Long Line Clip - tool

Dave Diefenderfer

Dave Diefenderfer

Well-known member
Supporter
I was visiting with Rufus Brinn, discussing long lines and the hand cramps that occur when working dozens of the clamps with cold hands.... and I envisioned a pair of pliers with jaws attached that slip onto the clips from the rear, and give some full hand mechanical advantage... something that would work with gloves on? Anyone see anythign like this available? A google search has not found it yet....

Any ideas?

Dave
 
I have not seen any tool that helps with the snap but I know the "Atlas" commercial fishing gloves are pliable and I have no problems with the snaps. The snaps I am using are .120 stainless steel steel wire dia. I do know the snaps with .135 dia. give your hands a work out.
 
If your talking about making loops of the line to go onto the clip and you do lots of them I design clipping tools that are used in bedding, furniture and other industries. We supply the trap companies, lobster, live traps etc. The tool with the right clip can be used for longlines. Tool runs around $575 thats why you would only use this if your doing lines as a business. I tried to upload our brouchure but the file is too big. but here is an image of the tool and the clips used. All different sizes of clips are available for different sizes of lines or cage wire sizes.
View attachment IMG_5351.JPG

You can go to our website and look under ProClinch tools look at the PC4.2 tool for more information. www.vertexfasteners.com.
Most all of the trap companies, Havaheart etc and the lobster guys all use our tools and clips. If anyone is interested they can call me and I can point you in the right direction as far as size and tool for the application. We do make a manual clip tool, you will find that on the website as a PC2 but you better have strong muscles :). My work number 847-768-6139 x2112
 
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I reread your post, I thought you were talking about making longlines and using the crimped connectors. Sorry about that. I dont know of any tool to open the clips themselves. Wish I did those things can be a real pain in the cold. And I didnt mean to spam our products so Eric you can delete my reply if you want
 
Two suggestions, Change clips, they shouldn't be causing your hands to cramp. What size are you using, if the 5" size, have you shopped for a lighter wire clip? Second, eliminate the clips, tie directly to the dropper/longline. Most of my lines are tied not clipped. Wood and cork decoys are tied and kept in pocket bags with the line stored in the pockets with the decoys. Ends of the line are tied to the bags handles to keep them from tangling. Plastic decoys are simply dropped into a collapsible trash can (Add grommet to bottom for drainage) as they come over the side and left on the line. They are feed out the same way. Works great for me. In the smaller boats I switch from the cans to collapsible self standing squarish decoy bags. Slightly less hassle free, but much easier to deal with in a small craft. Both storage systems hold a line of 15/16 decoys. Anchor lines are kept separate and are selected for water depth. Most important with the tie on system is a sinking longline. Without the weight of the clips the line has to sink on it's own. If additional wt is required, egg sinkers can be tied into the longline at the dropper knots.

View attachment GE Rig knots.jpg

View attachment cans in can 2.jpg

LLKnots.jpg


loopknot2.jpg


View attachment eggwhip.jpg

Scott
 
Jeesh, that GE on the left is so cold, he's got tears runnning down his cheeks!
 
All good suggestions guys.... I am currently using some 3" clips that I got from Bob Butler awhile back. I am still working out how I will hunt out of my sneakbox. I figure I can get up to 4 dozen decoys in/on my sneakbox. Most of my decoys now are wood, cork, or foam, and are carried in slotted bags. The slotted bags stay on the deck neatly, don't slide around and make it really easy to know what is missing. I have tied 2.5' to 3' droppers on the decoys, and have tied loops on the ends of all my H weights and added a rubberband to the H weight line. I can wrap up the line on the weight and the rubberband keeps it taught. The weights go into a plastic ammo box. The decoys with dropper and clip into the slotted bags. Generally when I hunted in Vermont, we could walk the decoys as we set them out. No Tide, decent bottom in most cases. Not the case in VA and NJ.

Deploying decoys alone out of a small boat, I am thinking some short long lines might work better for the majority of the birds and individual weights on a few to break up the tin soldier look. I am thinking 7 to 9 decoys per line, even for puddle ducks, with a few singles to round it out. I will be ordering some 5 inch clips from Atlantic and Gulf in the next couple days...

