Balda

Balda is a sinker on a loop of leader with two loose hooks threaded onto that same loop above it. It has no action of its own, and body shape barely matters here: what catches fish isn't the metal but what the metal does to the bottom.

How it's built

A loop runs through a hole in a conical or teardrop sinker, and on that same loop, above the metal, sit two single hooks — threaded eye-first, points out. The hooks aren't fixed to anything: they slide freely on the loop and fall slower than the metal.

What happens on the bottom

The lure is lowered to the bottom and left to settle. A sharp lift tears the sinker off the ground and raises a cloud of silt. Then the metal falls faster than the hooks, hits bottom, and stops — and the hooks, carried by inertia, slide down the loop and fly out to the sides, staying inside the cloud. That instant is the whole reason the rig gets tied in the first place.

Why it doesn't work up in the water column

Without contact with the bottom, balda turns into a sinker with two empty hooks: no impact means no cloud. It's the only lure in this section that's tied to the bottom completely, and depth doesn't come into it at all: everything happens in the first few centimetres above the ground.

The bottom decides what you get

On silt and muddy clay the cloud is thick and lingers; on sand it's thinner and settles fast; on stone and hard clay there's barely any of it, and all that's left of balda is a tap. So the same lure looks different from one spot to the next, and the first lift is how you check it.

What gets limited on the loop

The sinker sits at the bottom and isn't going anywhere, but the hooks slide freely — and it's their travel that gets limited with a stopper or a bead, so they don't slide down onto the metal and merge into a single point. A hook pinned against the metal with tubing passes the tap through to the hand better; free travel on the loop gives more action — it's a call you make on the water.

What goes on the hooks

A bead, a piece of tubing, or a length of coloured tube on the shank — a visible target the fish aims for inside the cloud. They also slow the hook's fall and put time between it and the metal: the sinker settles first, then the hook.

Why the hooks tangle, and how to spot it

They're set with points facing opposite ways and given equal travel length. A twisted line or a loop that's too long pulls them together, and then balda works as one solid piece — which means it stops working. You check this on a stretched-out line: whether the hooks slide freely on the loop, whether they've caught on each other, whether the stopper sits where it was set. None of that shows underwater, so you check not just at the start but after every few dozen lifts.