Sliding sinkers
A sliding sinker has a hole through it or a swivel, and the line passes through. Because of that there is no rigid link between the weight and the fish: a fish taking the bait pulls line while the sinker stays lying on the bottom.
What it gives you on the bite
The fish feels no resistance at the first moment — and that first moment is exactly when a cautious fish drops the bait. So the sliding rig is used where the bite is soft and long rather than sharp.
There is a price too: the bite reaches your hand later, because the free travel of line through the sinker has to be taken up first.
The stop sets how much line runs free
Below the sinker goes a stop — a bead, a knot or a rubber shot. The distance from it to the hook is the length over which the fish can pull unhindered.
More free travel means less resistance and a later bite; less means the opposite. That is the direct lever, and it is the lever you adjust rather than the weight.
Why the bead
A bead goes between the sinker and the knot. Lead strikes the knot on every cast, and that is where line frays first — the bead takes the blow instead.
A detail that costs you a lost fish if skipped: the knot is the weakest link anyway, as set out under the fishing knot.
Where they win
Still water and cautious fish, bottom fishing with the bait on the deck, current fishing with the rig trotted down. Anywhere it matters that a fish takes and moves off without meeting the weight — unlike a fixed rig, where it meets it at once.
Sliding does not always mean free
Put a stop on either side and a sliding sinker becomes a fixed one. The type is set by the rig, not by the component: the same olivette works either way depending on what confines it.
So what you buy is not «sliding sinkers» but sinkers with a hole, and you decide at the water whether to leave them any travel.
What they do in current
The flow pushes on the line and the free travel stops being free: the line in the hole is under constant tension. In a strong current a sliding rig no longer works as a sliding one, and that has to be allowed for rather than hoped away.
What is in the subcategory
The principle itself — «What is a sliding sinker»: how it is made, how an olivette differs from an inline, and what to do when the line starts fraying in the hole.