So 4 dozen or so decoys is not too much to do by hand, but we will try a real layout in January, and will have 100 or more decoys out then.

I'm an engineer and am always scheming a better widget... just though a simple pliers modified would do the job.... heck the necker is such a great simple tool too....

Dave
 
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Carl, You've been hanging down there in the South too long. It was a nice warmish sunny day. Ice just means there may be some ducks around after all!

Very best,
Scott
 
These clips are used in the long line bottom fish jobs that helped pay for my beer in college.

Week handed college boys like me used to tape a dime to the first joint of the index finger of our clip hand and if needed a nickle was taped to the end of our thumb on the clip hand. This gave us two hard spots to push against and not wear into the flesh of our hand. Of course we were running a thousand or more clips through our fingers during a set.

The issue with a modified set of pliers would be that the maximum hand width would need to match the width of the clips. It makes me think of a pair of channel locks, which I have expiremented with on the big clips while building ganions. The issue with an unmodified set of channel locks is that the clip will spin in the jaws just before you have enough pressure to open it. You will need to weld on a holder on the top jaw and then a holder on the bottom jaw to keep the clip from spinning. Or grind in a notch on both jaws to do the same and capture the clip to keep it from spinning as you apply pressure. The teeth already on the jaws are not deep enough based on the few times I have tried it in my youth.

The other issue with channel locks is the fact that they always slip open to the full width whenever I set them down. Some kind of Universal Law of Channel Locks.

So if the tied on the main line thing above does not work out, get a cheap pair of "slip joint" pliers and grind/file a set of custom notches in the jaws and see if that helps out.
 
I used to fish thousands of hooks a day longlining for Tilefish and Swordfish when I was younger. Sometimes you're wrists hurt at the end of the day. We called it just that. Now they call it carpel tunnel syndrome and they go home.
Just imagine doing 500 and maybe the 100 won't be as bad. Or keep one around to work out on? I've seen it done. Good luck.
 
Scott, thanks -- great reply and lots of questions answered with the knot pics. You don't give continuing education course credit for internet waterfowling training, do you? Thanks, Rufus
 
Scott ,


Always admired how well your setup works , it seems so easy to deal with and there is no hardware to deal with . Simple is better for sure , going to pickup some sullies for decoys this weekend , cannot wait to get going on some dekes !! Hunting here has been slow lately not sure why we have the cold and ice but it has been tough , i have the week between xmas and New years off and plan to get out there to see what kind of damage i can do . Let me know if you may be interested in joining me . Merry xmas to you and the family !!



Dave M
 
I know this doesn't answer you question but I do know what you are talking about and is one of the reasons why I stopped clipping and unclipping every time I hunted. I like the flexability but I wanted to cut down on the "work" required to set and pick up. I started using a new system this year that I have been real happy with. It seemed no matter what I did I was getting tangles if I tried to keep the mainlines attached. Plus I didn't like having a big string always there with limited flexability. I keep my decoys in plastic totes, about 5-7 fit in a tote depending on the species. I simply made a bunch of small mainlines set up for whatever would fit in a tote. there is only about 3' of mainline after the last decoy on the line. On the end of each mainline I put a carabiner instead of a lingline clip. This way I can clip the mainlines together in whatever order I want for the day. If I want to run bluebill-bluebill-canvasback then I can, or just a short string on bluebills or bluebills-redheads. I also have 20' droppers on a spool for when the water is over 6ft deep that I can add on the ends. I have a few goldeneyes and buffleheads decoys that I do not keep attached to mainlines and I can use the droppers as mainlines to set these off to the side of the main spread. It makes moveing to a new spot if you are not where the birds want to be much easier and is easier on the hands. I'll try and get some pics posted up if anybody is interested. I think this system is a good compromise between full length lines already rigged and the flexibility on clipping every time. I will say that the one problem with this setup is if the carabiners freeze up. One day we had rain the night before and then it froze. The carabiners took a littlle bit of persuading to open. I suppose I could have just dunked them in the water for a minute but that would have been too easy. Fortunately for me where I live this only happens a few time in a season and I usually target puddlers when this happens.
 
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