Dave Coster’s HOW TO – Shot Wagglers

This entry was posted on 2nd April, 2020 by Anna Cooper

Something that I see a lot of novice anglers struggle with is the way they shot up unloaded wagglers, spreading various size weights all over the rig. Doing this results in the floats not casting accurately as well as lots of tangling! Once you have the knack of it, it is actually very easy to load up wagglers and this guide will show you how.

As a first step, the biggest shot goes next to the floats base eye or float adaptor. Next, place the slightly smaller balancing shot pinched on either side of the largest shot. These ‘locking shots’ need to make up most of the float’s loading, helping it to zoom out a long way on the cast, providing similar performance to a dart.

In shallow to medium depths, situations, where wagglers are mainly used, very little shotting, is required down the rig. One of the best types of weights to use is Preston Innovations Stotz, which are basically micro shot. If you spread two or three of these from mid-depth down towards the hook, not much can go wrong when you cast the rig out.

Using small, spread out weights allow the hook bait to fall slowly through the water, often attracting bonus bites as it descends. If you feather the rig down just before it hits the surface, the lower set shot will land neatly ahead of it.

Another useful way of avoiding tangles with waggler tackle is to use a small swivel to attach the mainline to the hook length. This stops the finer hook length from spinning up as the rig is retrieved as well as making a stronger union between denser reel line and a thinner trace material.

Without swivels, the reel line would tend to bite through the thinner diameter mono when directly knotted to it. The swivel acts as a final tell-tale shot when using short hook lengths, while for longer ones, a few extra Stotz weights can be added just above it, to create a small bulk for deeper water.