Killer Rigs

[Guest]

Hello USA
I don't know about you, but whenever two or three carpers are gathered here together then does the talk turn to rigs. Now I'll stop here and make my apologies in advance - from time to time I dare say I shall be using terms that will be different from your own eg 'hooklengths' when you say 'leader' and so on. If I do, please don't hesitate to ask me what the hell I am talking about - I've searched in vain for a USA fishing glossary to help me avoid this but I've only found sites that refer to fly fishing ( or 'fluff flinging' as we call it ).Whatever - just in case, a 'rig' refers to the business end of your line ie the type of weight, hook, leader etc.

So, what's your 'killer rig'( as we say )? Personally the rig I use is the most common set up here, in other words a size 6 or smaller hook tied using the knotless knot with different length hairs for the bait to be fished hair-rig style, attached to a leader made of either braid, mono or flourocarbon line attached to the main line using a swivel. I usually use an 'inline lead' ( a lead weight that has the line running through a bore in the middle ). Most of the time I use braided 15 or 25lb line for the leader, with 15lb mainline.
So what works for you? Hair rigs or baits on the hook? Long or short leaders? ( I frequently use short 6 - 8 inch leaders )Heavy weights or no weights at all!!? Mono, flouro or braided leaders? Weights and types of leader and main line? ( I use Berkeley Ironsilk mainline and Suffix braid or Berkeley Vanish flouro for the leaders). Stiff leaders or flexible leaders?

Now I realise obviosly that there are as many ways of setting up a rig depending on circumstances, so I'll just suggest you tell me the one rig you would use for fishing on the bottom the most often.
Look forward to learning how you guys/gals do it USA style,
Cheers
Steve

Oh, and its raining here AGAIN!!!

[Aquaman01]

At least it's raining. I couldn't stand it when those leaden skies did nothing but block out the sun I craved.
I followed all the vocab. except "hair".
When I'm carp fishing in current I also us an in-line (slip) weight, from 1/4 egg to 3 oz. no-roll (flat egg), depending upon conditions. I use 50 lb. braid with 12 lb. equivalent mono diameter, and the same thing for the leader. The hooks I like are circle hooks in either true circle, or circle-style kahle hooks, but the kahles have straightened out on me before.
I've tried store-bought boilies and have found that Common Carp spend a lot of time just playing with it, but will suck up a 1/2 night crawler. The circle hook always always hooks in the lips - haven't returned a throat or gill bleeder to the water yet.
I have never carped in still water, just current.

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Aquaman
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Peace and Fishes

[Toad]

Ah, carp rigs-- glad you started this topic, Steve. Really, as you mentioned, every serious carp angler needs to know about the hair rig, including the "knotless" knot, which is probably the best way to tie a hair. Some of these ideas have been covered in the past on this forum. (At least I know we've discussed hair rigs before.) Either way, I think most of us will enjoy learning about many of the rigs and methods used by European carpers for decades.

Essentially, the hair rig consists of a loop or tag end of line that extends beyond the bend of the hook, to which baits such as boilies, maize, chick peas (garbonzos), etc. are affixed via a bait needle. So what we're talking about is bait that's attached to the line, rather than the hook. Curious indeed .

The first time you see the rig, you'll almost certainly be perplexed at its odd appearance, not to mention most skeptical about its ability to hook carp. But hook carp it does. So well, in fact, that, as Steve mentioned it's become the standard in European carp rigging. When carp breath food into their mouth to eat, it is often "chewed" with pharyngeal teeth in the fish's throat. A hair rig, then, perfectly matches this feeding behavior, as carp (particularly larger specimens) eventually may try to spit the bait out. When this occurs, the hook travels lightly across the carp's upper lip, at which point (hopefully), the angler has detected the strike and can set with the hook in perfect position to find flesh.

The only other thing I'd add for now is mention of something called a "bolt rig." This goes in sharp contrast to slip rigging, which allows carp to run on a free line, unencumbered by the sinker.

The bolt rig anchors the bait to bottom by using a 2 to 3-ounce (bell) sinker secured to the mainline with something like a 3-way swivel and dropper. Bolt rigging bases itself upon the fact that, when carp feel tension from the static rig, they "bolt" away, attempting to spit the bait. As the hair rigged hook slides along the inside of the carp's mouth, the heavy sinker "stops" the rig, planting the hook neatly into place. Talk about slick. Just make sure your rod is well-secured at the time, though, or you'll witness a strange phenomenon called the "rod-missle."

