ripslider

Soggy porridge is a good groundbait, the stones will give the fish something to root around, to maybe feel safer? Camoflauge?? Not sure about the condensed milk though lots of fish and lots of waters can't deal with it. Steve

Having just read Tony Miles article about braided lines in this months Coarse Fisherman, I'm going to totally abandon the briad idea. I know he is talking about briad when it is many yard long, and we're talking about only a few inches, but it's enough to put me off. Will go back to hunting for a different rig material. Steve

Go to a tackle shop that sells sea fishing kit. Invest the princly sum of £1.25 on a packet of 5 Lead Lifts ( breakaway's are OK ) and superglue them to the stem of the feeder where you link the line to it. Problem sorted. Give the rig a wee bit of a yank when you start to move it and your winning every time.

If I'm not too bad at maths, the pressure that 0.06mm line will exert on on a carps mouth is about 5.5 times what .035mm line will, assumng that there is a centimetre of linbe in the mouth. I'll give it a go for now, but I will drop it the instant I see any damage. I have been mostly eel fishing lately, and they do have pretty soft mouths, and really grate against the line, and I have seen no damage. I have not seen any on a carp either. Steve

Apologies for bmnping this thread. I few months ago, I posted that I was looking for "the perfect hooklength" which was totally bouyant and acted unlike anyother hooklength. I think I've found it! A few weeks ago, I got hold of some Berkeley SpiderWire, which is a micro-braid. This stuff is as fine as 1lb line ( 0.06mm) but has a breaking strain of 20lb. ( I measure it at about 19.5). I got it for Pike fishing, but on playing with it, it turns out that, at current temp's, it is virtually neutral in bouyancy. It sinks fractionally, but is as close as damn it to perfect. Over the last few weeks, I have been using it on one of my two rods. The pick up rate has been almost double that of my nylon hooklengths ( and I use really good nylon, Matchwinner is like cotton rather than nylon it's that limp ). I think it's a combination of the fineness of the line and the way it moves, or doesn't move the bait in the water. Anywho, am hugely impressed, and this will almost certainly be my hooklength of choice for the next couple of seasons so I can give it a good go. If you have any lying around, definately give it a go. Steve

I agree with adam, free lining is best. If not for you, then add a pole float. I use either a (Middy??) carp no.5 in 0.5 gram if I'm casting, or a 0.1 gram wire stemmed float of fishing close in. Either way, it's just there as an indicator. Generally best to strike when you see the line move rather than the float. For bait, something heavy that's castable. Breadpaste is good. a whole, or a half, green lipped mussel is also good. For paste, something a bit smaller than a golf ball is what you want. Slugs are also good. a big ( BIG!! ) bunch or worms is also awesome if you nip the tails off each one. Try and get ten on a size two hook. My friend is using monster halibut pellets and is doing well. Steve

Adam, I think that the "tackle tart" image may not be as bad as some think, what I do think is that carping is seen as difficult, so people read and emulate what they read and see.Then they show others etc. Therefore, there would seem to be a core group of angling writers and broadcasters that are driving everything towards a single direction. That mean's if they are saying "you need a damn sexy bite alarm be within the slightest whisker of catching a fish" then this attitude cascades downwards to most other carpers. Trivial example: Everyone that I see fishing uses fast actioned rods of probably 3lb test. This is, I guess, becuase everyone else uses them. And sometimes this is the right tool for the job, but those times are very few and far better. Far better to use a rod actually designed for carp fishing, a stepped up avon rod, which in every way far out performs a fast actioned broom handle for everything but 80 yard plus casts with a mimimum of 4oz of lead. The curves and compression sequences of what are now called Barbel rods where specifically designed to handle long casts with big weights, while being able to apply power at range without bumping on the strike, and ensuring safety at the net. What are described as carp rods today are simply settped up thames roach rods of 50 years ago. They still use the same maths and compression calc's as they did back then to design them, they just make all the dimensions slightly bigger. So why isn't everyone using these? Lot's of reasons, but I figure that one of the major ones is "that's the type of rod that everyone uses for carping". Those idea's have to come from somewhere. I guess that paperclip hangers fall into the same catorgory. For line, I know that the current thinking is for everything to be nailed to the deck but I'm pretty against that. I think of it this way. Fish live in water, which is a different world to ours, so I need to try and think what happens in their world rather than what makes sense in mine. What there is in the carp world, on the bottom at least, is lots of long floaty elements. This could be trailing pieces of weed, old line that drifts around, bits of old bag etc. Therefore I guess carp will probably accept another floaty thing. What a carp won't, I think, accept, is, if it finds a trove of 50 baits, the one bait that moves differently to all the others. If you had 50 bowls of baked beans in front of you, and one of the dollops of beans was purple, which would you eat? What I'm looking for is a line which makes the least impact on the movement, or lack of it, on the bait as possible. I want something that makes the bait act as close to normal as possible. This will never be totally ossible, but, if by choosing a different line I can spook even one in 10 less fish, I'm a happy boy. That's why I want something totally nuetrally bouyant. That way it should be acting as little on the bait as possible, but at the same time will move in the water, if a carp comes near it or touches it, as close to everything else it has encountered with safety as possible. Does this make any sence? It's 3:20 am, insomnia is KILLING me and I feel like I've rambled all over my reply without actually coming anywhere near your question. Steve

