When we first started drone fishing, we did what most fishos do.
We bought drone fishing rigs online.
Some worked reasonably well, but it didn't take long to realise that many were little more than standard fishing rigs being sold as drone rigs. They hadn't really been designed around the additional demands of drone fishing.
Many were quite short, making them less stable when suspended beneath the drone during flight, while some used lighter-duty components than those required for the harsh surf conditions and powerful fish commonly encountered around Australia's coastline.
Drone fishing introduces challenges that conventional fishing rigs were never designed to deal with.
A rig needs to remain stable while suspended beneath the drone, carry the intended payload safely, deploy cleanly, fish naturally once it reaches the water and still have the strength to handle powerful Australian fish.
We quickly found ourselves modifying existing rigs, changing components and experimenting with different designs in an attempt to improve their performance.
Eventually we stopped modifying other people's rigs and started building our own.
We didn't set out to build a range of drone fishing rigs.
We set out to solve the problems we experienced while drone fishing.
That eventually became the Wiggle ya Worm Drone Fishing System.