Thank the Europeans for all this fun!

-a friend,
Cory Schmidt

[MT Net]

This brings back the memories! As kids, we mainly fished ponds for carp. A simple split shot hook and corn nibblets, on freespool. No bobbers though, those are for the "kids", 5th graders don't use bobbers! We usually wrestled, or tried catching turtles, before we noticed a line moving out when we'd scramble for it. Fun!

Then, (many years later) we used a modified Lindy rig set up on the river. The idea was to let the carp take the line and let the line slide through a heavy sinker, and not detect tension. Even in the barge traffic, when the line would go upriver. A plain hook and corn or crawlers. Simple.

I like this idea of a hair rig, sounds like a better technique.

[Guest]

Spot on Cory - you describe hair rigs etc. better than I could ( I was dreading answering that one to be honest! )

Bolt rigs - we use two main set ups. The key to both is how the weight is attached. I use an inline lead, which has a plastic sleeve running through the centre. The swivel attaching the leader to the mainline is securely pushed into this sleeve ( although not so tight as to jam in there - the last thing you want if the mainline breaks is for a carp to be dragging a 3oz lead about. )This obviously enables the 'bolt effect' since the mainline is not running free through the lead.
A second set up involves using a plastic 'safety clip'. This is for attaching a swiveled 'bomb' style lead to the line. Its a short plastic sleeve with a clip on the side, into which is pushed the swivel. Now for this set up it is vital that the swivel is jammed in the sleeve. This is because the lead is attached to the clip on the side of the sleeve, and if a main line break occurs, or the lead gets jammed on a snag, the lead will pull off of the clip.
Interestingly in their excellent book 'Strategic Carp Fishing' Rob Hughes and Simon Crow ( 1996 World Champion carpers ) experimented on the effectiveness of hook penetration and bolt rigs. Broadly speaking, they found that it takes a good 30g ( soft mouth tissue) to 75g ( tough mouth tissue ) of pressure to effectively penetrate a barbless hook, and 100g to 170g of presure to pierce past the barb on a barbed hook, and for 130g to 295g to penetrate to the hook's bend! Given that they found the force to move a variety of 30z / 85g leads in different directions varied from 17g up to 75g you can see that bolt rigs may not be all they're cracked up to be, although of course they do work and these were lab style tests that couldn't allow for variables such as friction from the lake bed, the effetcs of striking etc. However striking may not be of much effect either at long range - another set of tests ( which I've managed to lose ) brought in to question the effect of monofilament line stretch at long range ( 70 yards plus )on striking. It concluded you'd have to put an awful lot more power into a strike than carp rods can deliver to negate the stretch and make any difference to hook penetration.
Finally ( and I apologise for going on at such length ) the length of your leader obviously makes a difference, which is why I use short leaders. I have found however that it can lead to less secure holds on the take and you sometimes have to play around with hook sizes and leader lengths to prevent this.
Sometimes all this does my head in!!
Right, time to take the video back to the rental store and take something for this headache I appear to have developed.
Cheers
Steve
p.s. if you want to try these bolt rig set ups its vital that you use the manufactured rigs that have been developed for this kind of fishing. NEVER attempt to acheive a bolt rig effect by securing the lead to the line by way of tying it on or any other method which means that the lead cannot come loose from the leader or mainline in the event of a mainline break or snag. This is what is known here as a 'Death Rig' for obvious reasons. If you can't get the rig equiment please let me know on this forum and I'll try to help. Korda, Fox and Nash are 3 manufacturers who make the necesary gear for safe bolt rig set ups.
[This message has been edited by englishsteve (edited 07-28-2003).]

[This message has been edited by englishsteve (edited 07-28-2003).]

[This message has been edited by englishsteve (edited 07-28-2003).]

[Toad]

Excellent points, and compelling information about bolt rigs, Steve. Enjoyed your post. (Certainly stretches the brain, trying to describe rigs without aid of illustration, doesn't it? )

Of particular interest was your emphasis on the so-called 'Death Rig.' Americans in some quarters use something called a breakaway rig, which is meant to place baits above extremely rocky/snaggy bottoms, especially in current. The rig incorporates a dropper line to sinker, which need be of lighter breakstrength than the mainline. Thus, a cast settles the sinker into the rocks, where it may hold permanently, yet when a fish strikes, the angler can break free of the sinker, while remaining fast to the fish. Kind of a ticklish subject in this day of lead bans and the like, but I digress . . .

