Trying A New Way

[Mike]

A friend of mine has been rigging his blocks this way for a few years now and I decided to alter it a bit and give it a go this season. He ties a short loop to his block's keel/leather strap or whatever may be a good tie off point. He then ties off to the anchor and on the other end of his pre-measured tarred(sp?) decoy line he ties on a long line swivel clip. My change was to upgrade to non-floating military grade parachute cord that I bought from the guy in the corner by the lake at the Tuckerton show. I cut all my cord to length, then melted both ends to keep it from unraveling. Another change to his system was to 1st make a loop on one end, take it around the anchor and run the other end of the cord thru to cinch it up. With the loose end I tied on the swivel clip. This method of rigging keeps the anchors from marring up your decoys when they are being stored. It also cuts down on the total number of weights needed. Instead of needing an individual weight for each decoy, you can now have "X" amount of rigged weights and rotate in and out whatever decoys you may want for any particular hunt. I'm going to keep 24 weights in an old milk crate. I can then keep the crate up towards the bow of my boat to help counter-ballast my boat when I'm hunting alone. Just thought I'd share......

 

[Mark Spolarich]

That's a good idea!

 

[Dave Diefenderfer]

Mike, I do somewhat similar, but I put droppers with clips on all my decoys. On my H weights I have line wrapped, and a loop at the end. A heavy rubberband keeps it wound on the weight. I can single line or long line any decoy this way. Keeps the weights away from the decoys during storage. Keeps the weight of the decoy bags down.... 12 cork and or wood decoys can get plenty heavy.... I keep the weights in an ammo box. It is just a little more effort to handle the weights, but I am not in too big a hurry when I am hunting!

Just got 50 more of the small long line clips from Doctari yesterday.... these are the 3" with swivels which I prefer... got the first batch from Bob B a couple years ago... and they were much better quality than the 50 from Doctari..... I suspect Bob got them from a fisheries supply and will have to find out where. I think the Doctari clips will work, if I bend them a little to make the bite better... maybe they will go back?

Dave

 

[Tom L]

instead of a loop, I tie all of my puddle ducks to a straight piece of line with a clip on the line, I use the small clips and just attach and adjust to the water depth, and doing so am making small longlines with my puddle ducks. saves weight and space in my kayak. then if I want to use them for deeper water I just use my regular longline setup with the big boat . save's time having to re rig everything the night before I go hunting. before I changed up, I would ready the boat on say tuesday night for the weekend, then it would be a terrible forecast for saturday and I had to re rig the whole deal to hunt different waters.

 

[tod osier]

If you aren't done... A longer loop with knotted tails on the decoy loop helps get clipped on faster, you don't even need a loop with the longline clips, just a tail. I put 2 decoys per anchor, I like the look and it is faster.

 

[jode hillman]

Mike one other addition to Sean's system I started doing last year is to do away with the clips altogether and use loops for everything. Does away with the hardware and is easy to handle.


I.E. make the same loop on the end the anchor line that attaches to the decoy as you did in first attachment to the anchor itself.

 

[Mike]

Tod and Jode,

I just can't picture the concepts. Can you guys illustrate somehow?

 

[jode hillman]

Here ya go Mike. First Three are of single rigging. Instread of going thru the leather, you would just run through your loop tied to your keel.

Second is the double rig Sean mentioned earlier. Two decoys one weight.

 

[Mike]

So the anchor needs to be able to go thru the loop at the stool's end. Got it. Well on 2nd thought, I think I need to hunt over the drake GW and hen Sprig in the illustration in order to fully grasp the concept. You do a loaner program???

 

[jode hillman]

So the anchor needs to be able to go thru the loop at the stool's end. Got it. Well on 2nd thought, I think I need to hunt over the drake GW and hen Sprig in the illustration in order to fully grasp the concept. You do a loaner program???

Sure, come and hunt with Sean and I.....you'll have fun..........

 

[Mark Spolarich]

So the anchor needs to be able to go thru the loop at the stool's end. Got it. Well on 2nd thought, I think I need to hunt over the drake GW and hen Sprig in the illustration in order to fully grasp the concept. You do a loaner program???

Sure, come and hunt with Sean and I.....you'll have fun..........

Now that would be a decoy spread to behold!!!

 

[Mike]

Will do.