Carp Catchers Blog

The Solar Quick Change PVA Bag System is ideal for anglers who use PVA bags for the majority of their angling. The system will ensure you don’t lose the bag on the cast while improving casting distance and accuracy. The system is designed to be anti tangle and works with any inline lead.

For the purpose of this demonstration I used a Korda Flat Pear Inline Lead, Solar Contour Super Supple Rig Tubing and Korda Size 8 Ring Swivels  was used between the helicopter beads for the rig to be attached to.

Step 1.

Thread your mainline through your desired length of the Solar rig tubing.

Step 2.

Now thread 1 of the beads provided with the Solar PVA System onto the rig tubing followed by the Korda Ring Swivel followed by another bead. If you’re using mainline straight through there is silicone tubing provided for the beads to the grip. If you’re using leadcore then please ensure all beads can be pulled free of the leader to ensure the lead will be lost in the event of your line breaking. Tie or loop your hooklink to the ring swivel.

Step 3.

Now thread on one of the sleeves provided and push the tubing securely inside.

Step 4.

Then gently push the insert out of your choosen inline……

…..and thread it onto your mainline.

Step 5.

Tie a Figure Of Eight Loop Knot  in the end of your mainline and attach the Solar quick change PVA bag clip like so.

Step 6.

Now pull the lead over the clip followed by the sleeve and rig tubing. The finished setup should look like this.

All you have to do to attach a PVA bag is to pull the clip out of the bottom of the lead and hook a PVA bag on before pulling the clip back inside the lead. Then just thread the hook through the mesh of the bag and your ready to cast out.

This set up is particularly well suited to adding freebies with the Mag Aligner Rig and really comes into it’s own during the winter months.

Give it a go.

Tight lines

Dave

The Atomic Tackle Maggot Rig uses the inline lead setup fished helicopter style allowing a large PVA stocking of maggots to be tied to the swivel at the base of the lead. This enables the hook to be secured to the PVA stocking so once cast out the PVA bag will melt leaving your maggot hookbait lying in amongst the other maggots.

For the purpose of the demonstration I used a Gardner Readymade Mag Aligner Rig.

Step 1.

Pull out the large ring swivel from the base of the lead.

Step 2.

Now thread your mainline through the lead. ( If using leadcore or a leader, you will need to splice or loop the swivel on)

Step 3.

Tie your mainline to the swivel, I would suggest a palomar knot. To tie a palomar knot double over your mainline and pass it through the eye of your swivel.

Then tie an overhand knot with the doubled over mainline.

Now pass the swivel through the loop made by the overhand knot.

Then moisten the knot, slowly tighten it down and trim the tag end.

Step 4.

Once the knot is tied pull the swivel into the insert in the base of the lead.

Step 5.

Now you need to either tie your rig to the swivel above the lead. If the rig has a loop in the end pass the loop through the swivel before passing the hookend of the rig through the loop and tightening as I’ve done in this demonstration.

The finished rig should look like this.

The large ring at the base of the lead is for the PVA mesh bag to be tied to, then all you need to do is push the hook through the PVA mesh to secure it for casting.

Give it a go.

Dave

Its getting to that time of year again when maggots are becoming more widely used due to them being such an effective winter bait. Have a go at tying this rig and see how you get on.

The components used in this demonstration were the Korda IQ2 Xtra Soft Fluorocarbon , Korda Wide Gape  hook size 8 and  Korda Micro Rig Swivel.

Step 1.

After cutting your required length of fluorocarbon tie on a Korda Wide Gape using a knotless knot making sure to whip round the shank twice on the way back down to the eye. 

Step 2.

Now thread a micro rig swivel onto the tag end above the hook.

Step 3.

Then pass the tag end through the back of the eye to the front and trim the tag end down to about 3-4mm. This will have created a D shape on the back of the shank for the swivel to move on.

Step 4.

Holding the hooklength out of the way slowly blob the tag end with a lighter to secure it in place. Make sure not to burn the hooklink as this will damage the fluorocarbon and increase the chance of it breaking. Also take care not to burn yourself.

Step 5.

To finish the rig tie a figure of eight knot in the other end setting the desired length of rig you require and trim the tag end.

The finished rig should look like this.

This rig works best with a large bunch of maggots and a couple of imitation pop-up maggots to help counter the weight of the hook. This rig isn’t strictly a maggot rig and can be used with other baits as well. 

The knots used in this demonstration can be found in previous blogs by using the search bar on the top right hand side of the page.

Give it a go.

