Combat the crays

[nigewoodcock]

As a few of you are aware, a couple of us will be on Churn pool at the weekend. The place is infested with cray fish and as I'm sat at home tying up the rig I feel will combat them, I was wondering what the rest of you would do.

 

I want to fish a bottom bait, which will be meshed and hardened. It's more the actual rig that I'm talking about. So that's the only constraint, a bottom bait rig.

What would you want it to do? How would you like it to behave? What characteristics would you want in the rig?

 

I have taken pictures of what I have decided on and will post up either before I leave or when I get back. I will expand on why I tied it and why I used the materials I did when I post up the pics.

 

Fire away.......

[androoooo]

Will certainly be interested to see what you decide to go with.

 

I do fish a water that is infested with crays and it does mean sacrificing aspects that I like in a rig. I'm a big fan of combis usually with a short supple braid section tied to a soft fluoro. I like the rigidity of the fluoro with more natural movement near the hook.

 

If I'm fishing for a length of time on the bottom I.e. without constant re-casting I'll tie a straight through mono or more typically soft fluoro hook link.

 

I want to prevent the crays from tangling braid and the rig to present even after interference. So some form of rigidity is required so that it resets, it does mean doing away with the natural movement near the hook. I tend to top with plastic corn and will cut a groove to better bury the boilie stop to prevent it being pulled out. This usually means adding some weight to the hooklink so if the boilie is removed your fishing a popup instead but avoid putty preferring split shot as the crays seem to like the putty. Most of the time though I'll avoid boilies and fish a tiger with the boilie stop buried inside.

 

I'll just tie simple knotless knot style. Nothing fancy but then none of my rigs are overcomplicated.

 

Having thought about my rigs, the only other one I use is the multirig and I would consider this and may try it with the d section pulled tight and a supple hair attached to the rig ring and a small break in the coating to allow the movement I like, whilst retaining the all important rigidness and resetting properties I would want. Next time I'm out on the water, I'll be trying this.

[willi4692]

To combat crays I either use a heavily glugged hookbait that has hardened the bait or I use plastic. Korda's extender stops are quite useful as well, it helps to prevent the little devils pulling the stop out. The rig is usually a semi stiff mono or flurocarbon, something that is too supple just gets tangled up as they play with it. I also use a blowback rig, this helps to stop the crays tangling the hair around the shank of the hook.

Edited August 6, 2014 by willi4692

[Phil]

Stiff rigs!

 

Ring swivel, Amnesia, Big T or Raptor.  I like to make a D rig or mount the bait on a rig ring on the shank of the hook, held in place with a float stop.

 

I've also found that if you are being bothered for a long while by crays, then move.  The crunchy lil fellows dont hang about if there are decent carp feeding amongst them.

[newmarket]

Going back to my summer on the North lagoon at Nazeing i can remember a Diy kind of combi-rig i came up with .

 

Couldnt use any kind of braid otherwise it was tangle city so i tied up a soft-ish fluoro ( soft ghost type) in a high breaking strain , D-rig to a straight shanked hook and used some Sufix Magic Touch as the boom section ....or was it the other way round ???

 

The other Rig used that summer was (what is now ) a Choddy only using a bottom bait ....

 

Never caught a Carp with em but the Bream never seemed to mind

[newmarket]

Just like to add , as somebody above has said , sometimes you have to sacrifice something you like in a rig and in this case is was the suppleness of a braided hooklink .

 

I did try various fluorocarbons and monos straight thru but you could hear ronnie & reggie making themselves busy and it was making me paranoid so i was checking the rigs every hour or so .

 

Although the hookbaits were unscathed (large bottom baits , armameshed and tied to the D with half a paper clip ) the hooklink materials took a battering .

Little chunks missing from the mono's making look like it had been pulled through a mussel bed or something .

They never managed to chew through the hooklinks but it was probably only a matter of time .

The Magic Touch was the only material i found to be fully effective .

Also a pva bag about 6 ft from my rig helped as a decoy

[androoooo]

Tim agree with you but one of the advantages with fishing a stiff material straight through is I don't feel the need to add any form of pva to prevent tangles.

 

It's one of the rare instances I don't on the basis that I don't want the hook link to have any element of food on it.

 

I'll also feed quite heavily around it with particle and pellet with the hard hook bait. Finding they preoccupy themselves on the soft items and soon give up on the hard hook bait.

 

I've been told adding shell to the boilies can help as, when the krays begin to whittle it down the sound travels through water and can attract the carp to feeding activity. How true this is I don't know but the bait company I was using last year advised it and tweaked the mix accordingly.

[newmarket]

The pva bag merely a decoy Andy mate , and when i say pva bag i mean quite a few of em and stringers , necklaces etc all catapulted out to create a bed of bait especially for the crays , hoping it would help .

 

I think it did to a point , though as i say , just Bream .

I was adding oyster shell to my xxx basemix at the time too

 

Just like to say that im glad im nowhere near a Crayfish infested lake now .

I'd probably fish zigs

Edited August 7, 2014 by newmarket

[dalthegooner]

Combi rig with the soft section only about an inch or so long, with an SSG over the knot rather than putty; a rig ring on the hook with a critically balanced hookbait (Boilie and plastic pop up corn), with either armamesh or super wrap on the boilie, and an extenda stop.

Edited August 8, 2014 by dalthegooner

[salokcinnodrog]

Crays, the bane of my life on Nazeing!

