know anything about Lake Somerville except it’s down south of us. There are a couple guys on here who fish it some. You can do a search for posts related to Somerville or hybrids by clicking the search button in the heading towards the top of the page here. Good luck!

I'm not sure about umbrella rigs but you may consider trolling crank baits. Timmychanga constantly does very well at Fort Phantom Hill trolling crankbaits and letting them bang the bottom of the lake and catches lots of nice hybrids and white bass doing it.

Thanks for the replies "J"....

I have two rigs that will be here in time for the weekend. I plan to "try" one behind a jet diver and let my dad cast the other.


Somerville is a very shallow lake compared to what I see most lake are. So Hybrids most likely have a different behavior, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask.

I'm going to spend some time in deeper water...25' where I know there are some humps. There are no deep rides in this lake.

I will let you guys know how it turns out. I have three spots that I have caught Hybrids mixed with WB, one spot had a scholl of solid Hybrids.

I wanted to post a picture but don't see where to do it on my phone. I have a pic of my wife with a 26" and 24" from last weekend.

Nice! The fish are nice too !
Depending on the size rigs and amount of weight and how much line is out you may not need the jet divers. Experimenting is key though.

I was going to use 1/8oz Norton Lazer jig heads with 3" cocahoo minnows (chartreuse, it is even my favorite color in saltwater). I was thinking to put a 1' flourocarbin leader on the center lure to help entice a strike.

If I can find some 1/16oz heads I will use that to keep the weight down. I have always used those heads because I like the fact you screw the plastic on the head. When fishing for Speckled Trout you plastics last twice as long. With WB they might survive several trips.

I was catching them last Sunday in 8ft if water. Casting them not trolling.

Thanks for the info. I'm looking forward to going this weekend and trying these things out.

Like I said I plan to troll one and cast the the other.

Took them out on Lake somerville today...rained most of the day so we were pinned in the marina most of the day. Got out for a few hours early afternoon but nothing touched an umbrella rig.

I ended up using a bell sinker on one arm to make it run upright (the little head) and it worked. I also didn't want a hog on the bottom leg snagging the bottom all the time.

It worked great, looked great in the water, but nothing touched it! It really looked great on top reeling it in!

We were out Friday evening on Belton trying out a boat that has sat around too long. We decided to try a little trolling with umbrella rigs to run the boat at low speed. We caught and released 29 whites and 3 undersized hybrids in an hour of fishing. The rigs had 1/8 oz jigs with grubs. One hook up had 3 whites and 1 hybrid. We stopped and cast the umbrella rigs at the school of fish. We had a lot of takers and had continuous action until late in the evening. Water depth was 14 feet which is a lot like the areas at Sommerville. The fish are keying on smaller shad and and the smaller jigs worked best. As always, it is not so much about lures as it is finding the fish. If you find some fish, the umbrella rig will only help you catch them quicker.

Maybe that guy that used to post his pile of four or five limits per day, six days a week, with just he and his partner caught all the fish and cooked them with the heads on!
I do know he used to thump on Somerville, as he would always mention it, and he would catch hundreds of fish per day on downriggers and also casting slabs at them.

This is what I was seeing where I ran the umbrella rig and I anchored on this spot to try thumping.

Thumping at that depth scares the fish away. A large flat area 10 ft deep or more where fish are cruising or feeding I will thump and cast in all directions with underspins little George’s slabs or rattle traps. In depths of 16 ft or more while thumping present slabs spoons jigs/flukes vertically. Thumping while trolling usually works when fish are deeper than 20 ft.
Those look to me like smaller fish or possibly bait. I would set in deeper water and cast small baits like a Mepps spinner in # 2 and # 4 to them. Search Dennis Christians Mepps technique in this section of Tff. IMHO

We have a long flat that runs parallel to the dam that is about that deep. We trolled it with our normal Hellbender rig and the umbrella rig. We marked several schools of fish when it was raining pretty hard. No bites.

I snagged a shad on a jigging spoon that was only 1" long at this spot. We caught some real small WB at this spot.

Apparently the fish on Lake Somerville have not read the book nor seen this Web site about "Umbrella Rigs". Out of 4 trips we have yet to get a single strike. I can troll it slow enough to get it down in 8 feet of water. We can feel it bumping the bottom.

We trolled it beside our normal Hellbender rig and catch fish on the HB. We remove the HB from the spread and catch nothing. Drop two HB rigs in the water and getting a double hook-up.

So I put the link to this thread on a piece of paper, dropped it in the lake. I hope while they are "schooled up" they go over it in class!

It's a beautiful lure and I'd eat it in second if I was a fish!

That’s too funny!!! Fishing can be tricky! The other day I downrigged over a school of whites/hybrids and they ignored my pet sooons which they usually love but as soon as I tied on a 2.5 inch shad rattle trap I couldn’t keep them off it! It plays to experiment!

Try alternating flukes swimbaits and curly tails on different jigs on each rig in different colors. Take notes on what gets hookups. Then put more of those on for multiplohookups.
Add weight to the line above the rig to get it deeper if needed. Sounds like the hb is digging in stirring up the mud mimicking crawfish or is running a little deeper than the rig in deeper water.

Thought I would throw this out there...too lazy to look and see if I already posted this;

But I put a bell sinker on one of the outer legs to keep the rig upright. And to hopefully keeP it keep it from snagging bottom.

It does keep it riding the way I wanted it to and so far it bumps the bottom without snagging.