Hello folks. I've been doing a bit more experimenting with simple rigs, and seeing if I can get them to be any better. All the testing I did was at a "big fish" commercial and at an old lake that has an overhang where I can watch what happens. I looked at the following things: Paternoster length Hooklength rig material Other stuff For paternoster length, I couldn't see much difference in reaction in anything over a foot. This seems to be about the height that baits move up and down with tail wash from feeding carp, and when they are doing a "blow" sort of feeding. Also, if they are bottom feeding, they start with their heads down, but I noticed that they don't FULLY right themselves, they stay head down even when moving, until they go from feed mood to movement mood. This means that they never right themselves move than a foot upwards. I tried longer paternosters, up to 4 foot, but it dodn't seem to make a noticable difference. Hook length I looked at length, and again, more than 1 foot didn't make a huge difference. This does mean that there is two foot of virtually free movement for the fish to make, which gives a lot of indications at the rod. Some of the guys who watched me fishing, who were used to fishing tight lines and heavy leads were asking me to hit a lot of these movements, as they weren't used to it, and I tried it a few times, but I just got lots of misses. Best to sit on your hands I guess. I also looked at material. Becuase I don't really want to get into adding swivels, extra knots etc to an already full rig, I stuck with nylon, but I did have a thought about this. At the moment, a lot of fishing is done with Short, stiff rigs, so I automatically wanted to fish as far away from this as I can. While it does have it's uses, I wanted movement in the rigs, and for them to act as naturally as possible. Something that I noticed when last out after chub was that the line I used sank really quickly ( it was Maxima ). This made me wonder if, when the line is on the deck, it will be effecting the bait, which would move naterally when there were big fishh around. I went looking in my odds and sods drawer for a line that was as close to neuterally bouyant as I could find. I tested in my pond. The best that I found, that was a LOT better than maxima, and my current line ( Diawa Match Winner ) was a line called Cenitam ( with a cheesy picture of bob nudd on it ) that came on the cover of a magazine. < This line is AWESOME for pole fishing by the way >. However, it has no stretch and it's in 6.5lb, so not right for big fish. Now I'm looking for something similar, but struggling. I will let you know if I get anything. I also played about with bite detection. The first thing I noticed is that on three occasions in the last two months or so, I've noticed, when I touch leger, "tremble bites". You should read Richard Walker for mor details of these, but he said that he only ever found them with Barbel. I struck on all three occassions, and hooked two, and landed one carp. This is a bit screwy, but maybe it means that carp have a fourth, barbel-like way of feeding???? I also made a new indicator for when touch legering is too much effort. Basically, cut the middle out of a paperclip, and your left with the loop around the outside. This can be easily clipped onto the line and taken off again. A piece of line with some shot on it counters any wind. This is light enough to use with freelining, and seems to fit well with loose rigs. Also free! Something I saw in CarpOLOGY and Total Carp was pictures of guys with free running rigs, but with their indicators on the floor. This doesn't seem a huge lot of use to me. if the carp moves towards the bank at all, the bite won't register. My thinking is that indicators should be half way betwen rod and floor, but interested what others think. What do you guys do? I've also started tying the lead to the line with PVA tape once the rig is made. The lead is tied up, with the lead towards the rod and not the lead. This makes casting a bit easier in tangly places, and it gives me that fraction extra confidence that that there are no tangles. After it's been out for a few minutes, drawing 6" of line back means that everthing is free-floating. Tight lines Steve

Why sad? Steve

It's right at the bottom, below the foriegn forums, and above non-carp banter section. As adam say's, keep it simple, there is little to loose and a lot to gain. Steve

What does a maggot clip do? Steve

Salok, I see what your saying, but I think that there are still times when it works. The Method springs to mind as a situation. I know that it's probably not tempted a huge number of monster carp, but many 100lb+ catches of carp none the less. At a specific time, in a specific place, it has a place. However, I totally agree that in 99% of cases it is not "better" and in fact, it is "worse", and the two don't nessecarily link to each other. Yes, I think that the paternoster rig will never become trendy becuase of the need to watch it carefully. And I think that if it did, we would be in a world of deep hooked carp and furious letters to carp talk saying how bad a rig it is in general. Adam, I haven't seen Episode III, but I'm guessing that the rig was not a long linked paternoster, it was to a striaght running lead or an in-line lead? If so, think back to what has been said about movement and bite detection. I think it comes down to this: A lead can can play two jobs in a rig. 1) Carry out a baited hook and make it sink in a specific place 2) Act as a point of resistance to cause a hooking. The ideal rig in all cases, for every fish, is to just have a hook and line. This means that they have maximum confidence in taking a bait and minimum resistance. For two, the ideal rig is a three pound weight attached to a 2" hooklength. (Actually, I've used three pound legers before... for char ) This rig is almost certain to hook every fish that takes a bait into it's mouth automatically. However, rig 2 will have a lot less fish actually take the bait. The idea behind the running paternoster is that we try to minimise to as great an extent as possible, theaction of the lead on the rig, and therefore make it as much like a free-lined rig as possible. Where as we have to pay attention to it, becuase the bait acts, we hope, a lot more naturally, the carp has no desire to reject the bait in the first place. We are simply using the lead to take the bait out to a specific place and reduce the effects of tow. We hope that everything else seems to be free lined. Sadly, there is no fishing for Steve over the weekend, due to very ill Ma's, but I will be putting in a few after work sessions, where I'll experiment and report back. If anyone else would like to experiment and come back to the thread with findings, that would be great as well. I plan to fish two rods in a single baited patch. First a running paternoster, second a short link/heavy lead. I will have the rigs maybe 20 foot apart over an even area of lake bed. Bait will be the same on both rigs, and I will feed the entire area with hemp, which should fall pretty evenly accross the area. Steve

