There are many ways to make couda traces and I thought I should share with you guys the way I do it. Many guys use Use two wires leading of the bait carier and it works very well as we can see in many photos that have been posted.
On my trace I only use one and the bottom hook is connected to the treble and not the bait carrier. This way there is less wire to be seen by the fish I am targeting. You guys might say that there is more chance of being bitten of. But to tell you the truth this has not happened yet and on the days when the fish where not bighting my traces produced. Maybe I was lucky to get the bight or maybe it was my trace we will never know.
Firstly you will need:
- 1 x Longnose pliers
- 1 x Wire bending pliers
- 1 x Baitswimmer
- 1 x Duster
- 2 x Small swivels ( # 8 Centro 80lb )
- 2 x Trebles ( # 4 VMC 6x ) or you can use # 4 Gamakatsu 4 x
- 1 x #5 wire about 200mm Depending on how long you want your leading wire.
- 2 x 6 wire for your hooks.
You can change the wire thicknes for you trace as you like or depending on what size fish are being targeted. Either #6 and #7 if you know the bigger fish are around or even go down to #3 and #4 in the beginning of the season when the smaller fish are around.
Start of by using your small bending pliers and make small loops in each end of the short wires that are used to attach your hooks. Theen take your leading wire and do the same to only one side of the wire. Do not put a loop in te other end. The smaller the pliers and finer the tips are the smaller you will get your loops wich in turn will make your trace look neater.
Now take one of the shorter wires and attach a treble to one side and a swivel to the other side. Then take the other short wire and only attach a treble to one side leaving the other end clear .( This will be your trailing hook at the back) Then on the long piece attach a swivel to the end with the loop.
Your attachments to you hooks and swivels should look like the photo above.
Your work should be at this stage with one bite trace having a treble and a swivel (bottom) The other bite trace ( centre) should have a treble on the one side and only the loop on the other side. This end you will attach to the other treble a bit later. Now on you leading wire you have a swivel on the one end and nothing on the other end.
Slide your desired decoration on ( duster ) and then only make your loop on the end. If you had done this before you put the duster on you either have to straighten the loop or cut a new piece of wire or you will end up using it without the duster.
Next step is you take your leading wire with your duster on and clip your bait swimmer on. Secondly clip the short wire that has the swivel connected to the one on. ( see photo above) Now you can finnish this of by doing a nother haywire twist.
Lastly attach the last treble as can be seen in the photo above. Now your trace is ready to do its work. ( photo below.)
Hope this is going to come in handy for some of you.
