Rigga
by
Gardner
The design, development, testing, and manufacturing of
hooks are one that takes a massive investment regarding
time and effort. It’s a critical terminal item that must be right
in every way, and therefore new hook patterns take years to
come to fruition.
In the context of the new Rigga patterns, this project was ini-
tiated back in 2013, in parallel to the Covert Dark upgrade of
existing hook patterns. While the Covert Dark patterns rolled
out in 2016, we were busy testing initial samples of the Rigga
hook patterns and making sure that the design concepts and
mechanics worked as well as we anticipated – making sure
hook holds remained
solid and unmoving.
The two patterns that made it from drawing board concepts (ini-
tially four models) to production have been named the bench-
mark for any curved hook. Our Mugga pattern; but how do you
improve or evolve a hook like the legendary Mugga? This was
primarily the quandary we faced when we initially sat down to de-
sign and develop the new Rigga CVR pattern! After all the Mugga,
in both its standard and extra strong ‘Conti’ forms, is probably
one of the most popular and successful hook patterns available
to carp anglers today, so trying to ‘better’ it was going to be more
than extremely difficult.
Instead of trying to better a pattern that we have complete faith
in, we decided to create the new profile around the critical design
features that we know make the Mugga stand out and work better
than other ‘run of the mill’ curve shanks also available to carp
anglers. To this end, we scrutinized the essential characteristics
that we know are pivotal in making it work.
Without a doubt, one of these is the shallow angle between the
alignment of the hooks exquisitely sharp straight point in relation
to the Mugga’s in-turned eye. Reducing the ‘angle of the drawer’
like this means that there is less resistance to the hook fully em-
bedding safely down to the bend, thus creating similar mechan-
ics to a beaked point and in-turned eye combination. Usually, if
this were done on a curve that doesn’t feature the additional fea-
ture of an in-turned eye the alignment would reduce the working
gape to virtually zero.
However, with the aggressive in-turned eye that is featured on
both the Mugga and now the Rigga CVR, the working gape can be
described as the distance from eye to point, as the fulcrum (the
flip point) is the eye itself. Subsequently, the mechanics are that
the hook twists aggressively so the point takes initial hold and
then the hook can pull straight in quickly and cleanly to give the
most reliable possible hook hold.
The shape and alignment of the point means these hooks also
excel as a barbless pattern, as the hook holds stay firmly in posi-
tion in a similar way to a beaked point – but with all the benefits
of a remarkable long tapered straight point taking hold at the ear-
liest possible opportunity.
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