I've been going nuts lying and sitting around here for the past week and needed to accomplish something. I decided to take a little walk... for exercise and to pick up some c*cktails. It was a good walk and tiring at the same time.
Now armed with a few c*cktails, I got to work trying to replenish my casting rigs and to maybe try something new for a particular situation. I had wanted to try a short steel leader rig when the structure was a little thick in order to possibly cut down on the hang ups and lost rigs. Steve had something similar in mind as he showed me a circle hook- short leader rig he tried and seemed to work. I however couldn't get myself to use circle hooks, so just adapted to something I liked.
Here is the short leader shark rig.
I cut a 6" and 22" section of 135# coated 7 strand wire and got everything out I would need including a 10/0 Octopus Hook.
I used the 6 inch leader to crimp up the short leader side to a free rolling 105# swivel. Of course I heat shrunk the ends for a clean and functional look.
To limit the amount of crimping that I would need, I decided to just crimp the 22" section to the top half of the rig letting the sinker end of the rig to be tied up with 80# mono.
After tying up the 80# sinker leader and a 1/0 snap swivel to the end for a quick change end for a sinker and extra pivotal parts to prevent twisting, I came out with the final product.
I tied up 5 of them as I am not sure if they are going to help or not, but I like the look and functionality of it. I do see me possibly losing some sinkers with the mono, but the shark should be saved and at least I in theory should get most of my rig back. If not, this was a fun experimental rig to use and really like visually.
I used some different type of 10/0 hooks also to test and see if one works better than the other.
Of course I had to tie up a dozen plus "Go-To" casting rigs to replenish some of the one's I've been burning through before my down time.
Pre-shrunk Shrink...
Post-Shrunk Shrink
At the very end, It felt good to get in the garage and tie some up as also to tie one on. My wife wasn't happy to come home to see me loaded, but whatever... it felt good to be normal again. I'm going to tie on some new line to my reel today and probably do as much as I can while sitting down/resting my back as I could.
I can't wait to get out and see if these rigs work or not.