I agree, which is why I use that rig for most of my carp fishing. But I don't just think it's becuase the carp "aren't expecting it", I think it would work just as well, in fact I know it does, with carp that haven't been hooked before. However, as I said, the rig, while being great at catching fish, isn't great for having a snooze next to. It does mean that there has to be a real strike every time that you have a fish on the line. If you just leave the bites to develop, in most cases the bait will simply be dropped. This is something that many in the carp world, I feel, will not trade off. It is also the reason I don't fish hugely long sessions. 36 hours is about as long as I can go and still concentrate on a float or bobbins. After that, I need to kip, so if I'm doing a long stint, I wind in and get my head down for a few hours, because I'm not going to wake up easily after that for a while. It's like I said on the distant days of the top of page two. There are times when the heavy, short linked shock/bolt rig is a better way of fishing. But I don't think there are a huge number of these times, times when it's BETTER than a flowing link. It works well for "tench" if they take the bait and then do the "move" part, but the flowing rig is good for that as well, along with all the other circumstances. Steve

Uni and grinner knots ( two variations on the same thing ) really are easy to tie when you get used to them. The grinner is the only knot that I've found I can tie in pitch black and still be able to tie it perfectly. I had HUGE troubles learning knots. The way I sorted it out was when my Grandad gave me a 14/0 Seamaster hook, and I learned using that and a piece of string. find a ring somewhere and practise with string, as it's much easier than mylon. Use thick string as well. When your ok with that, nylon becomes a lot more easy. Work deadlines mean I can't tonight, but I will get Missus Steve to take some pic's of me tying a grinner with a piece of string and I'll post them soon. Steve

Adam. I don't use hair rigs a great deal for carp. I don't see that they are a bad thing in any way, but again, I keep things simple until I have to. Pike, for example, I ALWAYS hair rig for. I think in order to work out hair rig lengths, we need to take a hair rig apart. Imagine a single bait on the bottom, a free offering. I use them rarely myself, so I may get the mechanic's slightly wrong, but I'll say a Boilie. A carp comes along, and, either via "tench", "pike" or "rudd" method, it takes it into it's mouth. It has no hands to hold a fork, so it must use suction to bring it past it's lips. Once there however, it will use it's tounge to move the bait from the front to the back of it's mouth. In all modes of feeding, it will regually pick up detritus of the bottom, like twigs, sticks, stones etc. It's tounge will move these to one place in it's mouth while moving the feed back. Once it has the bait at the back of it's mouth, if will chew with it's teeth ( please don't make me spell the proper word...) and swallow. It will them blow out any of the "bits" that it has accumulated. How lets look at a bait on a hair. Bait is picked up and is sucked in to the front of the mouth. The tounge then passed the bait backwards, while manovouring the rubbish. Carp have pretty large mouths. Measuring my own mouth just now, and making a guess about a twenty pound fish by scaling down, I would estimate about 2 1/2 inches. Also, having timed how long it took me to move a boiled sweet around my mouth, and then assuming it would be the slower for a carp becuase have have relatively smaller tounges compared to mouth size, I would say that it could take from 1.5 - 2 seconds to move a big bait this distance. So what happens. Bait is moved in, and pulls the hook with it. if we assume the fish hasn't ever seen a hook, it is likely that it will take the bait all the way to the back teeth. As it does so, it moves. The angler strikes, and fish is landed. A fish that has been hooked a few times is also takes in the bait. This time, it does so slightly slower, and knows to eject a hook. Bait comes in and moves backwards. The fish senses the hook with it's tounge ( I'm going to assume a carp's lips, like mine, probably aren't sensitive enough to detect the difference between a hook and a stick ), and blows to eject. As it blows, the hook is in front of the bait. The ejection will also cause a panic movement by the fish, a turn. The eject willbring the hook into a "hooking" position, and the turn will, if we use a short rig, cause a hooking. If the fish has been cuaght maybe twenty times, I'm going to guess it is even more careful. If it feels a hook like object, it will eject even quicker. So, for "fresh" carp, I would say the hair doesn't help, for "not fresh" carp, I would say a short hair, for maximum hooking, and for spooky carp, I would say that a long hair for any chance of hooking at all. However, I think there are a few tempering factors. The fish goes back to rule 3), which is that rig is the least important bit. A spooky carp, I would argue, is less likely to put a bait that is on a short stiff link in it's mouth than one that is looking at a bait on a long flowing link. With the line aligner, I guess it will, to some degree, help hook more fish than a knotless knot rig would, but a line aligner presents the bait oddly, is covered with plastic etc, so I would make a guess that the number of fish that take a bait that is on a line aligner would be less than on a different rig, but the number of "un-assisted" hook up's of those fish that did would be greater. Which rig is best? If we look at the line aligner, D-rig, knotless knot etc, in fact anywhere where the hair comes from the sproat of the hook, and imagine the mechanics, This is what I believe is happening. The bait is pulled in. At that moment, when the bait is moving the hook, the hair will take the straightest path to it's point of attachment on the hook.This will have the effect of moving the hook sideways on to the carp's mouth. I believe that this will increase the likelihood of it detecting the hook and eject. If the hair was tied to the BEND of the hook, it would pull the hook stright in, giving the smallest profile to the carp. I think that this would decrease the likelyhood of an eject for tat crucial 1 second or so. Hmm.. a re-read shows that this is nonsense. I have drawn a picture. Badly Drawn Picture My own method is that I use big baits which obscure the hook totally. Big lumps of bread or a ball of worms or three mussels. The the lips and tounge can't sense the bait then I hope that I can get a hooking. I haven't wriiten about the effects of line of hooking, and that's purely becuase I can't do anything about it. A hook has an eye at the top that I have to tie line to. I can't get around that one. I think a rig sits in between one of two extremes. The first is total confidence. a free-lined rig. The second is a totally self hooking rig. Rig One above for example. Most rigs trade off some of one trait to gain more of another. I believe, and to myself at least have proven through my own testing, that a total confidence rig leads to more potential takes, and so more actual fish on the bank. Others will disagree, but I'm happy with that statement. However, the way I fish means that I can't ever sleep next to the rods becuase I have to strike at every bite. That's something that I'm happy to do, but it doesn't suit others, so there needs to be a degree of Self hooking ability worked into the rigs. Again, it's back to the three rules of location, bait, and rig. The perfect hair rig is of no use at all if there are no fish to catch, or the bait moves, or doesn't move, in such a way that the fish won't take it into their mouths. Also, I fear that we could get caught up in the "forgetting 95% of angling" thing. Hair rig's aren't REALLY needed, Chris yates broke the record with no hair, which Hutchinson and Co where battering redmire with boilies and and hair-rigs. He put a bait in front of a fish. Steve

