Assist Hooks & Gimbal Belts

[Kim Jones]

When rigging lures with assist hooks off the front of a lure, the pictures I've seen have the cord attached to the front of the lure. When rigging knife jigs we often attach the hook cord to the split ring on a solid ring. This way you can change the lure and leave the hook attached. Does anybody rig their popping lures this way and does it work?

Are their any good links to instructions on how to tie the assist hook cord?

What brand/type of gimbal belt works best for popping?

[Ken Best]

Kim,

On a Nomad trip I did earlier in the year one of the guys was using the ready made Shout Kudako 7/0 assist rigs rigged as you suggest on Cubera 150's.
There were no differences in hookup rates between it and other assist methods as far as I could tell, it worked well.

Ken

[Tak Otsuka]

Hi Kim,

In terms of hooking rate, I think assist hooks will improve it. I caught a couple of fish with it and stopped using it because due to the length of the code, particularly with big one where angler has less control, the other hooks tends to hook up the other part of the body during the fight and makes fighting harder, just like fighting for foul hooked fish.

With gimbal belt, may people use Fisherman Flat Harness I believe. I use Smitty - it is excellent gimbal and one of the easiest gimbal to switch with/without pin (Brandon - I know you will have strong objection to this!!  It is good gimbal but paint is not so good and gimbal will look terrible after couple of trips.....) Also I have purchased MC Works TT belt lately and it looks brilliant although I haven't fish with it.

Cheers,
Tak

 

[Peter Morris]

I just Bought MC Works Tuna/trevally belt.

Looks very very nice and I am confident it will do a great job.

Pete

[Mark Harris]

Kim, nothing from me on the front end assist rigging as I have never caught a fish in anger using a popper rigged that way.

On the belt, I suspect few guys here use a popping rod with a gimbal. My favourite multi purpose belt is the SevenSeas belt which has centre gimbal pin for when you do have a rod with a gimbal attachment (in my case only when jigging), and two side cups for rubber butt ends which are very handy otherwise.     

[Brandon Khoo]

Kim, I can see an problem with rigging the assist on a solid ring and atatching this to the split ring instead. Just make sure that your assist cord is long enough. In terms of tying assist hoks there is a heap on info on the internet on how to do this.

Here is one: http://kyfk.blogspot.com/2007/07/jigging-assist-hook-diy-part-iv.html

On gimbals, it's impossible to say which one works best as it is an individual thing. Everyone of the gimbals mentioned here so far in this thread has their fans. The only thing is don't listen to Tak on the Smitty gimbal belt. His belt has allmost no paint left on it and it looks bloody disgraceful. 

[Tak Otsuka]

Brandon - do you want me to get new smitty for each trip?!?

MC Works TT belt is not painted - it is colour of material so you can't complain me on that one!! maybe not ideal for jigging due to angle of cup but it will be excellent for casting game.

[Peter Morris]

Get some spray paint Tak....

We can spray it each night before the daily session.

Pete

[Brandon Khoo]

No, you should be using a Carpenter - but not with my rods. 

Brandon - do you want me to get new smitty for each trip?!?

MC Works TT belt is not painted - it is colour of material so you can't complain me on that one!! maybe not ideal for jigging due to angle of cup but it will be excellent for casting game.

[Tak Otsuka]

but they think the dent is a great decoration....ok I use only standard model