levigsp

Hi I am an angler, although I fish mainly for carp. I have always sort out the best methods and equipment I can to angle as best I can. I will tell you the tail of the size 18 360 rig. You will know how many tench there are in most gravel pits being fished by arp anglers. You will also know most carp anglers use baits small enough for tench, yet very few actualy get caught. I was tempted by a shoal of huge tench living in a very large gravel pit in Berkshire, a pit that was fish every day by some of the best and famous carp and specimen anglers in the UK. Finding them and getting them to eat was simple, getting them hooked was almost impossible. I had three rods out on the bait and I tried EVERY trick in the book. My results were 2 fish 7&8.5lb on the mag aligner over 12 days and stacks of roach ,rudd etc. On a hunch I tried the little 360, the difference was unbeleavable to say the least, I got 9 fish between 6 and 11 lbs in 3 days!. Now I am not saying that the 360 is the be all of rigs, it is not, but in those conditions, there is nothing to come close. There are between 2&3 of these fish come out a year to other specimen anglers. People tell me that this and that rig work the same! rubbish, they do not come close. I have used the 360 for a long time and tested it under water against alsorts of other rigs. I was probably one of the very first to use the rig, by accident I might add. I was walking round a large gravel pit and happened on the rig on the deck, I picked it up examined it and for safety reasons put it in my pocket. I tried it in the margins with a bottom bait and then a popup, the following week I caught a 50 on it and I was hooked! I now beleave the rig was left on the bank by MR Lane.

Again quite easy Hit the first take and play the fish, when the second goes hit it lay the rod on the ground with the bail arm open. Then, get on your knees and pray to God, Alah, the Sun and the moon and any other god you can think of for your good fortune, TWO takes, I should be so lucky.

Hi I have found the heavier the hook and swivels arrangment are and the more bouyent the popup, the better the whole thing works. So use heavy gauge wire hooks etc and a shot directly below the swivel. The bouyant hook bait pulling against the hooking arrangment makes the swivel work. Two further things, although I have used the rig an awfull lot, I have still never found any mouth dammage And finaly, I am posting a couple of pictures, they are not meant to antagonise anyone in anyway but they were posted on this forum a few years ago. They are of the actual rig that landed my first 50. And for those interested here is a size 18 hooking arrangment and still no mouth dammage

As stated tape or string to hold things together for the cast.

I said this a very long time ago, as I refused to use leadcore, I was practicing the " Naked chod" as it seems to be known, whist most hadnt heard of it . I do not use a top bead, I have never found a reason to use one and I use the lightest leads possible and on small lakes I often use 1/2oz leads. I have been told by "experts"that it wont work!, well I must ONLY fish for suicidle carp.

Hi Lads, I know I am repeating an earlier post of mine, but due to Archie attacking my hands I realy struggle, not only with tying on popups but also putting baitstops in place on normal boilies. If my hands are bad I attach a bait band onto my rig [regardless of type], I then pull the stretched baitband through the boilie/popup/pellet. When the bait band is released it fills the whole and makes it water tight, so there is no worry on water ingress. It also means I can rebait the same rig very easily and quickly. I -pressume this is the same method as del on popups. And before someone suggests it! I have never lost a boilie on the cast.

About as good a discription as Ive seen. Perfect for any carp that swims and any bait.

Could I have the keys to your house please

Hi The hook should be pushed out following the entry route as close as possible. Barbed hooks tend to go in then not move and if pushed the opposite way cause less damage then trying to twist them etc as this only enlarges the entry and internal hole. The best way to achieve this is to either use a discorger pushed down the line to the bend of the hook and then keep pushing the opposite way to the entry. Or a pair of forceps on the bend of the hook and again push the opposite to entry. All but the most stubborn hooks will come out neatly like this. Big barbs sometimes stop the hook moving if embedded in cartilage and will take a bit more moving, hold the hook tight and give the back of the holding hand a sharp tap with your other hand If the point and barb go right through to the outside cut the hook in half with a pair of cutters Whilst I am at it I will try to explain the correct way to remove a barbed hook from ones own person. Imagine the hook is embedded deep in the end of you left index finger, Get a length of fishing line 60cm long; tie the two ends together so you have a continuos loop. Put the loop over the hook and slide it down until it sits on the bend of the hook, now trap the shank of the hook with you left hand thumb tightly against your index finger, With your right hand get hold of the loop of line and give it a quick sudden jerk or better still get someone else to do it. I was shown this way to remove hooks by the late Fred J and was again shown in hospital when I got a size 4 single embedded in my face. It works a treat and I have successfully removed barbed hooks as big as 8-00, painful but no long lasting problems. Frank

