Found my grandfather's old fishing trick in a 1956 magazine

My grandfather left behind a stack of old Outdoor Life magazines from the 50s, and I stumbled onto a tip about using a split shot weight and a barrel swivel to stop line twists. I tried it last weekend on Lake Hopatcong and I swear I didn't have a single tangle in three hours. Has anyone else found random old tricks that actually beat modern gear?

2 comments

2 Comments

wrenstone14d ago

Oh man, I gotta push back on this one. I tried that same old trick from a 60s magazine a few years back and it was a nightmare. The split shot kept sliding around on my line no matter how hard I crimped it, and the barrel swivel just added weight that made my bait sink too fast. I bet your setup worked great on Lake Hopatcong because it's pretty calm there, but out here on the coast with wind and current, it's a different story. Modern braid with a good swivel already does the job without adding all that extra junk. Might work for some people in lakes but it's not the one size fits all solution folks think it is.

amygonzalez14d ago

Back when my grandpa tried showing me that trick on a pond in Ohio, the split shot flipped off and hit me in the forehead... gave me a nice little welt for a week. He just laughed and said that's why you always wear a hat.