Hi All,

As I fish from the shore a lot here in Texas I found that using balloons was a great way to get my bait way out into the lake. Unfortunately, there seemed to be only two ways people set up balloon rigs - either setting the bait at a fixed depth and using the balloon like a bobber, or using a quick release knot or piece of thread or whatever that allowed the rig to be yanked loose from the balloons, and then the balloon just float off and litter the lake. I don't like the idea of dumping balloons into the lake, and setting the bait at a fixed depth doesn't work for me because I like to fish off the bottom for catfish.

So I decided to spend a little time and see if I could come up with a better solution.

I had three goals for it:

1. I wanted to be able to launch it from shallow water, but when it gets to where I want it, I wanted to be able to drop the bait to the bottom or to a specific depth.
2. I wanted to be able to recover the balloons when I was done fishing.
3. It needed to be easy to assemble from common items / tackle.

After working through a few iterations, I finally came up with something that seems to work really well by using the cap from a ball point pen, a key ring, and a couple of swivels.

I thought I'd share how to build it here and see if it helps other folks out, and I'd also be really interested if anyone knows of a better way to do this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDc1LiIscH8&t=1s

And here's a quick and dirty sketch of how it works:




Cheers,

Russ

Also to the TFF!

Thanks Banker, I'm really enjoying reading the posts here. It's so good to have finally gotten back into fishing after all these years, and I'm loving the hunt for giant cats in my local lakes.

The quick release clip used on planer boards might also work , I think they also have adjustable clamping pressure .