That’s a good question! No I haven’t but you have to be careful when you close the eye to try to keep the circle shape to it as much as possible…as opposed to just mashing it closed.

JD, busting out the salmon plugs. Unfortunately I’m sure they are for Alaska I’m betting, I really really miss our local salmon fishery’s. Obviously the Central Valley rivers were amazing, and I’m 32 years old so I never even got to see them in their better days like I’m sure you did. But I did catch a bunch of fish out of the Feather and the Sacramento growing up. It was just so much fun. And then of course I had some epic, epic days on the rivers up north on the Border. First rain of the year and the first big bump in flows, after fishing 3 days in tidewater just smashing them on Bobber, eggs and sand shrimp. Most the fish were dark and had been sitting there waiting though on this particular trip, and then it happened. That afternoon it started raining and it never stopped until about 8-9 am. Launched in that Dirty, Tea (Tanic) colored water, but within about 1 hour the river started to clean up. And every run where a salmon could be, they were. If your plug could get down to the bottom before getting a leaf on the hook, you had better hold on and not set the hook. It was freaking amazing. Sure hope that my 2 year old son gets to experience that with his pop, like I did with mine. Not too sure though with how bad our state handles these amazing fish that call Californias Rivers home. Sorry for the rant JD, but that plug struck a cord deep in the heart. Thanks for the tip

No, you can ditch the split ring if you prefer!