Whilst travelling in Ireland last year, I was passed a box full of readymade rigs to try. Now ready made rigs aren’t really my thing. As with many things angling, personal preference and confidence are most important and as I have tied my own rigs for over 30 years... that’s a habit that would be hard to break. Much of my angling quite often requires many variations and quick altering of a rig, and I don’t feel readymade rigs offer me the scope do this. But that’s just me.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with pre-made rigs. Many of these rigs are designed, tied and tested by top anglers and if they worked for them, they will work for you. That is if you’re using the right rig, at the right time, in the right place.

Martin Kennedy is a well known competitive angler from Ireland, and it is Martin’s knowledge of species and different attractors used whilst competition angling, which has influenced the Shamrock range of rigs. These aren’t just any old readymade rigs - these are ready made rigs, with attractors, and each is designed specifically to targeting certain species.

Shamrock Animal rigs have been designed for medium sized predatory species like tope, small conger, bull huss, rays, spur dogs and smooth hounds. Three 2/0 hooks are attached to 40Kg snoods and mainline. Crinkle ‘Muppet’ like skirts decorate each of the three hooks and after adding bait, can help to trigger bites.

Shamrock Animal rigs, ideal for medium predators

The mainstay of the Shamrock rig range revolves around the successful Hokkai rig – several dropper snoods, each containing a simple lure and hook like feathers. Take your pick from the range of Kilmore Killers, Rainbow Warriors, Cod Casper’s, Lumi Heads and Mardigra Rigs. Hook sizes vary throughout these rigs, as do the lures they carry, but all are constructed with a 30lb rig body and 25lbs snoods. These rigs were designed to catch small shoaling fish in a hurry – fish like mackerel, pollack, coalfish, cod and whiting. The green Kilmore Killers, which look like small sand eels, will work great for small, shoaling bass over sandbanks and in tidal races when worked above a small Jig.

Shamrock Hokkai Rigs

One thing I do use a lot of is feathers and the Shamrock range has plenty of these to experiment with. I particularly like small feathers – Sabiki type – I feel they catch more bait, both eel and mackerel and they do less damage when bait gets foul hooked. I also find certain feathers are better for certain species. The Bleeding Glow Worm rig is great for catching Launce and the Neon Lights rig is great for feathering up a few mackerel. All Shamrocks small feather rigs feature a 30lb rig body, 25lb snoods and size 1 hooks.

Shamrock Sabiki Rigs

In summary – whether you fish competitively and like rigs with gizmos and gadgets, fish often with Hokkai or cod feather type rigs or you want top quality feathers; built to work hard for bait... you will definitely find a use for Shamrock tackle’s ready-made rigs.

Shamrock has more end tackle products in the pipeline. For more information visit www.shamrocktackle.com

Shamrock Rigs and Accessories are distributed in the UK via High Octane Angling.