Tangling during a 3-Way :-)

Alright the subject may be tasteless, but I am at work and needed a
break before I dropped a monitor on my head and freed myself of this
hell. But I digress.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for keep a 3 way rig from
tangling. I purchased some long wire, and a wire forming tool, and that
seems to work for the most part, but I was just curious if anyone had
some method they use for keep a 3 way rig from tangling around the
baits. Those who come up to the NWC will get to see this rig I have
been using for Deep water smallies with very good success, but the issue
is I am down to much to make if optimal. It has also been serving up
Walleyes as well, but that is just a nice ancillary benefit :-).

My rig goes like this. I have a Rock Runner weight (like a bottom
walker weight with long wire to keep it out of the rocks), then to the
rock runner weight I attach my formed wire, which is formed into a V. On
the bottom part of the wire form I run a 20lb (very stiff ) leader to a
barrel swivel and then a fluoro leader from there to a hook. On the top
one , I run straight fluoro from the wire form, and slide on two walleye
spinner rig floats (little cylindrical floats), and then I use a fly
tying threader to pull a rubber band through the float hole so that I
can adjust how high my line floats. Once in the water, this seems to
keep the baits separated for the most part, but I was wondering that I
might be going through way too much rigging. The technique is killer,
and has taught me a lot about deep water structure, but that is for
another post.

I guess I just wanted to see how you guys handle this and get your opinions.

Thanks,

Chris

Chris I tried something like that technique a number of years ago
looking for deeper walleyes. I put a 3 way swivel like you see on wolf
river rigs above a rock runner and ran a floating rapala off of the tag
line. Even though I was after walleyes I caught lots of bass doing
that. If I engaged the reel just before the lure hit the water it
seemed to tangle a lot less although it still did occassionally. I
also did this same thing with walleye type spinner harnesses on windy
days by just letting it down and then feeding line out until it was
behind the boat. I would use a drift sock to control the speed of the
boat and just drift across deeper spots. Again i picked up a
surprising number of bass. I've since given up on this and just use a
drop shot rig in deeper water now. I have done some things like
replace the standard weight on the drop shot with a rock runner and
throw it way out and then just drag it back in slowly. I would be
interested to see what you came up with although for my style of
fishing the drop shot works good and it is simple and quick to rig.