How to tie the Hinged Stiff Rig

Developed and popularised by Terry Hearn and Gardner Tackle’s own Lewis Read, The Hinged Stiff Link is the perfect pop-up rig for when fishing over a bed of boilies. Here’s how you tie it…

Hook Section

1. Pass a stiff hooklink material (we’ve used Trip Wire) through the eye from front to back and create a large loop, a few inches in diameter.

2. Keeping the beginning of the loop parallel to the shank, rotate the loop around the shank six to seven times.

3. Carefully tighten the knot down. First on the hooklink side of the knot and then tease the wraps down.

4. Once you have pushed the knot into position, lubricate and then tighten fully.

5. Make sure the extra hooklink material sits parallel to the hook as shown. This ensures the rig will work as intended.

6. Thread on a rig ring and then create a ‘D’ by passing the hooklink back through the hook eye. Trim as required.

7. Make sure that the ‘D’ sits squarely on the back of the hook shank and then blob the tag end with a lighter to ensure that the ‘D’ is secured.

8. Cut off four- to five-inches of hooklink leaving ample material for attachment to the boom section.

Boom Section

1. For the neatest possible loops we recommend anglers learn how to tie the Non-Slip Loop knot’ (or use a Figure-Of-Eight-Loop knot).

2. Start with a simple Overhand Knot, then thread on a Covert Mini Rig Swivel and pass the tag back through the Overhand.

3. Wrap the tag round the hooklink several times and pass back through the Overhand Knot again (Blood
Knot style).

4. Tighten down the knot by only pulling on the tag (important) and trim off excess line from the knot.

5. Cover the knot with your nails and blob the tag material with a lighter.

6. The finished knot should look like this. Repeat this process at the other end of the boom section for added free movement.

Final Assembly

1. Time to put the two components, the hook and boom sections together, and finish off the rig.

2. Use a simple Three-Turn Blood Knot (blobbed to secure) to attach the hook section to the Mini Rig Swivel on the end of the boom.

3. Once blobbed, push the blob flush to the knot and tighten the knot down fully.

4. Thread Critical Mass Putty through the swivel eye and wrap around the swivel as shown.