Simply put, the more time your flies spend in the water, the more fish you are going to catch. When fishing subsurface, more often than not you want to be fishing deep which means you are going to have to sacrifice some flies to snags in order to catch fish. This is fine with me, if I’m not losing flies I am not trying hard enough, but what bugs me is when I have to waste valuable fishing time re-rigging. Whenever I can, I try to pre rig set ups and have them ready to go. There are multiple ways to do this and some companies even make products specifically designed to hold pre rigged set ups but in my opinion you can beat a simple roll of foam.
Go to a hardware store and get some circular foam designed to insulate pipes. The wider the diameter the better. Or another option is to get one of those foam pool noodle’s that you used to splash your little brother with. You can then cut them into smaller foot long segments. Securing the hook into the foam is the obvious way to attach one end but then you have to secure the tag end. For this I like to cut slits into the foam. I start wrapping the rig by the tag end after I secured it into the slit first. You then push the hook into the foam next to the slit. Another option is to take a single staple which can easily be pushed into the foam and hold the lose end of the rig. The staples can be removed and reused numerous times.
Whenever I break off a rig, I just unroll an already made one, tie a single blood knot (or you can attach with a swivel depending on the style of fishing you are doing) and you are ready to get your flies back in the water!
More Gear Tips:
Good post. Last August at AK West Greg Houska was floating us down river for Lobos. His stopping in the beginning of the float and pre-rigging a bunch of flesh and egg patterns was incredibly useful as we didn’t have to miss spots or lose position on the river when we snagged and broke off. It also allowed us (instead of the guide) to quickly re rig while he keep the boat in the lane so the other angler could keep fishing. Very useful!
He also used loop to loop connections so the re-rig took seconds instead of tying knots!