I guess it depends on how tight to the island. You should probably leave 95% of everything the same, but consider changing your leger to a flat lead, like are used in river fishing, if your VERY close, as the ground slopes upwards towards the surface. If your at extreme distance, get a copy of Sea Angler and order some Break-Away lead's, which will also allow you to fish up the slope, but not, but won't be pulled around at all by tow. Steve

Salok and Adam, I think I need to clarify a few of my own thinkings slightly. First, my original post was very much a generalisation. I am totally convinced that there is no right answer to rig's, I was just trying to split the two apart. Seondly, I think that where Salok was talking about PVA bag fishing, he thought about, but didn't say, the answer to his own question. Going back to Rule Two, Bait, which includes "getting the fish to feed" then you've done this at this point. Therefore, if you them match Rig to Bait/feeding, your on a winner but maybe with a few subtle modifications. Adam's question about the rejection with longer hooklengths I think I can give evidence for. As you know, I'm a huge fan of free-lining, and I always advise that the rod should be held. This is becuase, when free-lining, the carp generally give hugely confident takes. There is a lake about 10 miles from home that is generally very clear with the morning sun on it, and I try and test things that I'm thinking about here. I can sit on a high bank and watch the reactions of a few riggy carp under my feet. I have seen lots of times that, given sufficient free line, a carp will happily move 10 yards carrying a free-lined bait. However, if I introduce "stuff" to the rig, then that Time to reject falls away quickly. I can't explain this. I know that it happens with Chub, Eel's and Perch as well. They seem happy enough with a bait that is just attached to a line. I think the long hooklength allows for confidence, as everything moves a lot more naturally in the water in "tench", "pike" and "rudd situations. For the hooklength's I either use merlin when I'm really having to fight for takes, which I leave in cold black tea overnight then allow to dry, or more generally I use plain mono. However, the mono choice is important. Maxima is OK, but for me I feel it's very stiff, as is Soft Silk and Warrior, which I also tried. Now, I use Diawa Match Winner in 8lb, which is as limp as cotton. It really is incredible stuff. No memory at all. This I feel is acting as I want it to on the bottom. I could use braid all the time, but it's an extra "thing" that I would have to add to the rig, and generally I try and steer clear of that. I think the other major point in the paternoster is that fact that thing long rig gives more confidence, and works in more senario's, but the paternoster itself always for firstly much better bite indication, and secondly is mechanically very different, and when I'm chasing carp in hard water's "different" is what I want. With a soft 6" link between line and lead, everything moves very differently. Importantly, indications can be transmitted from the hook to the rod indicator ( I use my hands or bobbins, but same thing with optonic's ) without any movement through against the lead. This means that the fish can move the bait the length of the paternoster without creating any moment of force that it can sense. You can see this with an experiment: Three rods in a pod: Rod One: Short heavy rig Rod Two: Long hooklength to either running lead or in-line lead Rod 3: Long hooklength to a paternoster. Rod three will act very differently than you are used to. If you put down a large bed of feed across all three rods, then rods one and two will generally be silent apart from the odd bleep until you get a run. Rod three will chatter away nearly constantly, as every line bite, knock, pick up and drop, is transmitted to the indicator. I'll do a bet hat, other things being equal, rod one will get less bites than 2, and rod hree more than rod two. However, it's also aquestion of desire. Some people willnotwan theconsan chatter, bu for me, I like ha, becuaseit lets me know what's happening, where the fish are and more imporanly, where hey are not. The last thing I like about the paternoster is that the lead is hanging free. not only does his mean that weak links can be used for snaggy area's ( with long casts, I use the "pin rig" that sea anglers use, so U can cast alead wih a 2lb bottom 100 yards totally safely ) bu also the lead is no direcy on the line, which means hatit can not be used as a point of leverage against the carps tail if it tries to barrel roll. I see he paternoserandlong tail as"A good point to start" rather han he ultimae rig. irstlyit's "different" secondly i lets me know what's going on, and thirdly it gives me a lot more senario's thatcan be covered in a single rig and setup. from here, If I keep hitting a water, I'll tune it, but only if required. My general rig for open water is this: Line is 8lb Match winner, with a hook to suit the bait. ( this ranges from 12 to 1/0) 1 BB shot 18 inches from the hook. Run ring is rod ring from a flat rod with the legs cut off, so that I can use an SiC ring. Paternoster is 6" of 6lb line, to a 3/4 ounce lead. This is obviously tuned as required. If I'm getting a huge number of indications, and no solid runs, the length of the tail is increased until the runs start. Sometimes the tail is 4 foot. I generally extend in 6" intervals. If however, I'm geting runs which drop, I bring the hooklegth down in legth by three inches at a time. In deep weed, I'm going to legthen the paternoster. Also in silt. Some vasaline on the ring will let you know when your long enough. In practise, I cast and let the lead hit the deck. I then hold my rod so the tip is at shoulder level and wind in a single turn of my reel handle. On my F.s reel, this equates to 2 foot 3 ". This straightens then tail and paternoster. If I then drop the rod tip low, the slack line lets everything "relax" into what ever position it wants. Steve

