Modified Three Way Rig (aka River Rig)

The modified three way rig is a variation of the three way rig that I have already posted but involves much less tackle and less cutting and knots. This is also often referred to as a “river rig” but I call them a modified three way because many people also refer to a santee as a river rig.

If you have been reading  you know that I am all about using less tackle, simplifying things and doing things faster. The traditional three way method for rigging requires three separate pieces of leader line, four pieces of terminal tackle and seven knots. In this post I will show you how I cut this down to three pieces of tackle and four knots and greatly reduce the time it takes to retie or get ready to start fishing.

When I tie these catfish rig I work from my spool of line and don’t cut the line from the spool until I am finished tying my rig. I keep my leader inside a neoprene koozie like I mentioned in leader line trick. This is the best and least expensive way to keep it from getting tangled up.

Items Needed (you can get suggestions for all of these on the tackle page)

Leader

Hook Of Preference

Barrel Swivel

Weight (Sinker) of preference

The first step is to tie the weights to the leader.

Now measure how long you want your line to be from where your three way swivel would normally be to your weight, for this example I am going to make the line 2 feet long,

Hold your hand here on the line and then pull of a section of line the length of how long you want your leader to be from your mainline (what would normally be the length of line from the hook to the three way swivel).

Double this up and tie an overhand knot , and then tie another overhand knot on top of that and pull it very tight. Determine the length of line you want from the overhand knot you have tied and cut the line from the spool.

Tie a barrel swivel here where you cut your line.

Now go back to your leader that you made for your hook and insert this doubled leader through the eye and then pull the hook back through the leader.

Now your done and ready to start catfishing.

This is pretty unconventional and I get some strange looks when I tie this. There are a lot of naysayers out there that will say it will not work because it doesn’t have a 3 way swivel or for whatever reason because it does not fit into conventional molds. All I can say is that it works for me, it greatly reduces the time and tackle required and I have never broken one or the mainline or had this fail. I have caught catfish to 50 lbs on this rig consistently with no issues at all whatsoever.

If you want to keep tying all those knots and using all that tackle have at it. I will be catfishing while you are messing around in your tackle box and tying knots!

I know this might be difficult to understand from my directions so as usual I am going to walk you step by step through this with a video:

Update February 14, 2011: The video above was one the first I ever shot for this website and was really poor quality. I have provided a new whiteboard video on this catfish rig that goes into much further detail on setting this up and fishing with it. Watch below!

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