So, sounds like your experience with bolts has led you to conclude that they're largely ineffective. In maybe a half dozen tries with the rig, my results have been so-so-- maybe 50% positive hookups. Perhaps a small circle hook-- something like a Mustad Circle Sea-- would greatly increase hookup percentage?

-a friend,
Cory

[This message has been edited by Toad (edited 07-28-2003).]

[Aquaman01]

Oh...okay. This sucking in and chewing back in the gullet explains a lot. I usually fish a tight line, and see the spool turn a little, maybe 12", and then sit still, then take more line at a steady draw. That initial pick-up must be the sampling period.

Thanks ya'll.

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Aquaman
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Peace and Fishes

[Guest]

Breakaway rigs - yep sometimes we use a similar set up, however the problem with them is that large sinkers tend to crack off ( break ) light lengths of line if you cast them with the force necesary to acheive the ranges we have to hit over here sometimes.
I have to confess I'm not a great fan of the clip systems here - they need some doctoring ( the clips need shortening usualy to allow the sinker to actualy come free ) and care when putting together, and I've seen too many people jam the whole set up together or use incorrect components that render the wholle set up either ineffective or dangerous ( or both). I'm gradually using a free running set up more, using a large bore ring to attach the sinker with a large bead above the swivel. The article I mentioned above about striking effectiveness also looked at how well different sinker set ups indicated bites. Surprisingly the fixed sinker set up such as bolt rigs fished on tight lines needed moving a considerably large distance ( as much as a yard ) before any indication came through to a bite alarm set up ( once again mono line stretch caused the main problem.) The best performing bite indication came with a free running sinker as I've described on a slack line, which only needed a few inches to a foot in line length's movement to set off an alarm.

Hooks - well mate, I have news for you here too. Recently I have become fully converted to using a 'line aligner' set up on my hair rigs. Back a few years ago it was the trend here to improve hook takes by using long, curved shank hooks which for obvious reasons the fish find hard to reject. However these became unpopular due to the damage a long shanked hook causes to the fish's mouth during capture and was even banned on waters as a result. We now use a line aligner set up which acheives the same effect, but safely.

To do this you need a good quality length of plastic heat-shrink tubing ( I use 1.6 mm tubing that shrinks down to 0.8mm - usually green coloured but black or clear will work just as well. ) Tie your hook to the leader using the knotless knot for the hair rig leaving the swivel end of the leader free. Cut off a 1.5cm length of tubing and use a needle to pierce a small hole about one third of the length down the tubing. Hold the hook horizontaly with the point facing down. Put the tubing on the tied hook over the eye about half the length of the tubing down over the knot leaving the end with hole in it off the hook. Use a splicing needle ( or ordinary needle ) and pull the line through the hole you made in the tubing ( which should be facing down on the same side as the point. )The line should now be running from the hook eye and down, out through the tubing. Now shrink the tubing ( I use steam from a kettle - please guys & gals use forceps to hold the hook and line - don't scald your fingers by holding them in the steam. ) Now you want the tubing to be pointing slightly down from the straight hook shank to create a bent hook effect - I usually bend the tubing so that it is almost in line with the hook point. It's best to hold the shrink tubing in position untill it has cooled or it will go straight. Also make sure the line is coming out of the tubing on the bottom ( same side as the hook point.)

Now why go through all this palaver? Well, boys and girls, it will increase the likelihood of the hook gaining a good hold because you have extended the length of the hook's shank, but the flexibility of the plastic means you don't damage the fish's mouth as you would were it a metal hook shank. Does it work? Well a few weeks ago I fished a heavily stocked pool with one line using a line aligner, and another without. Not only did the line aligned set up catch more fish, most of the fish were well hooked on the bottom or top lip so I suffered fewer lost fish - job done It does take a bit of practise and fiddling around to get right, but its well worth the effort ( well, I think so anyway !)

Happy rig tying - and mind those fingers
Steve

p.s. STILL *#$&£y raining !!!!!

[This message has been edited by englishsteve (edited 07-29-2003).]

[This message has been edited by englishsteve (edited 07-29-2003).]