Tight Lines

Dave

We now have two new products from ESP and Drennan in stock. The NEW ESP Two Tone Striptease Hooklink  material is marginally thinner in diameter and more rigid than the original stripteaze. It is a tightly woven Dyneema core with a translucent polymer coating and has a specific gravity of 1.25 meaning it will lay flat on the lake bed without the need for additional weight. It comes on 20m spools of 15lb, 20lb and 25lb although ESP claim it obtained average higher breaking weights than stated with a carefully tied 5 turn Grinner knot.

The second product to arrive in the shop recently are the NEW  Drennan Buoyant Maggots . These are available in a mixture of shapes and sizes in Natural, Fluorescent or Bloodworm red colours. The range of size means they can have a diverse range of uses from popped up baits to critically balanced bottom baits. They can also be fishing in conjunction with other artificial or real baits as a bait cocktail. The maggots are pineapple flavour and have been dusted with food grade starch powder, although this flavour can be over-ridden with more concentrated flavours. These are a perfect little addition to your winter tactics. For more information or to purchase follow the above links.

Tight Lines

Dave

An update on the Carp Catchers Blog about the Mag Aligner Rig. It occurred to me that not everyone would want to or have the time to tie their own Mag Aligner Rig. Well help is at hand Gardner Tackle do a Readymade Mag Aligner Rig which is well tied and takes the hassle and uncertainty out of rig tying. For more information or to purchase follow the above link to the main site.

Best fishes,

John

Our customers have been catching so regularly, that I haven’t had time to do any blogs on my own fishing. I’ve still got plenty of customer catches to post, but I’ll do a quick blog about a recent session or I’ll fall too far behind. I fished hard right through the winter on my syndicate water with no success, but in fairness everybody struggled. I just had to be there to keep in touch with the water and in mid March persistence paid off. I had two mirror carp from a silty patch at 70yrds which weighed 26lb 8oz(photo-1) and 20lb 4oz (photo-2). They were both absolutely nailed(photo 3) on a new, really simple maggot rig I’ve developed. The hookholds were so good that I had to use long nosed pliers right up to the hilt to unhook the fish.  The mechanics of the rig I used over the winter were good, but it just looked too clumsy, so I rejigged it and at the first time of asking two fish, magic!! The components used to tie the rig are Rig Marole Hydro-Link Silt and size 10 Solar Stronghold Longshank Hooks . I’ll show you how to tie it soonish. Photo 3 shows that the fish were hooked with the bait going in, not on the way out, so I’ll probably do a blog about my thoughts on rig mechanics in the near future.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

 Notice no mouth damage.

Best fishes,

John

The Mag Aligner rig was first thought up by Harry Haskell if memory serves. But it was Rob Maylin that tweaked it to its’ present form and consequently published his devastating results whilst using the Mag Aligner Rig. The rig itself incorporates both artificial and real maggots into its design. It is the way the Mag Aligner is tied that gives it the edge over other maggot rigs. The Mag Aligner rig is best fished with a big pva bag of live maggots over a solid gravel bottom.

The rig components used in this demonstration consist of the Enterprise Mag Aligner Imitation Maggots,  Gardner Mugga  size 10 hooks and  Sufix Sheath Skin  hooklink. (See picture below)

Step 1.

Cut an 8 inch length of the Sheath Skin hooklink material and strip back enough coating to tie on your desired hook with a palomar knot leaving an inch of stripped hooklink material below the hook. Remember if you don’t strip enough coating off to begin with you can always strip a little more off after tying the hook on. (See picture below)

Step 2.

Now thread an artificial Mag Aligner maggot onto a thin needle, going in at a slight angle from the thick end first and coming out towards the top of the thin end on the same side. (See picture below)

Step 3.

Thread the artificial maggot onto you hooklink material and then up over the eye of the hook so the eye sits just inside the thick end of the artificial maggot. (See pictures below)

Step 4.

Now tie a figure of eight knot with the other end of the hooklink for fast hassle free rig changes. (See picture below)

Step 5.

To add the final touch to the rig before casting out add two live maggots to the hook. (See picture below)

This rig is best presented on a helicopter setup with a large pva mesh bag of live maggots tied to the lead and nick the hook through the bag making sure the point faces out so not to mask the hook point.

