Captain Cody Baker, a Stuart-based fishing guide, prepares to drop cut baits for snapper on a two-hook chicken rig. When traveling (left) link hooks bend-to-bend for convenience.
April 09, 2025
By Jeff Weakley
Jeff Weakley is the Editor of Florida Sportsman magazine. The chicken rig is a classic Florida bottom fishing rig that can be configured for whatever size leader, hooks, or target fish you’re after.
It’s perfect for triggerfish, covered in this month’s feature, and also excellent for snapper, sheepshead, grunts, seabass and just about any other schooling panfish that lives on or near bottom.
Not really ideal for groupers and amberjacks, but in heavier tests and with hardware (three-way swivels instead of knots), it can be modified for the heavies.
Basically, the chicken rig is a terminal leader with a sinker at the bottom and one or more hooks positioned above it in series—generally two. Central to its construction is the dropper loop knot, a handy little knot every fisherman should learn.
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The dropper loop gives you a stiff mini-loop standing off at a right angle to the side of the leader. Each mini loop is inserted into the eye of a hook, from bottom to top, and then pulled over the bend of the hook and pulled tight.
Nowadays there are lots of animations online showing the dropper loop knot, but the accompanying photo series here should be adequate for most readers. A few hints :
The loop you make to begin with (Step 1 in attached photos) should be at about three or four times the length of the intended finished loop. I usually begin by stretching about 18 inches of line in front of me—as I bring it together to form the loop, it’ll condense to about 6-inch radius, and the finished droppers will be about 3 to 4 inches. The knot itself is really easy—you’re just twisting, or rolling, the two strands at the top of the loop while keeping a small central window open with your thumbs and forefingers. See Steps 2 and 3 in the accompanying photographs. After about five twists, push the line through the little window between the twists (Step 4). At this point (Step 5) you pretty much have to grab it with your mouth—though you won’t be applying any pressure with your teeth. Moisten the twists with saliva and pull the thing tight, as shown in Steps 7 and 8. Add a swivel to the top of the leader using whatever line-to-hook knot you like—uni is my preferred. At the bottom of the leader, make any old loop knot (surgeon’s, overhand, etc.) and hitch it through the eye of a bank sinker or pyramid sinker.
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Proportions are up to you—there is no hard-fast rule. My own preference is to make the whole chicken rig, from the swivel to the sinker, no more than 4 feet in length. I normally use two hooks on two 4-inch droppers spaced about 18 inches apart, with another foot at the top and a foot at the bottom. For storage on the rod when traveling, connect the two hooks bend-to-bend (as shown), slip the sinker loop over the reel handle, and tighten the line. This keeps those dropper hooks from flailing about. You’ll see why short is good on the whole shebang: You want the swivel outside the rodtip when you stow it.
And keep the hooks few. I’ve seen guys make chicken rigs with 5 or more hooks and I think it’s terrible for reef fish conservation—you get into a school of undersize snapper or seabass and suddenly you’ve got a bunch of potential floaters.
What kind of leader? Thirty- or 40-pound-test fluorocarbon is a pretty good start. Yes, each hook will effectively be sitting on a doubled strand, but the fluoro cuts back on the visibility. If you’re really obsessed with low-vis, you can snip one end of the loop and tie the dropper to the hook—but this sacrifices the stiffness and creates more chances for the droppers to spin up.
Oh, and you can now buy pre-tied droppers on leader wheels. We covered the Rig Mate product recently in a new gear column. But learn to make your own!
This article was featured in the March 2025 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subs cribe
