Pat Dower from The Tenchfishers demonstrates how you can test the safety of your heli-rig set up.
If ever your mainline breaks above your rig, a hooked fish could be left dragging your feeder/lead around. Even worse, there is a danger of the fish becoming tethered if the lead of feeder gets caught in a snag.
By having a top stop on your heli-rig that comes free easily, you can cut the risk of tethering a fish.
Testing under different conditions suggests that if the top stop comes free with a 4-10oz pull, most tench could free themselves, so this is the target range that we would suggest when testing your own heli-rigs.
The Tenchfishers are currently undertaking a comprehensive project to identify the very safest of rig components to use in the popular heli-rig set up. Results will be published in the Tenchfishers Bulletin, a high quality publication made available to all subscribing members of the Tenchfishers group.
For more information about The Tenchfishers, including membership info, Tench rig advice, articles written by members, and details of our other activities please visit www.tenchfishers.com/