Neilscatchin, I'm sorry if I sounded offensive or you took it to be. I didn't mean it to be but having read it back, it doesn't sound either correct or polite. Again apologies. I tried a shoe-lace knot with 6lb Diawa Match Winner. It broke at around 3 1/2 pounds three times in a row. Double shoe-lacve knot broke at about 3lb. knot strength of 55% or so, so not great. Polamar and Grinner broke at over 5lb with long tabs. The Polamar seems to handle having a shorter tab better. ( with a spring balance "over five" is as close as I could get ) Based on this, I figure the Polamar just as good as Grinner for mono, although I still worry about braid. Polamar is certainly eaier to tie with cold hands, and a very easy knot to learn. Therefore grovelling apologies to Neil for the words without first testing. Also to adam and othe Polamar fans. Grinner is as good, and does seem a neater knot. Becuae it's the one I an do with my eyes closed, and was jst as good, I'll stay with that. Steve

Thank the Lord, we're finally on a new page. How long did page Two get? My fault, sorry. Ok, this is an editted version of what I started writing in response to Rob and Salok's ( and also Neil's ) discussion about rigs. For a while now, I've been trying to take "rig" apart in my head, to see why I use them and what they actually do and how. this is my thought's on Carp rig's, but I start it with two caveats: 1) ALL rigs will catch carp at least some of the time. There is no right or wrong. 2) This is just about Carp. Barbel would be different, eels different again etc, So, let's look at rig's and see what can be changed, and why in this thread i've ( and commonhunter has ) discussed a rig that isn't used much at all in carping now. We know that "rig" is only the third essential thing that we need to catch our fish, but it is still important. Carp feed in three ways. They feed like tench, they feed like pike and they feed like rudd on a hot day. They are happy to switch between either mood. Tench feed with head down, tail up, hoovering the bottom, or sucking individual items, and sometimes attacking the bed to get to particles and morsels of food. This is when they are on full on "FEED!!!" mood. Interestngly, they also act like tench AFTER IT'S FED in that it's "head down" then " Head up, turn, move" before head down again. Pike feed differently. Pike attack things, we know this, but they also eat dead things. When a pike see's a dead thing, what it does is pretty cool. It will swim up to it, head slightly down, and BLOW. the dead thing is then pushed off the bottom. It then SUCKS and the dead thing is in it's mouth. It will either swallow, or blow again to reject. Pike are lazy sods. In general, carp will turn after a "suck". Rudd feed a third way. Chuck bread onto a lake on a hot day. The roach will nibble at it from below. But rudd are different. If they feel safe, they will swim really fast next to the bait, or swat it, or turn super quick next to it. This creates a vortex that pulls the bait under, it moves it. they then take it in those top few inches. Carp do this the other way around. If they are not in "FEED ME!!" mode, maybe they are on patrol, maybe they see something interesting they will swat their tails hard, and create a vortex that moves baits off the bottom a few inches, or swerve with their whole bodies. They will then turn and eat when the bait is rising/falling. Sometimes, they combine the Pike and Rudd actions together, and churn up the bottom, and then SUCK. Now let's compare two rigs. 1) 7 inch stiff fluro to in-line lead 2) running paternoster with a 2 foot tail The stiff link works really well for "tench" mode of feeding. Head down, suck in bait, then Head up, turn, move, then head down. At the point of "turn" then the rig does it's magic. If we consider that a twenty pound carp is what, say 30" in length, then it has at best a turning circle of 40". By the time the carp has moved more than 45 degree's, the stiff link has hook it. For "Pike" mode, the rig is poor. The "Suck" and "blow" doesn't happen naturally, as the lead anchors the bait down. This means the carp is a lot less likely to accept the bait. Sometimes it will, but not often For "Rudd" mode, again, the rig isn't great, becuase to gain movement in the bait, the carp would have to create a sufficient vortice to cause the lead itself to move. Again, possible, but not likely. On other thing that this rig allows is that the bait can move in a maximum of two dimensions. It can move left and right and backward/forwards. It's not great however at backwards/forwards. The running paternoster works QUITE well for "tench" mode. In the same 40" turning circle, it has hooked the fish at 110 degree's ( if we assume a 3 inch link between tail and running swivel ). This is still OK, the fish is hooked, but there has been slightly longer for a reject to happen. For "Pike" mode, the bait can move free and the long tail will allow very