# Is their a safe way to store stinger rigs?



## littledavid (Aug 6, 2009)

I store stinger rigs one at a time in ziplock bags. They still tangle and are hard to get at when the heat is on. 

How short can they be without too many bight offs? 

What about braided or twisted wire versas single strand?

How about an easy way to tie monofiliment or Florocarbon to wire or is it ok to use a snap close to youre bait if you afe fishing livies or frozen cigs?

So many questions. Sorry but I just gotta know.


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## WW2 (Sep 28, 2007)

One method I know is to cut off a piece of those pool toys (Noodles) about a foot long and wrap the leader around it until you get to the hooks and then stick them in the noodle. Then wrap the stinger around until it can be hooked. Then stick the whole thing in a baggie or other storage area.


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## snagem 1 (Sep 28, 2007)

We like to use seven strand for live bait, single strand for dead. Albright knot works just fine for single strand to braid, like swivels tied to leader when using mono.


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## captken (Feb 24, 2008)

I lay my stinger rig across a sheet of Aluminum foil abiut 2" from one edge. Fold. Add another stinger rig with the leader facing the opposite side of the foil. Fold. I usually bundle 6 at a time then get another piece of foil.

No tangles. When you run single hand charters, you learn to work efficiently or you will look like you don't have a clue. This absolutely works.

Re: Mono to wire. I use a Bristol Knot about 100% of the time.


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## Rag-Tag (Apr 20, 2008)

How long is the wire between the hooks? I use a 12" piece and after my twists I have about 3/4" left as a tag on each end to break off. I also store one rig per bag, a ziplock sandwich size bag, then ten of these per labeled ziplock FREEZER gallon bag. I "stand them up" where the zips on the sandwich bags are perpendicular to the zips on the gallon bag. The sand wich bags are folded over too. Not in half but about2/3(rig side, bottom of bag) 1/3 top of bag. I ONLY loop the 36" lead wire and I only wrap it overitself 3 or 4 times, the minimum it takes to keep it coiled. One or two unwraps of the swivel and the rig pops open dead straight no tangles. When the lead is coiled I can lay the stinger diagonal in the bag and it fits perfect with really no bend or a very minimal bend if the lead hook doesnt fold correctly on the first shake of the bag or two. The lead hook is in the bottom left of the bag and the stinger is in the top right and I press gently to my chest to push the air out and then seal from left to right being careful not to allow a bubble etc where the stinger hook is against the zips. It too should "fold or lay down" where the loop of the wire is against the zips and maybe the eye of the hook but the points are dangleing down. Also, where the lead hook in the corner, the loops of the wire are in the very very bottom left corner and maybe the eye of the hook as the points are back up into the bag.

