Cat Tip of the Day: Hanging No-Roll Sinkers

[SteveD]

I saw some discussion in a post titled: "PowerPro Questions" about how to rig a No-Roll so your line doesn't run through the sinker. I did this Cat Tip of the Day earlier this spring but I couldn't find it in the Catfish forum archive so I thought I would repost it. I use this setup all the time and it works great so I thought I would repost this Cat Tip of the Day. I hope this helps some of you out:

My standard cat fishing slip sinker rig used to consist of a No-Roll sinker sliding on my main line tied off to a swivel that attached to my leader. A couple of years ago Larry Haugh gave me few Sinker Slides and told me to try them out and see what I thought. Within a week I had ordered a bulk shipment of Sinker Slides and now that is all I use as the basic setup for my slip rigs. They provide several advantages over the no-roll sinker approach. The Sinker Slide allows the line to flow freely and easily for a perfect slip rig plus you can change sinker sizes without having to cut your line and retie like you have to do with no-roll sinkers. Best of all at the end of the day when transporting your rods you don’t have a large no-roll sinker sliding on your line beating up the rod guides or the rod blank. With sinker slides you also have more flexibility with the types of sinkers you can use on slip rigs and I like to use flat bank sinkers or spoon bank sinkers. One other thing I like to do with the sinker slide is attach my sinkers using a rubber band. I just slip the rubber band through the bank sinker hole and loop it over the sinker and attach it to snap on the sinker slide. If the bank sinker gets hung up I just snug up the line and the sinker will break off at the rubber band and all I have to do is hang on a new sinker. It works great and saves you fishing time by not having to retie the entire rig.

So yesterday after I finished my spring time sinker inventory I’m looking at this big, heavy pile of No-Roll Sinkers in my Sinker Box that I find myself seldom using any more. That seemed like a pretty big waste of resources and I started trying to figure out how I could rig up those no-roll sinkers to fit on my Sinker Slides and on my 3-Way Rig drops. I just don’t want to have to run my main line through the no-roll and I needed a cheap and easy way to convert them to a hanging type sinker that would hook on my sinker slide snap or on my 3-Way Rig drop snap. Well I’m lying in bed thinking this thing through and I had a flash of genius. I just needed to use a length of mono to create a loop off the no-roll sinker that will hang on your sinker slide or 3-Way drop. Use a fairly light piece of mono (10 lb test or so) that will sacrifice itself if the sinker should get hung up so you can just break it off. This was just too easy. Here is how I did it:

Step 1: Cut about a 12 inch piece of mono (10 lb test should be adequate). Slide a bead on the line to about the middle point. See Step 1 photo:

Step 2: Double the line up and slide it through the top of the No-Roll Sinker so that the bead stays at the top of the No-Roll. Now slide another bead onto one piece of the line coming from the bottom of the No-Roll. See Step 2 photo:

Step 3: Double up the line from the bottom of the No-Roll and slide the bead up to the bottom of the sinker. Now tie a loop knot in the doubled up line leaving yourself a couple of inches from the bottom of the sinker. See Step 3 photo:

Step 4: Snip off any excess line below the loop knot. Grasp the bead at the top of the No-Roll and lift it up to create a loop at the top of the sinker. See Step 4 photo:

You now have a sinker with a loop that you can just hang on your Sinker Slide snap. It works just like any other bank sinker and allows you to quickly and effectively make use of any no-roll sinkers you have on hand.

You will find that they tie up very fast. I set up a little assembly line and tied up a bunch of hanging no-rolls in just a few minutes. I stored them right back in my sinker box and they are ready to go. I don’t have to order any sinkers until I have used up my inventory of no-rolls that I was never using.

Hope you find this tip useful.

Good Fishing!!

[Shack]

Now that is pretty cool Steve.

I just started using those sliding swivel weight snaps this year. about 50-100 on the clearance rounder at Bella's for only a couple dollars. The snap portion is big enough that I can clip a 6oz bank on with no problem and if I was going crazy I could slightly modify it to handle upwards of an 8oz bank. Just spread out the snap with a pliers enough to fit the eye diameter of the bank and still close the snap.

Sportsman's Warehouse in Coon Rapids (when it was open) used to sell these style silver dollar type no rolls:

They were very cheap. $.30-$.50 each if I recall. I liked them and miss having them around.

[DTro]

That gives me a good idea....off to the hardware store

[TruthWalleyes]

Lemme know what you find dtro...my 6oz bank sinkers are starting to seem small this june!

[bobbymalone]

i knew i saw that somewhere on here. Thanks for the original post and the repost, steveD. I couldn't find it in the archive either.

Do you ever have problems with the mono tangling up with the slide or the swivel? I use a lot shorter loop because I was worried about tangles.

[SteveD]

I don't use any mono leaders. I make leaders out of 65# test PowerPro which is the same as my main line. My standard slip rig consists of a sinker slide, bead, snap swivel, leader. I use a large 1/0 or higher snap swivel instead of a barrel swivel so that I can change leaders quickly. Some guys don't like snap swivels but I like them for the flexibility they give me to change leaders quickly. I know all about the argument that they might fail - I've been chasing cats a long time and I've never had one fail. I also set my drag well below my line and components breaking strength - I'm more worried about losing a fish from pulling the hooks loose than losing one in the timber.

About your question on the hanging no-roll sinkers getting tangled. Some guys have said they were getting tangled but I haven't had that problem and I use this rig all the time. When I cast out I always draw the sinker back towards me so that the rig sits on the bottom with the leader downstream of the sinker. I think if you toss it out and let it sink quickly to the bottom sometimes the sinker might get tangled in the leader. I've never had that problem but I try to control how my rig is going to settle on the bottom trying to get it to settle sinker, leader, hook & bait going downstream.

[bobbymalone]

ahh, i think you misunderstood what i was talking about.

the mono i was talking about wasn't your leader (use braid leaders too), I am talking about the mono you use to hang the no roll. Where your mono loop for hanging on the slide is about is long as the no roll itself, my loop is about big enough to get a pencil through. the loop on my completed version looks more like the step three photo. does that make sense? I made it smaller because I was worried about tangles and snags.

Either way you say it doesn't tangle on you, so that answers my question.

Thanks!

I have also just screwed in a little wood screw with an eyelet on it into the hole of no roll sinker, making something like shack posted. I then attached that directly to the sinker slide. I wonder if that is what DTRO is talking about heading to the hardware store for. It would work for quite a while but the with that soft lead and all the bouncing around the threads would get wallowed out and I would lose the no-roll. the hanging method works better.

[DTro]

So this worked pretty well.

Small eye screw sunk into the top hole. I had to use a small screwdriver as a lever to wind it in.

[mrklean]

looks like that would work pretty good

[Scott K]

For those of you that dont like the no rolls, I would trade you some bank sinkers for them.

[tweedlap]

Steve,

Thanks for the refresher !

tweed

[MinnesnowtaWild]

I tried this out but I had massive tangling problems. This was however in high water early Spring so I don't know if that contributed to it or not but I scrapped the idea.

Darren - I thought about doing that exact same thing but I am still trying to incorporate a way to use no-rolls inline without it eating my line.

[SteveD]

Darren - I like that idea. You can just clip that right on the sinker slide. What size was the screw eye you used?

[tweedlap]

Where is the best place to buy some sinker slides?

What is the price range?

Is there more than one style? *Please reccomened best one*

Thank you for any replies.

tweed

[DTro]

the big auction site has some good deals

[Shack]

Last month I found a couple sacks of 25-30 very large ones on the clearance rounder at Cabela's in Rogers. Paid like $5.00 for 50-75 of them.