Replacement split rings - not very exciting I grant you, but it’s good when the little things work so well

It’s Monday morning and I feel inspired to write a blog post about something as wildly exciting as split rings and what you might want to have a look at if you need to replace some of them on your lures - what a start to a new week eh?! I understand completely if you have stopped reading already, but if you are still here then I am an angler who usually washes his lures down in freshwater after using them because I want to try and get as much life as I can out of my hooks and split rings. Replacing them is a pain and an extra bit of cost we could ideally do without when a lot of the best lures are not exactly cheap. However much I do try and look after my gear though, on at least some of the hard lures I might go bass fishing with I will eventually need to replace some of the hooks and split rings. And yes, damn right it bugs me that the components on some lures for whatever reason last far longer than on other lures, and yes, it also bugs me when a few specific not bloody cheap lures have split rings and trebles on them that I don’t think last nearly long enough for the price of the lure………………..

Anyway, so let’s start off with the cheapest split rings I have come across and used - the 6mm “stainless steel split rings” here on Ebay are cheap as chips and they work pretty well. You need to note that how split rings are measured seems to be a bit different depending on what you buy, but on the sort of hard lures I use for bass fishing it’s the 6mm size of these ones which I think are a good size. They might be quoted as stainless steel but after a while they will start to show signs of discolouration and rust; at the price it doesn’t hurt at all to replace them as needs be. These are not the strongest split rings going but then again I can’t recall any of them ever getting into any trouble with any bass I myself have caught.

A step up in price and quality brings us to the Varivas Avani Ocean Works Power (split) Rings (previously called the Varivas Power Rings). I have used these a hell of a lot over the years and I think they are brilliant. I go for the 4mm/40lb size (measured internally) and I really like them. I didn’t pay much attention during science lessons at school, because with most treble and indeed single hooks these Varivas Avani Ocean Works Power Rings don't’ show any signs of rust and/or discolouration, but then for some reason the odd hook seems to react less well with them and admittedly over a fair amount of time both components start to show signs of damage. I am guessing it’s something to do with different grades of metal not combing that well when immersed in saltwater for long periods of time, but as I said, science was often a good chance to have a bit of a kip after rugby or cricket training.

I am a bit reluctant to write about the next split rings on my list because I am doing some paid work for Savage Gear and the Englishness in me struggles with that connection and how some people will always perceive that connection and I can’t do anything about it. This blog has always been 100% honest and I have lost paid work in the past because I have refused to stick to one brand of fishing tackle only, and being completely honest here and hoping that if the grownups at Savage Gear HQ are reading this that they have got bored and gone off elsewhere - in the past I have stripped split rings and trebles off various Savage Gear hard lures I might have tried because I assumed the components weren’t great and I replaced them with other stuff.

And then around summer last year when I first started talking in a grownup way with Savage Gear, I was given a bunch of different hard lures to have a play with. Most of these hard lures have not ended up in my go-to bass lure boxes which to me makes things even more exciting from a work point of view because we have to much more to do as regards bass fishing lures, but I did notice that all these hard lures were in a bunch of new colours, and that they had some very good looking treble hooks on them. My understanding is that most of their hard lures have been recently upgraded in colours, build quality, and components, but I am nothing to do with that. I do know what these new treble hooks are though and I am currently trying to persuade the grownups to make them available to buy at some point in the future - they refuse to rust or show any signs of wear and tear at all, and remember that I crush every single barb for my lure fishing - and because these new trebles looked so good I couldn’t bring myself to strip the new lures down and replace the split rings on the lures.

So almost by mistake it has crept up on me that the Savage Gear Stainless split rings are absolutely bloody brilliant. I use them mostly in the 7mm size for my hard lures, but I do quite like using a couple of the larger 9mm ones on my 28g and 32g Seekers, plus some sample Seekers which I am not allowed to talk about yet. I am absolutely nothing to do with these split rings by the way, and again they are one of these SG things that I have kinda stumbled upon over a period of time. For some reason these Savage Gear Stainless split rings come in packets of 20 where 10 are “bright” (stainless steel) and 10 are a “black finish”. Neither “colours” of these split rings show a single sign of discolouration on a lot of different lures I have here and which have had a lot of water time and then washing off afterwards. I cannot tell you how bloody stupid I feel for binning a bunch of these split rings in the past when I knew nothing about them, because look at me now with these Savage Gear Stainless split rings being my split rings of choice. Again I must ask you to either trust me here or else ignore anything I say when I talk about Savage Gear stuff because I am doing some paid work with them and in their mighty wisdom they could surely be paying me good money to spend time talking about really exciting and profitable stuff like split rings! As I said, it’s not exactly the most exciting of blog posts to start off a brand new week, but split rings are something that all of us use and perhaps need to replace at some point I guess. By the way, I also have no idea how any of these split rings I have talked about will behave as such if you never wash your lures down in freshwater. Here’s to a wildly exciting August week!

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