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

Zig rigs or Zigs as they are more commonly called can be a very effective method of angling when the carp are up in the water and not interested in feeding on the bottom. Here is a Zig caught 25lb14oz mirror from last week that was caught 2ft under the surface in 12ft of water on a hot day when the carp could be seen sitting under the surface soaking up a bit of sunshine. The fish was caught using Drennan Super Specialist Barbel Hooks and a small artificial bait.

Tight Lines

Dave

After arriving at one of my lakes for a weekend session and finding it busy I made the choice to take a trip over to Welham lake. We arrived at Welham about 2am after picking up a mate from work to find it relatively empty for a weekend. We settled on a couple of swims at the bottom end of the lake away from the other anglers. The swim I choose gave me a nice margin spot, a far margin snag next to the lillies and an open water spot which had all produce for me back when I had fished there years before.

The rods did’nt go out till first light and I got my head down for a very much needed few hours sleep. After no action during the day except the usual bream I proceeded to place the rods back out on the spots for the evening with a handful of freebies over each rod. The left hand rod was waded along the margin and placed gently on top of the soft silt. The middle rod was cast to the far margin snag next to the lillies and the right hand rod was again placed on the open water spot.

The setup I was using consisted of Armaled LocJaw Safety Lead Clips and Armaled LocJaw Tail Rubbers with 3oz Korda Pear leads. A 7 inch length of Sufix Stiff Silt with 2 inchs stripped back, a Korda Wide Gape  hook size 8, a small piece of silicone tubing on the shank of the hook and an extended curved shank using Korda Shrink Tubing

At around 12 pm I had a run on the middle rod resulting in a 14lb mirror and after returning the fish to the water I recast the rod and got my head down. I was woken during the night again by the middle rod but this time a small bream was the culprit. The following morning the margin rod was fizzing and bubbling away and I knew another take was on the cards. About 10 minutes later it tore off and I was in again. This time the fish felt a little better and after a very hard fight with several big lunges for the bush I was fishing upto she was mine. A modest 17.5lb common carp was quickly weighed, pictured and returned.

Later that day I lost a good fish on a zig rig after spending an hour or so observing the fish and the route they were taking through my swim. The rod had been placed a few inches under the surface along a route the majority of the carp appeared to be taking.  After that I recieved no further action and packed up mid afternoon.

Although there were no big’uns , it was nice to get a bend in the rods.

Tight Lines

Dave

Tying a zig rig is simple, all you need is a good hooklink material like the Ultima Power Zig, a strong hook and a small section of silicone tubing.

The rig components used in this demonstration were Ultima Power Zig hooklink, ESP Big T Carp Hook and ESP Silicone Tube .

Step 1.

Cut the Ultima Power Zig to your desired length.

Step 2.

Now tie a small overhand loop in one end for your hair stop and thread on your desired choice of pop-up or foam followed by a bait stop.

Step 3.

Then cut a small section (2-3mm) of silicone tubing and thread it onto your zig hooklink.

Step 4.

Now thread the point of the hook through the silicone tubing heading towards the bait and set the hair length at about 2-3mm with the tubing sitting at the top of the shank.

Step 5.

Now tie a knotless knot and don’t forget to whip the hooklink back round the knot once on the way towards the eye to prevent it from slipping.

Step 6.

To finish the zig rig off tie a figure of eight knot at the other end.

The zig rig is now finished and ready to use.

If you are not sure about any of the knots use the Carp Catchers Blog search bar to navigate to the relevant knot

Tight lines

Dave

Gary and I fished the 2009 BCAC Qualifier at Farlows lake again this year. We got down on the Thursday and had a good look round, then had a nice social in the bar that evening. The next morning we were up at first light and after a cup of tea we scouted the lake again. We had a hearty breakfast in the onsite cafe and then the moment of truth the draw!! Gary and I were fortunate and came out second and got our second choice of swim. We were up against some stiff opposition, The O’Connors, Ian Russell, as well as last years winners, but we felt confident. Things started slowly in our swim but after spodding out 3 kilos of 18mm  Mainline Cell Freezer Boilies  I had a run at 9.30pm on a rod fished to an island gap. I managed to get the carp away from the snag, but half way in it kited to my left towards a gap in the islands. The carp had to be stopped so I held on and gave no line and unfortunately the hook pulled argggh!! Gary had a take that night and was cut off almost immediately. Next morning we found another snaggy spot and had a fish within an hour which weighed 18lb and some ounces.

