Snells?

[Dan A]

Hi,

Just wondering what the benefits of using a sliding snell over a standard snell is?

With the sliding snell I am thinking this may slip in surf and cause the bait to bunch up?

Thanks

Dan

[Guest IFishSick.]

A sliding snell needs to be pulled pretty solidly to make it move. It won't move on it's own. The advantage of using the sliding snell is that it can be adjusted to suit the size of the bait being used.

E.g Different sized squid or pillies.

Go with the sliding snell.

[Jewhunter]

I use a fixed snood rig when using squid baits for Jew.

If for some reason a big fish crushes the trace in it's gill rakers & breaks the trace above the bottom hook the top hook will hit it somewhere & hold. I had this happen on a 21kg Jew that ejected the bait & hooks out of it's gills. It wore through 60lb trace but the fixed top hook caught in the jaw on the way out. With the sliding rig I would have lost that fish.

Any method that reduces the risk of losing a good fish is a good one I reckon.

Cheers,

Grant.

[Mondo Rock]

I used to use a sliding snell off the beach but found that exactly the problem you identified occurred - the bait would often bunch up on the cast or retrieve. I tried tying the sliding snell tighter but it didn't matter - eventually I would wind in and the leading hook would have slid down next to the rear hook.

So I've given up on sliding snells off the beach - I now only use a fixed snell rig. You can imagine the piece of mind that comes from not consistently worrying that your last cast was a bit too energetic and may have stuffed your bait presentation.

I still use the sliders where there is no need to cast the bait, i.e. out of a boat, but after reading JH's post above I might re-think that as well!!

[insolent]

I spent a few hours learning how to tie sliding snells and find them very frustrating (*$@%$??!! ), does anyone have an easy way or is it just practice.

Cheers

Chris

[Dan A]

I spent a few hours learning how to tie sliding snells and find them very frustrating (*$@%$??!! ), does anyone have an easy way or is it just practice.

Cheers

Chris

It is definatley practice and you need a good demo to show it, I watched a vid which showed me how to snell and got it from that.

[Foxy]

It is definatley practice and you need a good demo to show it, I watched a vid which showed me how to snell and got it from that.

One thing that does make tying a sliding snell easier is if you use a spool of line to tie the snell rather than a length of line. It's easy to misjugde the length of line and running it off the spool means you can make as many wraps you want. Also the more wraps the more pressure it takes to slide the hook. I never used a demo at all. If you can tie a regular snell then it's not so hard. Adding wraps to a snell is also very similar an action to whip finishing a fly.

Cheers

Owen

[namesay]

I normally use a sliding snell. But I have a slight deviation from normal. I use a small length of red plastic tube that people use for whiting and slide the main line through it. I then pass the plastic tube and line through the eye of the hook-leaving a small amount of red plastic beyond the eye. This protects the line from being scratched from the join at the eye of the hook and the leader doesn't get chafed when sliding the hook back and forth.

You can do a normal snell over the plastic tube like tying a hook. Normally do about 10-17 turns. Works great when downrigging as you can slide the hooks to suit the bait size. Learnt that from Pete le Blang. Cheers Kelvin

[Mondo Rock]

Kelvin - that red plastic tube trick sounds like the goods!

I'm definitely going to tie my sliders like that from now on.

BTW - 17 turns?!!? That's a big snell!!!!

[netic]

I normally use a sliding snell. But I have a slight deviation from normal. I use a small length of red plastic tube that people use for whiting and slide the main line through it. I then pass the plastic tube and line through the eye of the hook-leaving a small amount of red plastic beyond the eye. This protects the line from being scratched from the join at the eye of the hook and the leader doesn't get chafed when sliding the hook back and forth.

You can do a normal snell over the plastic tube like tying a hook. Normally do about 10-17 turns. Works great when downrigging as you can slide the hooks to suit the bait size. Learnt that from Pete le Blang. Cheers Kelvin

Exactly what i do, also learnt that from Pete Le Blang, great rig for downrigging squid, have stocked up on the red tubing just in case i cant find it later.