Always put black lug on the top hook.

[Vagabond]

In the sixties, before the days of clipped-up and clipped-down distance casting rigs, some anglers used to "hang" their bait - by using a long snood and draping the baited hook over one of the projecting wires of a grip lead. I was never very happy about this, fearing the hook would stay on the lead wire and blight my chances of getting a bite. (I still have this feeling if I don't get a bite on my clipped rig in the first ten minutes )

 

One morning in the early sixties Chevin and I were fishing at Walton, and I was using a two-hook flapper, the lower hook baited with mussel on a long trace and the upper with yellow-tailed black lugworm on a short snood. As I prepared to cast, Chevin suggested I should "hang" the mussel bait from one of the lead wires to avoid jerking the mussel off the hook and having a bait-less hook out.

 

I was very proud then of my prowess with Longbow and Squidder.

 

"Humph" I snorted scornfully, " Some of us can cast smoothly, without snatch, and anyway, even if the soft mussel does come off, I've got tough black lug on the top hook."

 

So saying, I cast. Alas, during these exchanges I had been distracted, and neglected to switch my Squidder into free-spool mode. Worse, I now forgot to check whether or not I had done so.

 

With an enormous “CRACK!” my line parted. As, sadly, I watched my entire end-rig drop into the sea nearly two hundred yards out (it's amazing how far a crack-off will travel) Chevin patted me on the shoulder.

 

"Never mind, old son" he said "You've still got black lug on the top hook"

 

When we met up again in Perth, twenty years after our adventures at Walton pier, the first thing Chevin asked me was "Do you still put black lugworm on your top hook?"

 

[ 19. February 2005, 05:05 AM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

[Guest jay_con]

And the answer was?

[Norm B]

@winter@:

And the answer was?

:cool: Come on, do you?

[Guest jay_con]

Not a 2 hook man norm. It's difficult enough to get one out of the rocks around here. Sometimes i use 2 on a pennel. The black worm does usually go on the top hook then.

[Elton]

Walton, Essex?