Anyone use this rig?

[David Taylor]

While I was in Gansbaai this weekend I tried out a rig which I have wanted to try for a while. I was fishing Stanfords Cove with a basic sliding sinker rig. I had a barrel sinker sliding on the main line then swivel then a 40cm piece of mono thenabout a #2 hook onto which I teid a nice prawn bait. I kept on getting bites but I either missed them or they were too small. This got me thinking: I had a nice big prawn bait on which is easy for the fish to find. If I changed to a tiny hook the bait size would be very small and the fish would probably not find it, a situation I have been in Before. In my bag I found I had some #8 mustad ultrapoint circles. It says #8 but it is more like #12 or #14. I then attached another shorter and lighter hook line to the swivel and put this hook on. What this meant is that there was a big bait attracting the fish to the area and a smaller tiny peice of the same bait drifting around it. This little piece would be more attractive to the small fish as it was something they could fit into their mouths rather than something they had to tear bits off. I was using an 8ft exage which I usually use for yellowtail with a 3oz barrel sinker. The line diameter was about 0.3mm and 8kg. Due to the weight of the setup and the sharpness of mustad ultrapoint circles I had no need to move the bait until one had hooked itself. This worked like an absolute charm. I have never had such a good hookup rate when fishing for small fish. On this tiny circle I caught out of one cove/massive deep gulley: maasbanker,puffadder shark, panga (which surprised me somewhat as I have only caught them from a boat) steentjie (a new species for me). It is something I will definitely use in the future. It also entirely eliminated the swallowed hook problem Of all the fish I caught every single one was hooked in the corner of the mouth. I also tried this when fishing haaiklip in franskraal with a heavy surf setup for cob. I was getting alsmost immediate bites but all small and we had no idea what the were. I just added a tiny hook to the trace and immedietely pulled out a 30cm+ twotone fingerfin which is a new species for me.


The only drawback is that it tangled constantly. I think I have a solution to this problem which I still have to try: attach the tiny hook to a dropper (like fishing more than one fly). This will mean that there will be only one hook line attached to the swivel and the smaller hook can be on a much shorter line to be near the main bait. This will also stop it drifting far from the main bait.


I am interested to hear if anyone else uses a similar setup and if they have had as much success with it as I did.

[Lenny]

I sorta know what you mean by your rig . could work , but having another hook also doubles you chance of getting more tangles . Maybe use a bit thicker trace line , or a line thats no so limp .


Reefman did a nice Thread on a Tangle free trace , have a look at it .


Those Ultra points are nice , but becarefull , they open/close up easily .

[WalkersKiller]

Very interesting David, will give this a go, normally when fishing for small fish I use a size 18 hook, but make the bait quite large (basically a bait that would be fit for a size 10 hook) and with the tip of the hook exposed I have had superb success this way. It doesnt look pretty, but for some reason it works, on almost every hit I get a hook up.