You might be right in some cases but far from all. Before I even try to fish a lake I try to get a detailed underwater substrate report, I then do a lot of leading with a 4oz-pear lead and 60 lb braid. By tying the two together I get a good idea of how the bigger carp will feed. That then tells me what type of rig I should be using. What a lot of people cannot get into their heads is a lot of different rig work in exactly the same way mechanically. What you are trying to do is find the method of feeding, then you choose one of the rigs that will present the bait in a fashion that will work mechanically on that feeding fish. The reason so many rigs have been invented is that people will always try and make a rig that will hook better/quicker than any other in the same situation. The person who sticks to one rig alone is the person denying themselves of valuable fish. Earlier this year I fished an estate lake. I fished running leads and the hook was knotless knotted with an aggressive hair on normal nylon line with bottom baits. I was catching fish like there was no tomorrow and there was no reason to change. But these were nave fish in turbid water. The following week I was on quite different water, an old very large gravel pit with a very low stock. If I had fished the same as the previous week I think I would have caught in the end by luck, but I do not think I would have caught what I did. I fished running leads again but the rig consisted of the much-maligned 360o rig attached to flouro and critically balanced snowmen. If you saw how the fish were hooked you would not have any doubts; to say the hooks were in is an understatement. There is another side to this. The selfish person inside of me says the less people think about these things and stick to their guns and use simple rigs, the better it is for the like of me. Frank

Quite simply really If you tie direct to the loop on your hair it’s easy the first cast, then when the loop is wet the floss bites into said loop and make life difficult. Tying to a ring eliminates this problem and also makes cutting the floss away easy. Frank

Hi approx 40 years of fishing the lead and I have NEVER foul hook a carp, no matter what the rig. I MUST be doing something wrong

I think it is exactly the opposite. There is a HUGE difference to highly pressured water and highly stocked water. These fish are educated because they have been under pressure at some time, so they realize hooks are dangerous. That is why they cleaned up all the bait and not his hook bait. One heavily stocked waters you can get the fish competing for food, as they need the feed as you rightly point out, so even if educated they are more likely to make a mistake. On EVERY unfished lake I have had fortune to fish, once feeding the fish would pickup literally any hook bait, no matter how crude. Please do not confuse pressure and stock. Frank

Do you have any pics of that? i don't quite understand how you can tie the d seperate? as its the knotless know that holds in place isn't it? Im a bit slow on these things though Dale Hi I have no photo ready but it is easy to understand with out. Get a length of stiff bristle and a hook. Forget the eye of the hook and treat it as a spade end, tie on the stiff bristle. Now the tag end[closest the bend] is threaded through a ring or micro swivel, then the eye of the hook, so forming the D. It is then blobed with a lighter to stop it coming back through the eye. The other end exiting the knot closest the eye is neatly cut of. Now you have a hook with a D rig ready to attach as you please. Or you can simply whip the bristle onto the shank of the hook with fine thread, either works. Or attach the bristle to the shank with aquasure

Hi, the did is tied using very stiff nylon/bristle, the braid is then tied to the hook with a polomar knot. Your second question is very valid in my eyes. In theory the carp sucks the bait up and the hook follows regardless of how it lands. In practice I do not believe it and I think the same as you that the carp sucks both in. If it is a fish that picks the bait up then it will feel that something is not right before the hook is anywhere near its mouth. If you saw how quickly carp could separate feed and stones you would have no doubt. Some would say I am the same as a lot of others and just frightened to use long hairs. When I first used hair rigs they were often 3-4 inches long, and fished on free running setups or freelined. Frank

Ive seen this diagram in a book fella, im now racking my brains to think of which one Frank, As regards to the 360. Ive heard nothing but bad points on this due to the hook, double hooking fish. I think its something to do with cos the angle that the swivel creates on the hook eye. Have you had any experience of this yourself? Now i do admit i dont know the ins and outs of this rig at all cos im not sure of what situation it would be needed in my fishing. Can you shed any light on this at all? Tony I this was discussed a couple of years ago and Ill say now what I think I said then. Dispite catching countless fish on the rig I have yeat to dammage the mouth on any fish. Regardless of how good a rig is, I would not use it if it hurt fish. I will add again that I only use it when I think it is what is needed, and that is normaly to target a certain fish. However I have caught small fish on it without double hooking. Frank

