Pier Fishing using artificials

I was fishing the public piers at Fort Myers, Cape Coral and Sanibel. One thing I notice was everyone was using real bait; shrimp, squid, crabs and fish.
Does anyone use artificials and if so, which ones are productive?
Does anyone use artificials and if so, which ones are productive?
Replies
Do yourself a favor and buy a couple of packs of 1/2 oz DOA shrimp, near-clear. Toss 'em near the rocks at the beginning of the pier or around pilings. If the snook are there, and I am sure they are, you'll catch 'em non-stop.
I can confirm, this isn't always true.
Edit: to contribute, grab some tube jigs or gotchas. You can sweeten the tube jigs with live shrimp if they're selling them on the pier.
Aren't Crappie jigs a bit small for what's out there?
The Crappie jigs I've used are usually about 1-1.5" long and 1/16-1/8 oz in weight.
Lol! Yes I stand corrected...meant to say crappie jigs. Very effective from what I understand, although I initially thought the hooks on those jigs would be a bit flimsy for saltwater duty.
A friend of mine will rig 3 of them using dropper loops (think chicken rigs for bottom fishing snapper/grunt ) then he ties on a snap swivel to a pyramid sinker...as someone posted before.
It's almost like a sabiki, he casts it far out thanks to the weight of the sinker and then slowly reels it in while "popping" or jigging the rod. Essentially he has 3 white crappie jigs bobbing up and down in the water column which mimics a school of tiny baitfish. Be sure you have a decent combo for this, as when the macs are thick he has had triple hookups which lead to some shenanigans, line twists, jig loss etc. I believe he uses 30lb mono for the rig to protect from teeth and anything else that may decide to eat your crappie jigs. Bluefish are quite fond of them.
This x2 I also like the white body/chart tail and Silver body/white+red tail gotchas.
A good 'ole fashioned crocodile spoon is very effective on the pier, get a nice big 'ole heavy one. Stand on the T and wing that thing as far as your rod will take it, macs, blues, jacks, triggers, ...even a snook will hit a well placed spoon.
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