Effective rigs for thick weed.

[tancho321]

Hi All,

I have been fishing a large pit that has very thick weed on the bottom (silk and Canadian) which can be anything upto 2 foot long. There are plenty of 'lighter' patches which I have fished into as well as the odd hard patch. My question though is which rig do people favour when fishing into the weed? I have experimented with the choddy, KD, blowback and standard knot less with the hair coming off the bottom of the hook all with/without PVA bags (exc choddy) but I can't seem to settle on one I have confidence with.

Cheers

Tancho

[Guest Anonymous]

firstly i tend to keep my rigs simple! (on the whole of my fishing).

 

The chod rig with no leadcore leader in weed is a very good rig in my opinion, pending on how far you set your back bead up the line you can almost combat most weed situations.

 

I use the chod rig when fishing pop ups in weed most of the time but if im going for a bottom bait rig i tend to use a standard knotless knot set up nothing fancy, just good strong trusted effective end tackle. The lenghth of the rig depends on the density of the weed but im the sort of angler that uses longer than average hooklinks compared to other guys on the bank.

 

a little tip for weed fishing is to obviously use the lightest lead that you can get away with and a lead set up that will enable it to be detatched easily with no chance of it potential harming a fish in a snag. Another good tip is to use buoyant pva foam, this stuff is brilliant in weed fishing as it lays your rig on top of the weed perfectly....

[rossmc]

id kill for just 2 ft of weed, jammy git!

Light leads and long hook links is what ive found works best, but the trick to help the hook bait rest on to of the weed completely is to balance it out with a pop up tied on with pva.

Some areas of the lake I fish, the weed comes up to the surface, but if its sunny I try to find a spot where fish are passing over and place a bait on the top of the weed about 2ft off the surface, kind of like zig fishing but using the weed to your advantage.

 

if you can get away with it, clear out small patches and keep schtum about them, feed them as and when you can and it could open up your fishing alot more...

 

OR...

 

Do what half the folk on my lake do, get there, slam the car boot shut, stick a choddy on and give it the best pub chuck ya got, hopefullies crossing a few peoples lines and then go for a walk round the lake after setting your alarms to 300dB +

[tancho321]

I think some of your members must be members on our lake too! Will give the long chod a try. Have used the snowman with good results last year (up to 26lb 6oz) but the swims have been closed on that side for 2 months while they shift sand. Good thing is its made me explore other areas of the lake. Going this afternoon for 4 nights, fingers crossed.

[Guest keenook]

Good luck!

[tancho321]

Had a nightmare! 2 runs, 2 fish lost in the weed! All I had for 4 nights was a bream of about 8lb! Had people over my lines (not strictly their fault as they didn't realize I was there), had 3 grass snakes slither not 2 foot from my feet (scared stiff of the things!) but on the plus side I got good at Mahjong! Gonna give my tackle away if this continues.....then again!

[salokcinnodrog]

I used to fish a couple of weedy lakes, and my standard set-up was an inline Zipp shaped lead, with a braided hooklink (Merlin) to a size 6 hook. I used the same basic rig for pop-ups or bottom baits. Simple knotless knot to the hook and probably about 30cms long.

 

The inline lead was held in place tightly onto the hooklink swivel by a rubber tulip bead fitted into the bottom of the drilled out lead.

 

I know every lake is different, but I found that the shape of the inline lead, and weed would slide over the lead on the retrieve or when playing a fish, and I very rarely got weeded or jammed up. It should be an even safer arrangement with a break away lead.

 

(you can get double ring swivels, use one ring to attach rig, and one to attach mainline, then push the other end into base of lead, hold the line tight to the top of the lead with a tail rubber)

 

On the cast the whole lot was put in a PVA bag, free bait, hook and bait, rig and lead.

[tancho321]

I can see the logic behind the weed sliding over the inline, I guess due to the more streamlined shape? I am still learning (again!) so trying out the different setups and learning more about the lake will help long term.

 

Thanks for your time.

[boheleven]

Gonna give my tackle away if this continues.....then again!

 

All the more satifying when you nail it and land the lumps eh?

[tancho321]

Hope so! Back out next week for another 48 hr session

[lupouluke]

a nice long and light hook link that will just settle onto the weed. I wish my local only had 2 feet. it's right up on the top in some areas