There are many different ways to increase the weight of your weedless soft plastic lures (texas weights, chebs, weighted corkscrew hooks etc.). One feature that all these share is that you must unclip and/or unscrew the lure you are using in order to change the weight you are fishing with. However, the Sebile soft weight system appears to be an alternative that not only avoids this problem, but also comes with some very unique and interesting features of its own.
Savage Gear Craft Bleak rigged with the Sebile Soft System weights
The Sebile Soft Weight System is made up of a couple of EWG (Extra Wide Gape) hooks and a bunch of small cylindrical weights. The system comes in a range of sizes, but I have mostly been using the 3/0, 5/0 and 6/0. Although I believe the weights are designed to be used with EWG hooks, they work just as effectively with swimbait style corkscrew hooks.
Berkley Hollow Belly rigged on a BKK Titan Worm "swimbait" hook and Savage Gear Craft Bleak rigged on EWG hook
The weights themselves are made from a rubber compound which is mixed with tungsten powder. They can be slid on and off the hook easily, allowing you to change the weight of your lure without having to unscrew lures or change hooks.
A big advantage that these weights have other other alternatives is that they allow you to change the swimming depth of your lure in small increments. If you really wanted to, you could stack 6 or 7 on the hook shank. This would provide a lot of extra weight, and allow you to swim the lure deeper than many other weighted hooks could. The weights also grip the shank nicely, so you can space them how you like. This provides a lot of versatility, as where you place the weights will alter both the fall of the lure and its swimming action. Weights closer to the nose of the lure will result in a head first fall, and closer to the bend of the hook will cause the lure to fall more horizontally. Additional weights closer to the centre will increase the rolling action of the lure.
Sebile Soft Weight System on EWG hook
Another bonus of these weights is that they allow you to add weight too your standard EWG hooks as well as swimbait style hooks. Typically, it is only corkscrew-style weedless hooks that are also available in weighted variants. However, if you have a particular EWG hook you want to use with a specific lure, then you can still add weight by using this system.
Unfortunately, the Sebile Soft Weight System is actually discontinued - what a bummer! I do believe that there are alternatives on the market, but I have not tried any so far. I am going to give them a load of use over the next few months, and if they are anything like as good as I'm hoping they'll be, I will certainly be looking for an alternative!