naural movement. The Paternoster is great for this feeding tactic. Again, the more natural approach will mean the carp either moves away, leading to a hooking, or will turn first, again a hooking In "rudd" mode, the bait can move naturally again, so we are also on a winner for the reasons above. If we look at the paternoster, we also see that it allows movement in THREE dimensions. It allows "up" and "down" as well as left/right" and "back/forward". However, the "back/orwards" movement is also drastically improved. So, Carp feed in three ways. The first rig, a common one it would seem, will work REALLY well for one one of the ways, but poorly and very poorly for the other two. The second rig is slightly less good in the first situation, but still effective. It's a huge degree better at the second two though. By using an un-trendy rig, we trade off a small amount of advantage in a specific situation for a much greater advantage in two others. Playing the odd's, it would seem likely that the paternoster will be more effective more of the time than the stiff link. It comes down to to what I said in another thread. Many of the rigs that are in use are refinements based on refinements, and, for very specific situations, are exceptional. However, what seems to have been forgotten is that these rigs ARE for specific situations. The reasoning behind them has been lost, leading to the super-specialised method being considered the be correct for most situations. So, why doesn't a running lead set up work just the same. Two reasons. Turning moments and "up/Down" Assume we have "tench" or "rudd" happening. The sequences goes Eat, Turn, Move. With a running lead directly on the line, as soon as "turn" happens, no matter how friction free the swivel ring in the lead is, a moment is created. Where there is a mement, there is a force exerted. The fish will ALWAYS feel resistance. As soon as this happens, the changes of a Reject happening are increased. Also, if we have "pike" or "rudd" there is no Up/Down movement if the fish wants to move the bait vertically, again leading to a higher chance of Rejects happening. With the paternoster, the link between the lead and the running swivel means firstly that there is no fixed point, until the line compeletly tightens, where there is a moment created. This means we have a reduced likelyhood of a drop. Also, if the bait wants to move vertically , it can do more easily. All rig's catch fish. But I say some do it better than others, and the rigs that a lot of experts say catch lots of fish I'm saying aren't as good as they say they are, which is bound to raise hackles or at least eye brows, and this I don't want to happen. But please have a think about what I'm saying. To me and the people I fish with, it seems a logical way of looking at things. It just seems to "click". A lot of it is more "yeah, that sounds kinda right" before we actually look at WHY it's right, but if your gut feel says it may make sence, then run with it. Have a look through some carping magazines and apply "tench" "pike" and "rudd" thinking to what you see. The running paternoster isn't perfect, but it's a good starting point to think about. I know what I've written is pretty long and is drifting into the realms of a-level maths, but I'm hoping that you'll see where I'm coming from. Let me know if there are bit's that don't make sense, or you want more detail on. Again, these are just my personal opinions. I THINK they're right, and they seem to stand up to evidence, but I could be totally wrong. I'd really like it if people pulled what I'm saying apart so I/we can see if it stands up well. Many thanks Steve

Bambini Hitch The Americam's call it a Bimini Hitch. Same thing. Tying it by hand is daft. Best to use two sticks in the ground, or two nails in a piece of wood. You can tie it a lot tighter, and "wiggle" it down with a needle around a hook, and I do for conger using braided wire, but for nylon it seems over-kill. Grinner is the best. There is a tucked grinner that can be tied, but also seems a waste of time. Steve

Wrong wrong wrong!!! The grinner knot ( or what some sea anglers call the Uni Knot ) is produces NO contriction. It is a jam knot, rather than a strangle knot. The Polamar IS a strangle knot, but one of the better ones. It's fine for thick mono, but for fine mono, say less than 8lb, or braid, it's lethal and best stayed away from. The grinner is the strongest knot for tying hooks etc. It has a knot strength of around 95% if tied correctly. The very best knot is the Bambini hitch, knot strength of 150 - 200%, but it takes 15 minutes to tie. And you need two sticks and a needle. The other major point about the grinner is that it's the only knot that is easy to tie in pitch darkness, when your night fishing, it's a must. To consider even thinking about using a shoe-lace knot seems crazy. However, I'll ggo and to some testing and post back later with results. Steve