Tight Lines

Dave

The early period of 2009 proved to be a difficult time of year on the fishing front as I didn’t even manage to grace the banks at all due to being in the final year of my degree course, which meant a great deal of my time was taken up with studying and completing my dissertation. But luckily for me I had arranged to do my final work placement on the Cotswold Water Park at Watermark fisheries near Cirencester, this meant I would be working on the fishery during the day and fishing through the nights. I had handed in my dissertation the previous friday and was starting work at Watermark the following week, upon arrival I was told to take a walk around the smaller carp lake(Little Horseshoe) on the complex at 4.5 acres it holds around 450 carp into the 30s, to get an idea of where Id like to setup; after a walk round the pretty little lake it was off to work for the day. That evening I decided to set up in the swim between the Trout lake and Little horseshoe, this gave me the option of fishing to the island, the deep water directly in front of it and the various other features which this lake holds. The topography of the lake ranges from clear gravel areas to clay, silt and weed at a wide variety of depths, you are really spoilt for choice as to where to place your baits. The first night I choose to chuck them and chance them as the light was quickly fading and at least I could feel the leads down.

The following evening I got the marker out and found a few likely spots, one out to my right which was a big gravel area which rises from 12 feet to 11 and then up to 10 feet with an average depth of 13-14 feet all around it, the next spot was just of the edge of the island on the top of the marginal slope and the 3rd spot was out to my left towards to shallows which was a small gravel patch in the weed. During the first week I tried a range of baits and set ups to buy a bite but it wasn’t happening so after a trip to the local tackle shop for some maggots I came back with a fresh approach, the second night on the maggots produced a nice 15lb 4oz mirror. My maggot rig was tied D Rig style with Korda IQ Xtra Soft Fluorocarbon  with the maggots tied on with ESP baitfloss.After the 15lber fish I decided it was time for a move and after watching a lifeless lake for over a week I made the decision to move over to Bradleys which is a big pit at over 100 acres, with a lovely stock of old originals and stocked leney dinks there was a lot of beautiful fish to go for.

The first week on Bradleys was spent in a swim over on the far bank which produced a few good tench, a small pretty stocky and rather oddly a low double pike. I then moved over to one of the point swims on the village side of the pit for the remainder of my stay, the swim was pretty choked with weed and I stuggled to find any spots that felt worthy of a bait. So I came up with a plan, there was a reasonably firm patch of silkweed surrounded by canadian pondweed which I decided to stick two rods on although this at times turned out to be a bit of a nightmare due to the small size of the spot and the winds, which as you can imagine get very strong when taking a run up across such a big expanse of water. Over this spot I spodded around 1-2 kilo of  Dynamite Baits Frenzied Hempseed , crushed tigers, Atlantic Heat Boilies and pellet every night and a few spods in the morning before work and fished Atlantic Heat Boilies over the top which is what everyone seems to use when fishing Bradleys. I managed to picked up a couple of fish from other small spots using  Richworth Pineapple Hawaiian Pop Ups  on a withy pool and bottom baits on a line aligner the first couple of nights but then I started to see a bit of movement over the baited area, with the birds doing their job of clearing the spot while I worked during the day I finally managed a run off the spot which was another small stocked leney dink around 16lb. I managed another run that night but lost the fish, the spot then continued to produce a steady flow of fish including a few good tench to 7lb until it dried up a couple of days before my placement was over which was a bit of a relief as I was in serious need of a good nights sleep. So not a bad start to 2009 with no big’uns being landed but at least I know Im doing something right.

Tight Lines

Dave

Now that winters here many of you will be using maggots as bait. In this blog I’m going to show you how to tie a rig with the new improved Korda Maggot Clip . There is more than one rig that can be tied with the maggot clip and I will feature those in future blogs.

These are the components that I used to demonstrate this rig

Step 1

Cut a length of your desired hooklink material, in this case I am using Korda Hybrid Soft

Step 2

Strip off 4-5 inches of the coating

Step 3

Tie a small overhand loop in the stripped section

Step 4

Cut a length, 10mm approximately of the ESP Sink Rig Tube and thread it up towards the loop. The rig tube prevents the live maggots from wriggling around and masking your hookpoint, a little dodge thought up by Nigel Sharp I think.

Step 5

Thread the Korda Maggot Clip through the loop and push the rig tubing tight to the clip

Step 6

Thread the opposite end of the hooklink through the eye of the Atomic Claw  hook and whip the stripped section of the hybrid soft up to the rig tubing

Step 7

Thread the tag end of the hooklink through the eye of the hook again and pull to bed down the knot

Step 8

Tie the swivel at the other end of hooklink with a figure of eight loop knot

Step 9

Moisten both knots and pull tight to bed them down. I’m using the excellent Korda Pulla Tool in this shot.

Step 10

Thread on the required number of maggots. I was extremely suprised how easily the maggots went on, so Korda really have improved the sharpness of the clip.

The business end of the finished rig

The finished rig

Best fishes,

John