Carp Catchers Blog

The daylight hours are slowly increasing and with that the temperatures are sure to start climbing soon too. Before long there will be an abundance of natural food swimming around in most lakes and the carp are sure to take full advantage of this and so should you. Spring has always been a good time of year to fish Zig rigs, although this method has only really been brought to light in recent years. For those of you who don’t understand the principle of Zig rigs, they are generally small bouyant hookbaits fished mid water to imitate a natural food source. The small hookbait could be anything from a small piece of foam or cork to a custom made imitation bug or fly and can be any colour or colour combination, although personally I favour yellow or a natural colour such as that of cork. There’s a wide range hookbaits made for Zig fishing, such as the Nash Zig Bugs, Avid Carp Zig Lites and Gardner Zig Rig Foam all of which provide you with a variety of hookbait options.

Zig rig hooklinks are usually light mono hooklinks tied up with something like Korda’s Kruiser Control Mono or Drennan Double Strength. The lighter the breaking strain or lower the diameter the better as a less obtrusive hooklink will get you more bites. The same rule applys to hooks as well, the smaller the hook the better. Although thick weed, snags and other obstacles need to be taken into consideration when choosing hooks and hooklinks as theres no point hooking fish if you are going to keep losing them. The Korda Mixa Hooks or the Drennan Super Specialist Barbel Hooks are both good examples of a good, strong zig hook.

The next thing to take a look at is your lead setup, I prefer a simple leadclip with no rig tubing or tail rubber to ensure the lead is dropped on the take. A large lead swinging around on a long hooklink is a recipe for disaster. Anti Tangle Sleeves such as those from Korda are also vital to help cut down on tangles. Some Pva Tape like Korda’s Woven PVA Tape will help secure the lead in place for the cast.

Once you have all the tackle required to tie up your zigs you need to get out on bank and give them a go. The depths you fish your zigs at is entirely upto you, although its worth varying the depths over your rods to cover as many depths as possible until you get a take and find the depth the fish are sitting at. The Gardner Rig Bin and Gardner Mini Rig Bin are ideal for preparing a range of zigs at home so they are ready to use when your on the bank, saving you having long lengths of mono all over your swim.

Here’s a nice Zig caught Mirror I had on a small piece of cork on a 10ft zig in 12ft of water.

Get out there and give them a try this spring.

Tight Lines

Dave

The advantages of this rig is that it provides all the anti eject properties of a normal fluorocarbon rig but the bait has a lot more movement to help with the flipping and hooking process. The soft hair material also allows the weight of the hook to come into play when the fish picks up the bait.

For this demonstration I used Korda IQ Fluorocarbon, a Korda Wide Gape Hook, a Korda Ring Swivel and ESP Hair Braid.

Step 1.

Remove about 4-5 inches of Hair Braid from the spool dispenser and tie a small overhand loop in one end.

Step 2.

Thread the tag end through the back of the eye of the Korda Wide Gape and hold the hair at the required length.

Step 3.

Moving away from the join in the eye whip round the hook shank 5 times and pass the tag end through the back of the eye again.

Step 4.

Now trim the hair braid in front of the eye, then repeat steps 2-3 with the Korda IQ Fluorocarbon but whip up the shank 7 times and twice on the way back down before passing the tag end through the back of the eye and tighten down gently. Then trim the fluorocarbon above the knot leaving just a little fluorocarbon pertruding.

Please note for the purpose of this knot demonstration the Knotless knot with the fluorocarbon was done without the hair braid already on the hook, when tying this rig you will be tying the fluorcarbon over the hair braid Knotless knot.

Step 5.

Using a palomar knot tie the fluorcarbon to the ring on the swivel setting the rig at your desired length making sure to moisten the knot and tighten down gently before trimming the tag end.

Double over the fluorocarbon at the end of the hooklength.

Now tie an over hand knot round the swivel with the doubled over section of fluorocarbon.

Then pass the swivel through the loop created with the fluorocarbon.

Moisten the knot and tighten down gently. Then trim the tag end.

The finished rig should look like this.

All the knots used in this demonstration can be found by using the search bar in the top right hand corner of the blog. The knot used for the hair braid and fluorocarbon at the hook end was a Knotless knot.

If you have been using fluorocarbon rigs but have been getting funny hookholds then this rig could be one solution to the problem.

Give it a go.

Tight Lines

Dave

The New Korda Chod-It Tool is a unique tool purposely designed to make tying chod and stiff rigs easier. It has been machine made with aluminium and a hard anodised coating. The Chod-It has several key features designed the make the perfect ‘D’ on stiff rigs and form perfect loops in boom sections while the special mushroom cap is ideal for tensioning ring swivels.