Some decent thought there Nick but I answered the question asked. Nick I did say I knew not all fish were suckers, meaning they do not suck and blow and that I had seen fish actually pick single baits up. When they feed like this, like Chub they are most definitely caught easier by baits as close to the hook as possible, but dependent on the bottom this cannot always be achieved with the same rig. That is the reason why Ill stick to a D Rig with soft braid for a bottom bait or a popup on a 360 or chod type setup. If I am fishing where carp feed by sucking and blowing then normal knotless knotted rigs will serve me as well as anyone. I know without shadow of doubt that on one of my target waters the bigger fish were constantly getting away with it. I tried various hair lengths, various length of hooklink bottom baits, balanced and popups etc. etc. and nothing not one single bleep. But all the boilies were gone after a very short time. A change to a 360, not only did I catch some fish but one was caught twice in three days, this taught me a lesson. Now the same could be true in reverse and you could on certain waters fish a 360 till the cows come home with out a tap. To me knowing what the substrate of a lake is made up off helps me know how the bigger residents are LIKELY to feed, this helps me decide how to fish. I have said this before and I will repeat it, the bigger the fish the more it eats and the more often it should be caught. If it is not being caught it is not being angled for correctly. Normally the bigger fish have been caught because they really have made a BIG mistake not because the angler has not. The angler should force the fish into making a mistake. Be cause of my circumstances I do not have the luxury of going for a quick day session or overnighter, I travel thousands of miles a year to target my chosen fish, if I wished to just fish to pass the time of day I would stay up here and go Salmon Fishing when I felt like it. I go angling to catch my target fish, I cannot help it is how I am. If I am not catching my target fish relatively quickly after I have it feeding, I know I am angling poorly and I will change things so I am angling well. Believe me, all of you, If I thought tying sixty four swivels two condoms and a packet of rice up in one rig was going to catch my target I would do it. Fortunately normally I do not need to go to those lengths. Yes there are places and days when a simple hair rigged bait, fastened to a heavy leader and even heavier lead will catch fish and catch thousands of fish to boot, but! I do not want to catch thousands of fish. I want to catch certain fish and these by their very nature are often the fish that pick a bait up and drop it almost straight away. One final thought for you all. Picture a table you’re sat at blind folded. On that table are ten apples and you are told to pick them up in turn. You would do so tentatively getting braver by the apple, but if there was a hook the size of the apple 8mm thick attached to one, you would without knowing why drop that apple. If on the other hand there were a ratrap placed under one you would not get the chance to drop the apple. We are setting that same table with mini apples for the carp their lips are our hands, out tentative approach from the blindfold is the same as theirs from being hooked in the past etc. And finally their rattrap is the 360 on the end of my line. Frank

I apologise if I read you wrong.

I agree with your thoughts. Frank

Tony you are right in what you say but! The question was about fish that pickup and drop strait away and that is all. And you should allow the person asking to do so without jumping down their throat and you should also allow other forum users to answer the question again without ridicule. After all most of the questions on here are hypothetical I have watched fish do this as said. I have tried various things to catch said fish and given my verdict, a truthful one. If I had fished for ten years for may target fish with a simple knotless knot I probably would have not caught it. If the question was what rig will catch the most fish, I would have said as simple a hair rig as possible., but that was not the question. Just my opinion. Frank

I have only ever watched one short video but I know your statement is incorrect. I have watched countless carp feed in clear water to realize that not all carp are suckers. I have seen carp, especially big carp swim into an area, home in on the food trail, and pick up a single boilie as soft as you like. I have also watched a big carp pick over a kilo of boilies up and bully every other fish out of the way, yet when it picked up the only one with a hook it dropped it instantly. There is no denying that most carp are suckers but not all, and for those that are not you definitely need a rig that instantly hooks. An absolutely brilliant rig that has caught so many big carp it's almost unbelievable. Having said that depending on the bottom the Chod or the short hooklink on a hinged stiff rig [given they are both the same] is an absolute belter. For bottom baits its got to be anything with a lot of movement in the hooklink but the bait on a D. One of the best I know of is a simple D rig, with a very soft braided hooklink, either direct to swivel or normally to a stiffish boom [combi]. Frank

Hardwick Hall is not far from Matlock ,slightly northwest without looking at a map. It contains some very old traditional looking carp.

Allestree is a public park, and come easter will have every tom dick and harry there. Lovely looking place and I fished it shortly after hatching Waters a lot closer to Matlock as well, why not try in RWs footsteps and fish Hardwick?

Hi all a few bits of information for you. The pool is nothing like 200 ft deep and to the best of my knowledge its deepest point is a little over twenty feet. The original fish were very long and lean fish and by 1978 they resembled wildies. The lake was stocked with King carp in the early 70s and by the mid 80s they were getting to reasonable sizes. There is a really strange stone monument there and often there would be druids in its vicinity. The lake used to be under private syndicate control and probably still is. I used to know a certain Charles Pool, who treated the place as his second home, however I have had no contact with him for over 20 years.

Yes, thats why I posted it