Anyways, probably MUCH easier for me to see in my mind after doing tens of thousands but hopefully this helps. If not let me know and I'll set you up with a few rigs to look at(have). It must be something with the placement and the exact amount of pressure to put on the bags, both the sandwich and the gallon, when pushing the air out because my ribbonfish rigs with a single lead hook and 3 or 4 treble stingers pop open effortlessly also?? I am VERY careful how they are stored etc to make sure no extra pressure is put on these bags in storage or on the wild ride as the #1 biggest key for me is to not have a single point on any hook on any rig to penetrate or stick in the bag. Thats where my delays are. I put ten in each gallon for several reasons and one is so if it gets beat and the bread box or camera box etc bounces around on a bag in transit in the electronics box that a max of ten can get "roughed up". Its also so when a bag gets left on the front of the console or the electronics box gets left open and a bag flies out and is unfindable, gettable, or I dont feel like slowing down there is again a max of ten that can get wet, lost etc. I try to carry at least 300 at a time but ALWAYS have 200. Never have used that many, 128 is the top rig usage in a weekend but I need to be ready with a full arsenal of which one is on that day. I carry HT (hardtail), HT/KB (hardtail/kingbuster), Heavy HT, Heavy HT/KB, (the heavys are same as regular except #7 instead of #6 wire and #1 lead instead of #2 and 1/0 stinger in place of #1 stinger), EEL, and Bonita/Bluefish (these are actually stored 5 to a bag in a ziplock FREEZER quart bag. I don't get fortunate enough to use these as much and I use a high dollar Owner or the like single long shank live bait hook for the lead and (2) 1/0 stingers on #7 wire. When stripping line and tying rigs on in the morning at check-out this is the FIRST one tied on as to not run out of rods before its on. I have 2-3 of my TLD 25's with a piece of red electrical tape on the crank handle to designate 30# line where the others have 25# and the bonita/bluefish rig is ALWAYS on one of these and put in the t-top all the way to one side or the other with the next rocket launcher ALWAYS empty to avoid any tangles as much as possible so as soon as a bait rod drag sounds a bit more than the rest somebody will drop what they are doing and get it down and barely hook lead into foam fore grip and have small landing net ready to land bonita etc and the bait rod man and the TLD rod man work together to smoothly get a good solid nose hook in and both stingers in in the right way with the welded on 3rd hook of the treble in the bait as to not have the loops of the wire funked up across each other. This is the ONLY reason we use the $$$ hooks as leads, not to hook kings or whatever any better but 100% to ensure a 10x better nose hook up on the bait. My experience is that if the nose hook pops out and you must reel a bonita and sometimes a bluefish too in backwards even if you stop etc they are usually worthless from then on and even if not now that the nose is ripped you must go further back on the face/head and then the bonita like to waller back and forth and skip out of the water when left then rightthen just spin or pull with its head out of the water?? This bait instantly becomes our "dominant bait in the spread" and is always pulled on top so we can see a foul up and is way back where it can basically go whereever it wants and the line stays above the other top line and then we rarely SNAFU. Why baby this 3#-6# bait, heck yea cuz when it zings which is about 20% of the time or so its gettin the sweet hook and a bag to herself! Best bite we have ever had was on a 4#-5# bonita at WD-117G in the 1998 Kajun Sportsman. There were about 25 boats in 117 first thing and about 5 on G all on the same side of the rig and somehow 3 or 4 of us were all transome to transome to each other but not super close so we were all watching the same area of water and our baits were obviously pretty close together as all of a sudden a nice king skys literally 20 feet in the air with us getting a perfect sideways shot and on return to the water we were looking at the top of his back as if looking straight down on it in the water, it remained perfectly straight and my bonita was perfectly crossways in its mouth with the tail and 6" or so out the left side (our left) and the head and about 6" out the other and it was kicking as if in slooow motion as it bit down and Ginger Shook on her husbands Wave Runner screamed and grabbed a rod as did Jeff Dry on Dave Workmans C&H Lures and I was standing on a cooler looking back at this whole time like damn I WANT THAT KING and just as the fish entered the water with a huge bubble trail and removed the slack from the line I realized that WAS my bonita and just as the rod bowed and line started to peel out the port side of the boat as the fish took off out in front of us! Well yep we caught it and it weighed 46.3# which was our biggest king to date in a tourny, second or third biggest ever only to a fish maybe two from 9 days prior also in 117 while pre-fishing that were released. Anyways, that king is not even in our top 25 fish weight wise that have been weighed in a tournament now but it still holds the coolest bite. Also, thought that was gonna be my 1st and way past due placing ahead of KWAZAR which he rode me hard about and I wanted it so bad but he popped a 46.6# and ended up 17th and we were 18th go figure. We did beat him 3 events later and then damn near never stopped:bowdown. Anyway you look at it though 46# in 18th is a strong leaderboard. Pensacola local Jamie Fuller and his wife Wendy aboard The Whopper Stopper with lady captain from Jacksonville, Patsy Stancil, caught the Louisiana SKA record king that morning of 63#+ and it took 50# to be 10th. 1998 in West Delta, not the west side but "downtown" WestDelta was so on fire it was unreal. Anyone, like me, who was still a bit green on the big king thing, and we were still in our Grady-White but thats a whole nother book, got an incredable crash course on an honors level at an excellerated pace to learn. You could easily catch 35-60 kings a day with 95% being 35#+ and 50% being 40#+ so you tested your rigs, equiptment, boat driving skills, fighting technique, gaffing, tailing, estimating weights of live vs dead instantly and maybe in the water, and everything else there is to know. Basically it was like being at the batting cages with $1,000 vs only live pitching in a game. Unreal, what was learned that summer that has helped carry a handful of us from then on. Greenhorns again even more cause as the learning curve went through the roof the entire crew went to the same school, some of the more experienced guys were already set in their ways and their newbys may not learn as they did which is important. I loved fresh guys who had a long fishing history and were really good but had really zero kingfish experience cause I could mold them as needed and have them all gel together.

Sorry for getting carried away but I tend to do that when kingfish or some key words like stinger etc get tossed out! I guess this year did renovate my rigging techniques and the way I packed them. I was using the kingrig bags going into 1998 but lost that idea quick in WD!


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