Get yourself a Korda Chod-It and make stiff rig tying a piece of cake.

Tight Lines

Dave

I did another overnighter recently at Elsons on the Stanwick Lakes Fisheries and had a result in the form of 5 fish. I turned up to find the lakes quieter than expected due to the bad weather and after a quick walk round I had found a few fish and decided to setup in the nearest swim. Three hinged stiff rigs with CC Moore Odyssey xxx corkball pop ups were soon cast out towards the showing fish followed by a light spread of Odyssey xxx freezer baits. I didn’t have to wait long for the first take which resulted in a 16lb 4oz Common, shortly after I landed a stunning 21lb 8oz Mirror which was the result of reeling in a rod and casting a single at the group of showing fish in the next swim. Through the night I had a further 2 takes including a 20lb 8oz Common and finished up with a 16lb 12oz Common and a 6lb Tench just before packing up.

Hows your spring fishing going? Send us any photos and catch reports to carp@carpcatchers.biz and we will add them to the blog and our facebook page.

Tight Lines

Dave

The New Rig Marole Bore Rings are an ingenius idea to make bait attachment, fast, simple and effective. No more searching for that lost baiting needle or dropping your last bait stop on the floor, you simply have to screw your bait into place. The Bore Rings are designed to be used with D-rigs, Chod rigs, Blowback rigs etc, basically any rig you would normally have a ring on the rig which your bait is attached to.

The Bore Rings are very versatile in the range of baits they can accomodate. The Bore Rings are ideal for anything from Boilies, Pop ups, Corkball pop ups, Pellets, Artificial Baits, Maize, Nuts and other hard particle baits.

The simple idea of the Bore Rings enables anglers to quickly change their baits without the need for baiting needles, bait stops, rig rings or bait floss.

The rig shown is one of many applications for the Bore Rings, they can even be used for zig rigs and surface fishing. These have been tried and tested, your bait will not come off on the cast.

Give ‘em a go! To purchase click on any of the above links.

Tight Lines

Dave

The Atomic Tackle Choppa Droppa is a safety helicopter lead system, offering a setup that can be fished in or around weed that will allow the lead to drop should it become snagged.

In this demonstration I used the Atomic Tackle Choppa Droppa Ready Rigs but Atomic do sell a Choppa Droppa Kit which enables you to use your own choice of leadcore or leader.

Step 1.

Pull the micro bore bead off the small leadcore link, then thread on your lead followed by the micro bore bead onto the small leadcore link.

Step 2.

Using a baiting needle pull the leadcore link through the Choppa Droppa clip.

Leadcore link pulled through.

Step 3.

Now tear a small piece off a PVA nugget and roll it between your fingers.

Step 4.

Push the PVA stop into the loop at the end of the small leadcore link and pull it tight against the clip. Attach a rig and the setup is now ready to cast out.

Tight Lines

Dave

The autumn period has to be one of my favourite times of year for fishing. The leaves are falling off the trees, a lot of anglers start to stay at home due to colder conditions and the fish get on the munch before the impending winter, as this recent capture of mine proves during a session on one of my syndicates. Its a fish known as the “Dumpy Mirror” and weighed in at 34lb exactly. The fish fell to a corkball pop up fished on a Chod Rig consisting of an ESP Stiff Rigger Hook, Gardner Tripwire and 9 ft of ESP Original Camo Leadcore. 

Get out there and bag an autumn whacker!

Tight lines

Dave

A recent trip to one of my syndicates saw me bank another 30lb common known as the ‘Elusive Common’ at 33lb 2oz. The fish fell to a corkball pop up fished on a Chod Rig consisting of an ESP Stiff Rigger Hook, Gardner Tripwire and 9 ft of ESP Original Camo Leadcore.

The fish was backed up with a small stocky and a lovely dark 25lb mirror.

Tight Lines

Dave

Here’s a handy little tip for getting really neat knots. Instead of using saliva to bed down knots use a dab of Lipsalve which is easily obtainable in chemists or supermarkets and comes in handy tackle box size containers. It will give you a much tighter knot with no line burns or pig tails.

Best Fishes,

John

Heres a nice common carp weighing in at 26lb 8oz. The fish fell to a snowman hookbait with a Solar Juicy Pineapple Fluoro pop-up topping the combination. I have had a lot of success this year using snowmans with bright fluoro pop-ups.  The rig was my usual Blowback Rig consisting of  Atomic Jel-E-Wyre  hooklink material and a Korda Wide Gape Hook in conjunction with a 3oz pear lead, ESP Bulk Spool Leadcore  in Original Camo and an Armaled Lead Clip.

Tight Lines

Dave