Scott Farris
Well-known member
I followed the recent post of clips with interest cause I like rigging, lines, knots, the whole mess. I started with clips taken off fish stringers, clipping into loops tied in my mother line. Then based on posts here back in the late 90’s I tried the 3” longline clips, they were cheaper than the 5”. They also slipped under pressure when repositioning longlines. I switched over to 5” clips, some with, some without swivels. I didn’t see much difference based on the swivels but they held in place much better than the 3”. (The 3” clips are now used on the ends of 10 to 16 oz “H” section anchors for single rigging.)
When I got the Lund and I had lots of room for sea ducking, so I decided to follow the lead of Lou Tisch and others who keep their decoys rigged in barrels. I use the barrels that collapse so I can stuff 6 to 8 of them out of the way once the decoys are deployed. After using this a bit with the 5” clips it dawned on me that they were a PITA. If I had a tangle they were involved. Running the line through my hands would be much nicer without them to. So I decided to dispense with the clips. I now tie the droppers to the mother line then whip finish the tag ends to eliminate potential snag points. It’s worked very well for me for about 5 years now.
View attachment cans2.jpg
View attachment longlinesared.jpg
This past year I started carving a rig of goldeneyes and I want to keep them in pocket bags to protect them. What I’ve done in the past with my premium decoys was simply rig them either individually or in pairs at deployment, but now I’m dealing with a larger rig of B& W decoys. So what I’ve gone with is short longlines based on the number of pockets in the bags I’m using. ½ doz pocket bags get a 5 or 6 decoy line tied up with loops on either end that can be clipped together to form a “long” line or they can be deployed as multiple “short” lines to make a tighter group of a species. The loop ends are roughly ½ the length of the spacing between decoys so the spacing remains good when clipped together. The short mother line easily tucks into the pouches and not having the SS clips in the bags has to help the paint job. End loops are placed over the heads of the two end decoys for ease of finding them in the dark.
View attachment GE knots.jpg
Now anchor lines. I keep a stash of different length anchor lines and select them as needed by the water depth. Large “H” section anchors which have the line wrapped around them work great too, allowing you to tie off the line at the desired length. The long line clips w/o swivels work well for attaching the anchors and anchor lines. Saturday’s hunt was in thigh deep river and no additional anchor line was needed. I simply ran one of the short lines of GEs out above my puddle duck rig attached directly to one of my large mushroom anchors to handle the ice load. It would have been better to have used thee lines, rigged two together with the 3rd forming the J but there was too much ice flowing down river so I KISSed it!
View attachment shortline.jpg
The knots are simple and don’t need to be whipped, just melt the tag end back to the knot without burning the lines :^)
View attachment LONGLINE KNOTS.jpg
I hope I provoked some thoughts,
Scott
When I got the Lund and I had lots of room for sea ducking, so I decided to follow the lead of Lou Tisch and others who keep their decoys rigged in barrels. I use the barrels that collapse so I can stuff 6 to 8 of them out of the way once the decoys are deployed. After using this a bit with the 5” clips it dawned on me that they were a PITA. If I had a tangle they were involved. Running the line through my hands would be much nicer without them to. So I decided to dispense with the clips. I now tie the droppers to the mother line then whip finish the tag ends to eliminate potential snag points. It’s worked very well for me for about 5 years now.
View attachment cans2.jpg
View attachment longlinesared.jpg
This past year I started carving a rig of goldeneyes and I want to keep them in pocket bags to protect them. What I’ve done in the past with my premium decoys was simply rig them either individually or in pairs at deployment, but now I’m dealing with a larger rig of B& W decoys. So what I’ve gone with is short longlines based on the number of pockets in the bags I’m using. ½ doz pocket bags get a 5 or 6 decoy line tied up with loops on either end that can be clipped together to form a “long” line or they can be deployed as multiple “short” lines to make a tighter group of a species. The loop ends are roughly ½ the length of the spacing between decoys so the spacing remains good when clipped together. The short mother line easily tucks into the pouches and not having the SS clips in the bags has to help the paint job. End loops are placed over the heads of the two end decoys for ease of finding them in the dark.
View attachment GE knots.jpg
Now anchor lines. I keep a stash of different length anchor lines and select them as needed by the water depth. Large “H” section anchors which have the line wrapped around them work great too, allowing you to tie off the line at the desired length. The long line clips w/o swivels work well for attaching the anchors and anchor lines. Saturday’s hunt was in thigh deep river and no additional anchor line was needed. I simply ran one of the short lines of GEs out above my puddle duck rig attached directly to one of my large mushroom anchors to handle the ice load. It would have been better to have used thee lines, rigged two together with the 3rd forming the J but there was too much ice flowing down river so I KISSed it!
View attachment shortline.jpg
The knots are simple and don’t need to be whipped, just melt the tag end back to the knot without burning the lines :^)
View attachment LONGLINE KNOTS.jpg
I hope I provoked some thoughts,
Scott