I agree with most of what Rob says. A hair rig is a hair rig. I would say that adding shrink tubing probably doesn't increase the odds of a fish picking the bait up, and that something like the d-rig slashes the odd's drastically. Would anyone seriously use the d-ring rig for a chub? I just wrote one of my massive pieces discussing how rigs actually work, and how they can be improved, but my head is all over the place ( even more aful family news ...sigh ) so I cut and pasted it to word and will work on it and post it tommorrow when it is both shorter and less comprised of drivel. Suffice to say, we need a rig to catch a fish, and there are better and worse rigs to catch carp with. One of the very best is a hook and a line and that's it. But, again, THERE IS NO BEST ANYTHING. There is "better" and "worse" but no "best". (oh, that's a point. I thought of a way of free-lining a bait out 50 yards. Does anyone care, and if so, should I post it here or in another thread?) I would say that the carp is interested in getting it's dinner. The purpose of a rig is to make a carp think that Boilie A is the same as Boilie B and C, when it is actually attached to a hook. However, for the carp to eat any of boilies A, B or C, it has to firstly be next to them and secondly want to eat them. Only if those two items are completed then does rig start to matter. But, when Location and Bait are found, rig does START to matter. Will post "Steve's thoughts about how rigs work" tommorrow or friday when it is actually readable. Until then, a question. Imagine that Chap A was a keen angler who loves to catch eel's and carp, and he knew Chap B, who has a Doctorate in Chemistry. Chap A is also Ok with chemistry, and asks Chap B to help come up with a way of producing totally non-toxic live maggots that glow in the dark when a light is shone on them for a few minutes. Interesting? How much would you pay for a pint of them. for imaginations sake, they are White maggots that could be either green or yellow, but not red, becuase Chap A can't make red work and Chap A's girlfriend has put the kibosh on the mini-maggot farm used for testing. Do you think they would sell? Steve

Q's 1) Weed and other Aquatic life give off less oxygen during the cooler parts of the day, does this mean they will move from the shallows or stay for the food? I don't think that you can use temperture as a guide to disolved oxygen levels. Yes, temp definately is a cause of oxygen loss, but it is light that drives the photosynesis that creates some, but not all of the O2. Therefore, there will be more o2 being generated on a very bright cold day than a overcast warm day. Secondly, the biggest factor in a large body of water when it comes to o2 levels is the level of "chop" on the water cuased by wind, and also any rain that is happening. Both rain and chop disrupt the meniscus of the water and allow o2 to become trapped, disolve and circulate. This is why on a hot day, if a wind blows up, the fish will literally flock to any area that is seeing the highest levels of suface disruption. This could be the windward size of an island, the "blown" end of a lake, or a point where two wave patterns intersect, such as you would get at the edge of shallows down the edge side of the lake that is being blown ( think of two streams colliding, and what happens to the surface...) To commonhunter, and everyone else, I have a question about what commonhunter wrote. Why? Why a side hooked bait, a paternoster etc etc. I personally think they are the right answers, but I'm playing devils advocate and asking why you think they are. The fact that we have discussed them and agree they are good does not make them, in the specific case, right. remember, always, the two worlds of fishing advice, whicH I wrote about before. The first says "here is a way to catch fish". The second says "This is a way of thinking about how to work out the best way of catching a fish". This is the Advanced area, so I say be damned with the first way of advice, and lets stick with the second. That way everybody learns. Steve

