The Test of Greatness...

The test of a great product/rig is not the price, the look, or the quality that others perceive of said product, but whether or not it catches fish! If you catch fish with a product/rig, it means that it works and that makes it a good product/rig. Now, this isn’t to say you can’t tweak it to make it work better.

still catches fish!

Let me give you an example. In this picture you see an example of my original striper fishing rig. That’s the weight tied to my main line which is then tied to a snelled hook creating a good 7-10 inches of space between the weight and the hook. This space would usually be a leader and I guess in a sense it is a leader but this specific method created a few problems.

1. Wasted line. Since the leader was made out of my same line, that meant that my supply of line was constantly being depleted every time I removed my rig or lost it to a snag.  
2.   Lack of sensitivity. The rig wasn’t as sensitive to bites because when the fish would bite, the strike would also drag the weight with it.

So the solution to these problems is a rig that looks similar but is different in construction. I discovered the sinker-slider rig which looks like this:

The idea is that the sinker slider allows for more sensitivity to bites because the sinker is stationary and the line is the only thing moving. This also eliminates wasted line because your leader is made of a separate piece of line and if you cut it off/lose it, you don’t lose a foot of your line at a time. 

The second example would be Cotton Cordell Fishing Lures which I mentioned before should sponsor me! haha Here is a crankbait that costs a fraction of the popular lure price and yet has caught me more Largemouths  than the more expensive brands have. I hear people talking about Rapala and Strike King being great lures and nobody talks about the reigning champion of fish catching for me: Cotton Cordell crankbaits!

I’m not saying is that you can’t change your tactics/rigs/lure choice. On the contrary, you should experiment, but if you have a good thing, there’s no need to abandon it completely.

Seasoned fisherman: do you have any rigs, lures or tactics that or less popular, cheaper or just plain different that get the job done for you? Let us know. Until next time, break the bank, folks!!