Golden Paws

mark bryant rig Here is the video that shows the rig. I've used 15lb Korda IQ for years without any mishap but noticed that Mark uses 20lb. The Silicon Tube is 1.5mm and I use some from ESP. It really is a versatile rig and you can also adjust the length of the slip-D at will. Try the IQ again following the tips in the video and you shouldn't have any problems,

I've always been a fan of Combi's and saw the Mark Bryant rig and have been using it as it is so easy to change the hook or use a bait screw/small swivel/ring within seconds. He uses a piece of silicon tube that automatically kicks out when slid over the hook so there is no need to use shrink tube. By doing so, it locks the hook and make it difficult to change things at will.

Yes, that's the idea. A sloppy mix will stay in the upper layers for quite a while. Keep the area topped up every 5 to 10 minutes to let the fish know where to come.

Due to the interest of this subject, I've attached a photo of my dry zig mix. Tesco Porridge Oats cost £2.05 for a 2 kg bag and the ground mix is in the ice cream tub. I mix it with some Mainline Zig Soup which at £13.99 for a 4 kg bag is used more sparingly! I got the grinder off the net a while back and think I paid about £25 for it but should pay for itself reasonably quickly.

It can be a bit messy! I tend to have the bait bucket away from my gear so it doesn't get too splattered. I use a water bucket to wash my hands after every cast and just splash a fair bit over the reel as well.

I use some Mainline Zig Soup but bulk it out with some cheap porridge oats (Tesco) that I put through a grinder to make the particle size smaller and hang in the upper layers. I also use condensed milk with the lake water to make it nice and sloppy. I also normally add a few slices of bread to the mix and squeeze it to form a sloppy paste. The crust will float until it becomes saturated and will stay near the surface for that bit longer. I know some people advocate using sweetcorn and pellets in the mix but I can't understand the logic as they will drop through the water column far too quickly. OK if you are going to fish bottom baits on the spot after dark. You could mince the sweetcorn up with a food blender or Krusher and a yellow zig would probably be a good bet.

I don't use zigs very often but know that I should! If you want to learn, watch this Video that tells you all you need to know. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRS_SbTr9Zg&feature=youtu.be

All the time! Probably a bit OCD but like to have the bail at '12 O'Clock' and the line clip is then closest and the line follows the blank to the first eye which makes sense to me.

I got stung recently. A mate had some tackle to sell including a few rods and I put it on e bay for him as he doesn't have an account. Most of it sold and I went to the Post Office and they charged me more than some of them went for! I think it was about £15 an item and some were relatively small sea boat rods. Since they changed things a few years ago by charging more for size than weigh, they are very expensive and can understand which personal collection is more appealing to a seller. I believe there are parcel companies that are cheaper but at the time I didn't realise and when you are in the queue at the counter, you just pay up and seeth later.

I use a back to back grinner. 4 loops for the flouro and 5 for the mono.

Done.

I use the same rod for marker and spod/spombing. https://www.carpfeed.com/fishing-advice/how-to/carp-hack-the-two-loop-trick Tying this knot makes it easy to switch between the two without have to reconfigure every time. I also use some sea fishing size American Clips to attach the spod/spomb as it makes it easier than fiddling around with the smaller diameters of the baiting devices.

I use the Albright Knot for my favoured Combi rigs and they have never let me down. I do prefer the Mahin for Shock Leaders though as it is more streamlined and tapered.

Go for the 50 which is what I use. You only need about 30 foot on so it's not going to hinder casting and you've got that safety margin when 'giving it some welly' with a long chuck or casting heavy spods. Attach it with a Mahin knot ( link ) which is sometimes known as a Carrot Knot as it tapers really well and goes through the rings with barely a whisper.

Agreed Dave. My Xmas present arrived early December and my missus let me have it early (oooh, matron!) and I finished it in a couple of weeks by reading a couple of hours every night. Tremondous book and can't rate it highly enough. Wonderful 'fireside reading' that you can dip in and out of any Chapter as it isn't connected. It isn't all fishing as some of it is part autobiographical but still enjoybale to read. https://calmproductions.com/rolling-in-the-deep Not the cheapest book at £35 but it is a monster read. The formatting of the book is different to any other fishing book I've read before and the diary pieces included add to the feel of it. Virtually every Carp book on the market has the standard 'man and big fish' front cover but this isn't and that emphasises that it doesn't conform to what you might have read before.

