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Chalk Talk: Feider discusses split-ring alternative

Chalk Talk: Feider discusses split-ring alternative

(Editor's note: The following is the latest installment in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)

Educated fishing fans know that Seth Feider is a smallmouth guru, and over the past couple of years he’s repeatedly demonstrated his largemouth credentials as well. Where he really excels, though – regardless of which species he’s chasing – is finding and landing them when it’s cold out. That often entails a number of oddball or out-of-the-ordinary lures that even many serious tournament anglers don’t use. One such example is the blade bait.

It is, he said, “an awesome, awesome way to catch fish during that cold water period.”

Whether it’s the old school Heddon Sonar, the popular Silver Buddy, or any one of a number of other variations, they all occasionally suffer from a failure to keep fish buttoned up. Lethargic winter bass may not often jump and thrash the surface, but they still bulldog to get away, and when the hook is affixed to the lure with either a single split ring or just to the stamped hole directly, the bass have a tendency to shake free. Largemouths will occasionally get the bait deep in their throats, but smallmouths usually have it on the lip or with one prong of one treble outside of their mouth.

A split ring can only go about half of a turn before it “just absolutely locks up,” he said. That gives the bass leverage, especially “crazy smallmouths.”

Feider’s solution, one that he learned from Mark Zona, is to eliminate the metal split ring altogether and replace it with a “ring” made of 30-pound test braided line. He takes a couple of feet of braid for each hook hanger, doubles it over, and forms a loop, using an Allen wrench (a screwdriver or similar object will also suffice) to hold the loop’s shape. He’ll then cut the tag ends a little bit longer than normal and use a lighter to cinch them down, following up on his loop with three tightly-pulled overhand knots. When using the lighter, he tries not to apply the flame directly to his braid.

“I know it seems a little bit sketchy,” he said. “It’s a braid loop instead of a split ring.” The advantage that this set-up has is that it replaces the split ring’s limited range of motion with a braid loop that can make five or six complete turns before it even thinks about getting bound up. “My landing percentage was sorry before I did this,” the first-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier claimed, but now he rarely loses any. That makes going out in the cold a whole lot more productive and a whole lot more fun.

If you want to learn all of the steps that Feider uses to achieve this innovative modification, with the safeguards he takes to make sure that it doesn’t fail, check out his full video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.

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