 

I would do everything I could to avoid them, but put a bait anywhere near weed or gravel and the little gits would snaffle it.

 

I ended up using my combi-rig, or a coated braid and as short a (soft) braid section as possible.

 

If it had to be on gravel, then ditch braids totally or use coated braid all the way through.

 

I actually had a series of cray indications, and then a proper run. When I got the carp in, I found a whittled down hookbait, that the mesh had been cut apart, and only half a pop-up and a small piece of bottom boilie on the hair wrapped in what was left of the mesh.

[emmcee]

id have to go with a pop up on a sliding rig ring. the reason being if ronnie and reggie start messing with it there is a very good possibility that it will reset itself once they have finished messing with it. combine it with a bit of plastic and a hair stop that you pull into the bait and you could be on a winner. if there are that many crays in theit then a mass particle approach would also be my main approach.

[mooseman]

Just to add my thoughts.

Tubing/putty/shrink tube etc will all get destroyed overnight if there is a food smell near them.

The rig has to be such that they cannot tangle it, spin the bait around the hook etc, or you will wake up to heartbreak every morning.

 

For hookbaits a soaked wooden ball (It doesn't have to be round  ) with holes drilled in, and paste pushed into them, is as good as it gets.

 

Fish over the softest area of bottom you can find, they really don't like it.

 

Bait the traps as soon as you get there, boil up the bigger ones (Loads of salt, Paprika and garlic, YUM!!!) and have them for tea, then smash all the little ones up and get it out in the area you are fishing. Eventually, in come the Pike/Perch/Carp and out go the Crays!

(A couple of tins of pet food holed and dropped over the marginal slope will help a lot if you are fishing fairly close in, they will spend days on the spot trying to get into the tins)

 

 

Nige, enjoy the weekend, it's a beautiful place with some nice pretty fish. Have a stalk around too, the old Lob under a float works wonders there. Also worth a sling about with a lure or better still a sink and draw deadbait if it's quiet in the daytime, take my word for it there are loads of lively jacks to keep you busy!

Try the food from the takeaway too, Ask Tom and he'll sort it. Proper nice guy.

Please tell him Moose and the Welsh lads send their best and thanks for the Sloes last time.

[nigewoodcock]

Cheers moose. A bit late though! Lol

 

https://forum.carp.com/topic/19925-churn-pool-august-2014/

[mooseman]

Cheers moose. A bit late though! Lol

 

https://forum.carp.com/topic/19925-churn-pool-august-2014/

 

Ah... I'll get my coat then...

 

Taxi!

[nigewoodcock]

Haha!

[mooseman]

I even posted on the thread you put up of your trip!!!

 

Must stop drinking so much home brew........

[newmarket]

Nigel , you never really went into in any detail , what you did to combat the Crays ?

I've read your review of your weekend ( very well written by the way ) so was it just a case of meshing your hookbaits and fishing off of your baited patch ?

[andy52]

Yup dats wot e dun

[newmarket]

Very similar to the ole catfood diversion trick

[salokcinnodrog]

I'm sure I have said on more recent 'Crayfish' threads that the little blighters will cut through Armourmesh to get the goodies within, but here is the proof:

 

The mesh is all that remains, tangled up around the boilie stop and the hair.

 

The remaining hookbait is a wooden ball soaked and drilled, as you can see that is untouched. The large loop knot holds the ball on the hair, so even if the Crays do manage to take the real bait I still have something as bait.

 

The longer you can leave your wooden balls in soak, the more they take on the extent they become critically balanced.

 

Once used, take them off the hair, allow to dry out, and then resoak in glug. Hopefully a never ending circle.

[chillfactor]

I'm starting to think that using mesh on your baits ,might hinder your chances of catching on crey infested lakes .

To me it just gives them something to do & basically means there be on your rig the entire time until you bring it in & spooking fish off your bait . I came up with something last time out & I still had rigs fishing in the morning ( which can be rare on churn ) looking forward to trying it out again next year & see if it was just a one off .

[snowmanstevo]

I'm lucky,my waters ain't mythered,but share the luv on your crayfish rig. Share the luv bro.

Edited September 25, 2016 by snowmanstevo

[chillfactor]

No chance

[salokcinnodrog]

I'm not sure it does put the carp off, I have had carp takes when I have had a bait half eaten by Crays. As if the carp are being attracted by the feeding Crays, and eat the bait while they are there. The Crays probably disappear if a larger predator is about after them!

 

I do also use wafters or pop-ups as part of the set-up, putting them in a uni knot loop, and check the total buoyancy of the bait, so it is on the bottom. All of these are rock hard.

 

Both meshed bottom baits as the end bait and the Wafter or pop-up have produced fish. The one thing I can never be sure is if I have had the take before or after the end bait has been eaten by the filchers.

 

That wooden ball definitely catches!

 

One thing I have discovered is that doing this, I can get away with a combi-link using a braided final section as per the picture.

 

Basically I can get away with using braid, coated braid or stiffer hooklink materials.

[chillfactor]

Definitely caught on baits that have been whittled down by the creys , the last capture on the recent churn visit did me a bream at 3am ... the bait had been creyed but was happy & stuck another Stick on & out it went, back on the spot .... did me a nice carp come morning.

 

Nige has witnessed big carp spooking off creys so I'm sure it happens obviously this could be lake dependent,

They were rearing up at the carp on churn & spooking the carp .... they are like lobsters in there though!