Clay bottom rig

[Lumeymorris]

What the best inline weight set up or weight with swivel set up?

Light green or dark green hooklink?

Pop up or bottom bait?

[newmarket]

Well Clay is usually pretty firm so if it's a clear and clay bottom a bottom bait would suffice (to me) for starters .

Everything else depends on how paranoid you are re rig camouflage .

What colour is the Clay (there are several possible types) ?

 

You WILL find a braided hook link to match the Grey and Reddy/Brown varieties amongst the Sufix range .

I know as I own them although the names escape me at the mo but a quick google of their range would do the trick .

 

But then again you won't get better camouflaged hook links than one made from mono or Fluorocarbon ?

 

As for lead arrangements , each to their own but to me less is more and even more unobtrusive is a simple running lead on your mainline rather than a bloomin' great lead clip and semi-fixed lead .

 

Again it all depends on how clear the water is and how paranoid you are re rig camouflage .....

[salokcinnodrog]

I would avoid inline. Although clay is a firmish lakebed, the nose of an inline lead could push into the clay, this could mean your hooklink swivel or quick link is buried, leaving your hooklink looped up from the lakebed, so for me a pendant lead.

 

Starting point on most waters would be a bottom bait, so that makes life simple.

 

Then as Newmarket says, how much are you worried about camouflage?

I use Kryston hooklinks, and for the sake of it would get as close as I could to the lakebed, so that would probably mean a Mantis coated braid hooklink.

 

 

I would cut a length of Mantis, around 30centimetres, and remove the coating of around half of that. Tie a loop for your bait stop in the stripped end, then knotless knot the hook on.

As much as I like the knotless knot, I would also add a line aligner from shrink or silicon tubing.

I'm not one for the latest fashionable term, 'kicker', I prefer a standard straight piece of tubing with the line exiting from the front of the tubing, and silicon tubing actually saves faffing about with kettle and steaming etc.

[adamkitson]

+1 from me for avoiding inline leads over clay. Takes very little for the lead to plug even if the bed is mostly soild. Inlines for me only in PVA bags or on solid gravel.

 

I was fishing clay this week. Always testing rigs before chucking them out. I found that a fluoro hooklink on a lead clip worked fine. I was fishing a wafter on a d rig which was fairly well invisible. The whole hooklink would lie flat with the bait settling nicely with the bait sitting on top. Always kicked away from the lead, and I was confident of a good reset. Good idea if you ask me to make sure that a swivel link is available with fluoro, i.e. not fully covered by anti tangle/tubing, as for the hook to turn and hold with this material the turn comes from the swivel as it won't twist like a supple braid.