Finally we were off the mark with a nice common carp. The take came to a combi link rig tied with Rigmaroles  Hydro-Link Silt  with two pieces of  Enterprise Pop-Up Sweetcorn  as a hookbait. In the afternoon we tried zig rigs on top of the gravel bars to no avail. We spodded out about another 6 kilos of bait for the coming night. We added some sweetcorn and  Carp Company Icelandic Red Cranberry & Caviar Freezer Boilies  to the spod mix.  At about 5.00pm I had another bite on the island rod which was cut off after about 20 seconds. Another cut off on the same rod about two hours later had Gary and I pulling our hair out. We both tied on the heaviest Nylon leaders we could (leadcore and braid leaders are banned) in an effort to combat the cut offs. Gary had one cut off and landed one carp that night which weighed 19lb plus so now we were in the running. Next morning saw us land another 18lb pluser, which put us well into contention. It was not to be though and at 12.00 the hooter sounded to end another BCAC qualifier. Had we landed any one of the fish we lost we would have qualified.

Best Fishes,

John

Regular customer Sean Bown had a session on pit 6 recently and had a very nice result. Sean has struggled on this difficult water but has kept at it. Persistence paid off and three nice commons of 17lb(2) and 19lb 12oz fell to Seans’ rods. Two of Seans’ commons fell to zig rigs with Gardner Black Zig Rig Foam as a hookbait. The other took a Baitcraft T1  bottom bait. Well done Sean, nice one.

Best fishes,

John

Now the weather has started to warm up the fish are moving up in the water and are often seen cruising in the surface layers, a lot of anglers choose not to go after them with floater gear as they have limited fishing time and wish to relax behind static rods, while others find it too frustrating. There is an alternative to surface fishing, the zig rig, that could well help you bank one of those cruising carp.

The zig rig is a statically fished suspended bait on an extra long hooklink. The most popular hooklink material for zigging and floater fishing is Drennan Double Strength .  

The use of zig rigs is a very productive tactic on days were the fish are up in the water but is a tactic that is normally overlooked due to the difficulty of setting them up and getting them out into the lake due to tangling. Tangling can be reduced by the use of soluble rig foam or better still a small mesh bag filled with floaters nicked onto the hook. Kordas’ Boilie Funnel Web PVA System  is particularly good for making small mesh bags and melts quickly with no residue.

Setting up a zig rig is easier than many anglers think, a simple lead clip will be more than enough in terms of a lead set up.  Firstly you need to find out the depth of the area you wish to fish. To decide these areas observe the carps patrol routes as they cruise just below the surface.

Once an area and its’ depth has been selected, the next step is to decide the depth under that water you wish to present your bait. As I said earlier this can be determined from observing the fish you’re targeting  and estimating how far below the surface they are. Now you have decided on the depth you wish to fish you need to tie your hooklink to the correct length. For example, if you have choosen to fish an area that is 8ft deep and the fish are cruising about a foot under the surface then you need to tie up a 7ft hooklink. Once you’ve tied up your hooklink you’re ready to go.

A few tips that might help with using zig rigs.

Lay the hooklink down on the ground or coil it round in the bottom of a bucket to cast the rigs out.

Coiling the hooklink up and tying it in a coil with pva tape can make casting easier. 

Try as many different colours baitwise as possible to determine the best colour to use, black foam works well as it stands out against a light sky. Gardner Tackle do a good range of  Zig Rig Foam  including black.

If the fish are up in the water try and observe what they are eating if anything, especially this time of year as there are a lot of fly hatches which will get the fish feeding on food items up in the water. Remember if there is a fly hatch happening and the fish are feeding use a small piece of dark foam, flies aren’t bright yellow!

I believe that colour is the key with zigs and not the flavour, you are trying to imitate natural food items or induce a take from a curious carp, you are not normally trying to get the carp feeding on free offerings. Although feeding free offerings can be a good tactic on heavily stocked waters. Spod a sloppy mix that doesn’t contain many free offerings over the top to bring carp into the swim and get them feeding up in the water where the zigs rigs have been placed. 

Hook choice can be a crucial factor. You need a strong, small, sharp hook that will sit at the optimum angle two patterns to try are the ESP Stiff Rigger , especially for pop ups or the ESP Big T Carp Hook  for foam. A size 10 or 8 should be sufficient.

Lead size is also crucial, use the lightest lead you can to achieve the distance you need. The reason for the light leads is so that you do not bump the fish off while playing it on a long hooklink

Give zig rigs a little thought and adapt them for your water, you could be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Tight Lines

Dave