Losing a fish can be heartbreaking, the worst of course is when the hook pulls at the last second. But there are also times just after picking up the rod, or midway through playing, when the line just mysteriously goes slack and you're left standing there stunned.
Everytime this happens you question yourself, "what could I have done different?", "how can I prevent this from happening again?". And often the answer is to carry on, put it down to bad luck (because most of the time this doesn't happen), except when it does and it's monster on the end.
Although satisfied in the most part with how I fish, I am always looking to improve and be able to adapt. Often these things don't come in huge leaps like 'The hair rig' but smaller much less significant steps.
Leverage if you look it up means "the exertion of force by means of a lever", In our case we have a boilie fixed to the hook by use of a boilie stop. So given the right circumstances, the boilie can be used to exert force on the hook and used for leverage against the hook hold.
Through habit I guess I have always used a boilie stop, but then the original reason for it was to stop the bait coming off during the cast, not to keep it on.
I'll explain.
Before hair rigs (pre 1983) the bait (say a cube of luncheon meat) was threaded onto the hook. To keep it on during the cast we used all sorts of things but my favorite was a piece of fine dry spaghetti. The reason? It held like rock on the cast but softened so the hook would pull through on a strike when you got a run.
It was this that got me thinking about all the above and so now, whenever I can, I do without the boilie stop.
Since starting to do this I have noticed after catching a fish, that the boilie has been pulled off the hair...
It's simple, but the theory I think is sound and if it saves me from losing fish?