Following on from Paul’s excellent Rig making tutorial, another option to using crimps to secure your snoods in place is to use what is known as silicon sliders.

Why use silicon sliders? The big advantage is that you can easily adjust the length of your snood. If, for instance, you lose a hook…on a clipped down trace made with crimps it is very difficult to get the length of line on your new hook length exactly right, so that it clips down correctly. With silicon sliders you can tie your new hook to roughly the required length, then adjust the sliders to ensure the perfect fit.
Another advantage is that with silicon sliders there is no chance of damaging the rig body, which is a possibility with the over zealous use of crimping pliers.

Silicon sliders are basically pieces of silicon tubing, which you can buy from any decent tackle shop which stocks rig making bits, cut down into approx 4-8mm pieces

The technique is to slide the tube onto the main rig body as shown….

To secure the silicon tubing into place, you then pass the line through the tubing again……do not make a knot with the line!

Then pull the two ends of line to tighten the line gently…..

Until the line is pulled straight , but the silicon tubing looks like this, gripped tight onto the line

You then follow this procedure again…….

Slide the 2nd piece until it sits snugly next to the first

3-4 pieces are usually sufficient to ensure a good solid grip and no movement though you could obviously add more, it’s only necessary to use this many below each component where the tension is placed ie if you are using HRT springs or rig tubing. Only one or two sliders are necessary above each component.

You can then follow the usual sequence of beads/springs/cascade swivels etc safe in the knowledge that your snood lengths are fully adjustable and there has been no damage to your rig body

If you’re bothered about any kinks ii your rig body (which are just superficial and cosmetic) you can hang your rig with a weight clipped on overnight to slightly pre-stretch it or make your rig body slightly longer than required, tie your sliders onto the extra length then slide into place and snip off the unwanted kinked line