Hmmm.... I bet that we can do it as a group, or at least get you close, sitting in front of our computers if we try. This is my ten penneth worth. ( Cookieguy, that's 24 cents to you at the moment....) We need to make some assumptions first, although Salok should correct these as required. We have a reservoir. Becuase, as you will have noticed i'm really bad at spelling, I'll just say Res from now on. 167 acres is a big piece of water. Too big to be a hole dug straight out of the ground. We assumed a small flooded valley.167 acres is too small for one of the massive res's that fill this country. At the bottom of the valley there is a large dam. Near the large dam, probably less than 100 yards away, there is a tower sticking up. The res needed to have been flooded at some point, we assume that a river was dammed to cause the res. Rivers in the UK tend, please note only tend, to flow from north to south. We therefore assume the dam is at the southern end and the shallows of the res are at the northern end. Standing on the dam looking up the res, we have the west on our left, and the east on our right. The res is longer than it is wide. Now the fish. Lets say that we have 50 fish. 5 30 lb fish and 25 20-odd pound fish. The rest are smaller. The res is also filled with roach, pike, perch, bream and eels. < Anyone who has less love of carp will be found catching 3lb perch on the fly very deep down by that tower next to the dam....> We need to catch the carp. We want a 30lb fish. We have to do the following. Find roughly where the fish are Narrow that "roughly" to as close to certain as you can present a bait to them do so in such a way as to land them. I'd do the following: It's now late june. We are in the warm, middle part, of the european summer monsoon ( yes, we really do have one ). in general, next week will be very wet, but for now, temps are high, we have plenty of cloud cover, and some wind. What do we know? On our res, we have deep water at one end that may well still be cool, or even cold, for another few weeks. However, at the shallower, northern end, the water will be warmer. We know that carp like warmer water, and that the stuff that the feed on also likes warmer water. However, like us, if they get too hot, they tend to eat less. The colder water at the dam end has been cold for a long time. It's also a lot deeper, and so contains less oxygen. We live in the western hemishpere, so the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. shallow water cools quicker than deep water, but it also warms faster. The sun starts by landing on the western side of the res at dawn. The last part of the res to lose light is the eastern side. What does this give us? Assume we are a carp at just before dawn. We are in the dead centre of the lake. As dawn breaks, we want to get warm. We move the the western side of the lake to warm up and feed. The water is going to warm faster at the northern end, so we move to the north west. as day goes on, we move from a feeding mood to a cruising mode. We stay in the northern half of the lake, but we are eating less, so there is less incentive to stay in very shallow, now hot water, so we retreat to where it's cooler, and we are now in deeper water neraer the middle. As the sun lowers over the magical 10 degree to the horizon mark, we become more prepared to feed at our peak rate, and so move again to the warmer, but now not hot, waters. This is now on the north easten end of the res. As night falls, the shallower waters cool quicker. We, the carp, move back to the middle, deeper area's of the lake. Now this seems to be a VERY generalised sort of patrol route. As the seasons change, the route will change, but you can see my reasoning? Note 2: Obviously everything does not work like clock work as I describe > This leads us to be thinking roughly where we want to be looking at what time of day. Wind however will play a massive factor in changing this. Salok, can you tell us the wind direction in general? Now let's look at the size of the fish. A 30lb fish will feed less often than one of 10lb, but that meal will be much larger. while still being a very active fish, he will be less lily to stray massive distances, as he needed far more energy to move a given distance than a small fish does. We can assume that his circluar trip is smaller than a 10lb fish. Immediately, we see why it's harder to catch a big fish than a small one. They have shorter feeding spells. However, during those feeding spells, they will eat a lot more. This lets us make a guess that a big fish is likly to be more easily fooled than a smaller fish once he has his head down and is wolfing food, as he has a desire to get more food eaten in a given time. Again, we need to think about season. Being mid/late june, the carp are finishing spawning. This implies that they will be more ready to feed. This could be in two ways. The first is that they will feed at the same rate for longer. The second is that they will eat more in the same feeding windows. I guess that it will be a bit of both, so they will be TRYING to eat more for longer. This lets us think that they are more likly to eat our bait. Something else that is season dependant, although also based on geology, is what they are eating nautarally. Is the res is a lime stone walled res, then it could well be that they are eating the buzzers still. On a silty bottom, in the shallows at least, there will be a lot of insect life. There will also be a lot of insect life on the surface. This gives us another clue about general carp behaviour. In shallow water in summer, there is a lot of natural food. It is likely that a nautral bait will do better than an artificial. However, turning the tables, in the depths of winter, boilies would seem to be a winner. This would seemed to be backed up by my own experience. Now let's look at everything together. We want to catch a 30lb carp. Mornings are colder tahn evenings, so lets say that we're going to fish in the evening, after work or school. We want to be where we think the fish are, so we get to the north east end of the res. We want to catch a big fish, after spawning, so we need to use a big bait, as the carp will have to expend less energy eating a large bait than many smaller baits, so if provided with a choice, the larger fish will accept a larger bait and it would seem like a natural bait would be best. But, we have other fish in the lake, especially eels, so we need to use a bait that won't catch them, or at least hinder them. A great big lump of bread paste seems a good idea. So to does 20 worms on a size 1/0 hook, or 30 on a size 3/0. That should be too big for our eels to swallow in one go, but be of no problem to the carp. Now we have a time, a rough idea of a place and a bait. And I have to wander off to look after the cat that is shouting at me for it's fourth dinner of the night, so I leave the rest for everyone else to fill in. You have a piece of water in front of you, maybe 10 acres now in practical size. The sun is in your face and you have maybe four hours to catch the fish. What thoughts need to be thought, experiments carried out, rigs need to be cast etc to find that massive carp? Steve

salokcinnodrog: Yes, realised in jest. Apologies if it seemed like I took it to heart. I know that this topic has veered massively off subject, which really isn't the done thing, but I'd like to make one more point, or re-make it. This last week I've been away fishing, following some pretty awful family news, so it was a clearing of the head session really. I fished at a big mixed complex, which had everything from match lakes to super sized specimin pools, and a brilliant strech of top class river next to it. I thought I would have a play with rigs, having been thinking about this thread. I tried various different bottom rigs, that I found in this months issues of Total Carp, CarpOlogy and Anglers Mail/Times. I also tried Cash's Maggot Method rig, and my own balanced bomb and paternoster rigs. I fished Flat float, pole float, and lift method. I used trout spoons and super sized dry flys. I also stret pegged ( basically float legering on a river ) dead baits. I free lined into the margins and to features. I caught at least one carp on every single method. The trout spoons was not intentional, I must admit, I was hoping for perch. I had 14 fish that weighed over 20lb, lots of doubles and many many singles. I came to the following conclusions: 1) Float fishing is more interesting 2) The less resisiance, the bolder the take 3) finding the fish is the hardest part 4) Getting them feeding is the next hardest 5) once you've found feeding carp, they really are quite easy to catch, there are a huge variety of ways to catch them. The lakes I was fishing are considered "hard", and the fish were termed "riggy". The bottom rigs, with the exception of the maggot method, were generally less good at catching than the other methods. I think this can be summed up by the fact that the fish would seem to be used to baits tethered tightly to a heavy object, or that float a few inches above the bottom. However, I think that the " potentials" to "captured" rate was better than with all other methods apart from free lining. Free lining was the most fun, but the most tense form of fishing. It's the least relaxing form. The most relaxing is legering a semi-fixed rig. Having the right kit helps. Certainly having a rod with lots of rings and a very through, avon like action, helps with float fishing and free lining. However, it's not required. The carp caught on the spinner was taken on 5lb line and a 7 foot lure rod and tiny reel. it weighted 14lb. To try and bring this back to the original question. There would seem to be no best, or definative way to catch carp. It also seems that rigs play very little part in the actual catching of the fish, complcated or otherwise. However, these were well stocked lakes ( although no stockings in the river ) and so on a hard water with 20 fish, other factors will be in play as well. Make from this what you will. Steve