I've not used that brand but most have caught hundreds of barbel on various makes of Luncheon Meat over the years. After a while they do wise up to the 'pink cube' and I caught most of mine by cutting into 6 fingers and then smearing with Tandoori paste with some extra garlic granules added for that extra kick, That also changes the colour, making it darker and less conspicuous. Cook in a frying pan on a low heat whilst turning on each side. Allow to cool and then add to a freezer bag and freeze and the flavour really 'sucks in' to the meat. Alternatively, you can cut the meat up and add a powdered flavour (any curry powder) to a polythene bag and allow it to take on the flavour. I've caught some very good barbel and chub on plain meat using a quarter of a tin. You feel pretty stupid casting it out and for the first time you begin to doubt it will work but trust me, it does. Rather than using a boilie stop, I use a piece of grass stalk about an inch long to hold it if using a hair rig as it does go soft, especially in the summer. Most of the time I buried the hook in the bait as I was touch ledgering. If convential Carp Fishing, I would use a running lead, especially if using really large pieces as they do need a bit of time to pick up the bait and gulp it down, almost similar to pike fishing and letting the fish take line and striking a few seconds later.

Unfortunately the baliff on my club water is a miserable old git who likes to chuck his weight around because he's 'got a badge'. Didn't like it though when I reported him to the Committee for breaking the rules he was supposed to uphold! So to put it on head a bit, the baliff's I hate are the one's who think that they are there to impose themselves when most people want want a quiet relaxing day's fishing. He's also pretty rude, "Ticket?" is his standard greeting. To be fair, most of the others I've met have been courteous and polite and engage in a bit of small talk and they are off on their way with minimal fuss. On another day ticket water I fished (once!) they employed 2 young idiots who thought they were in the Sweeny. They used to screech up in the car park and one would go one way and the other the opposite which was pretty comical, I never returned as I just don't need that kind of aggravation.

Yes, I've been using the Gardener GT-HD for the last few months and pretty impressed with it. Pretty supple, casts fairly well and sinks OK. For £20 for 1000 metres, you can easily spool 3 reels and afford to change it the following year.

Any mono or copolymer line will degrade in sunlight and so 2 or 3 years is pushing it. I always store my lines in an air tight biscuit tin to keep them safe. A year on one line is probably pushing it for safety. If you did want a line for that long then braid is your only option.

For everything you need to know about zig fishing, watch this.

Yes Kev, I'm being to doubt my reasoning for doing it, hence why I've started this thread. We do get 'done' far more than we realise, the underwater films sometime make me wonder how we ever catch them at all! I try to tip all the odds in my favour, good bait, sharp hook, resetting rigs (noramally combi's), fluorocarbon leader and slackish line but still get a lot of 'twitches and pulls' that I'm sure are fish mouthing and rejecting the bait. Most of my fishing in the warmer months is based around spodding fairly large quantities of hemp/mixed seeds/sweetcorn and fishing either a boilie or fake corn over the top. I can see that creating that competitive feeding zone in a small area can lead to that rather than using a throwing stick to put 100 boilies over the area of a tennis court to encourage 'browsing and moving' feeding to hopefully convert more pick up's into runs. Most of my fishing is on a local club lake that is day fishing only that is fairly prolific and it is noticable that I can almost 'buy' a bite by regularly spodding to freshen up the area, I've even caught when spodding over the top and that includes sloppy casts that create a huge splash. I've also fished larger waters like B1 on Linear where Spodding/Spombing seems to be the norm, the classic 'OX29 fishing' as it's more commonly known. My mine quandry is that I want to be sure that I have some bait in the swim to attract and hold the fish but also to be confident that the carp can feed in realitive peace and not spook. So, let's say I'm fishing B1 and have had a quiet night. I've not had a bite all night and it's now an hour past dawn. Would you spod now or leave it and how much longer?

When fishing overnighters, I never sleep very well and am usually rousing before first light, even around the shortest day. To capitalise on that, I used to recheck my rigs and put on fresh bait and spod over the top so that the fish should find the new bait. I also reckoned that if I didn't have a bite during the night, it was probably because I had been 'done' and the fish had already eaten the loose feed! Been doing that for a few years and thought it was my 'little edge', although I can't seem to recall any spectacular hits to back that up. Recently someone commented in an article that 'those who bait up at dawn ought to have their dangly bits removed!' That made me think a bit. So, what is the concensus, am I ruining it for myself (and others fishing the lake) or is it worth doing? Obviously if I did start catching first thing, I would probably add more bait after each fish to hold them.

I tend to agree with Harpz_31, I recheck my rigs and baits every few hours. I normally fish combi rigs so tangling isn't the problem but the amount of times I've reeled in to find a large 'blob' of weed on the hook totally ruining the presentaion and hooking potential always plays on my mind and my local lake is pretty weed free. I used to tie on my cork ball pop ups with dental floss but the amount of times I reeled in a bare hook was getting beyond a joke so gone back to shop bought pop ups and either use a bait screw or pull the floss through and also double secure it with a bait stop. Probably a bit paranoid but rather be safe then sorry.