critically balance?

[cocobeware]

I once seen a matt hayes dvd where he had a snowman rig and in order to criticallly balance it he held it underwater and squezed some of the air out the pop up bait and it sat just perfectly but i have read a few posts on here about criticlally balancing baits and people are on about chopping bits off the pop up,Which way is best as it seems like squezing it underwater would be a lot easier and would it be ok to criticly balance a normal pop up this way too?

[salokcinnodrog]

Don't think that with some hard skinned pop-ups you would be able to squeeze air out of them.

 

Depends on how you want to do it.

 

Sometimes I just cut a pop-up in half and then trim the bottom bait or the pop-up until I get the balance right, sometimes add putty to the hook.

 

Or if I want a pop-up that is sat exactly on the bottom, and critically balanced then I use a choice from some of the rigs pictured in the Rig Tying Sticky at the top of the section. The offshoot of the hookknot or the knotless knot tag end is the perfect place to add shot and/or putty.

 

Basically the more ways you know to do something then the more adaptable you can be if you need to get something done

[zander1]

surely adding putty or shot to the hair defeats the object of criticaly balancing a rig, i thought that you ballanced the hook with the bait so that the bait and your rig pick up off the botom easier than the freebies around it when a carp feeds over it, wouldnt the wheight on the hair have an adverse affect to this as it is the shot that anchors the bait rather than the hook so then the rig acts the same as just using a bottom bait ????

 

i dont know if i have worded that well but i hope you can see what i am trying to say

[tonybranno]

surely adding putty or shot to the hair defeats the object of criticaly balancing a rig, i thought that you ballanced the hook with the bait so that the bait and your rig pick up off the botom easier than the freebies around it when a carp feeds over it, wouldnt the wheight on the hair have an adverse affect to this as it is the shot that anchors the bait rather than the hook so then the rig acts the same as just using a bottom bait ????

 

i dont know if i have worded that well but i hope you can see what i am trying to say

 

Sometimes the weight of the hook isnt enough to sink the bait especially if you use just a pop up on its own. If you put the weight on the hair and have it balanced such that it only just sinks, then this has the same effect of using a snowman arrangement with a trimmed down pop up on a whole bottom bait.

[zander1]

surely adding putty or shot to the hair defeats the object of criticaly balancing a rig, i thought that you ballanced the hook with the bait so that the bait and your rig pick up off the botom easier than the freebies around it when a carp feeds over it, wouldnt the wheight on the hair have an adverse affect to this as it is the shot that anchors the bait rather than the hook so then the rig acts the same as just using a bottom bait ????

 

i dont know if i have worded that well but i hope you can see what i am trying to say

 

Sometimes the weight of the hook isnt enough to sink the bait especially if you use just a pop up on its own. If you put the weight on the hair and have it balanced such that it only just sinks, then this has the same effect of using a snowman arrangement with a trimmed down pop up on a whole bottom bait.

 

oh right, thanks for clearing that up tony. much appreciated.

[nick12345]

if you want to balance a bait get your pop-up pierce it with a baiting needle then take some lead wire from your leadcore and slide pieces into the bait until you achieved the right boyancy.

i find you want the bait on the deck, but with a little boyancy so the weight of the hook and link is taken away and hopefully not as noticable to the carp. Eaqually you can achieve any boyancy or presentation without the use of split shots etc

[iambunn]

if you want to balance a bait get your pop-up pierce it with a baiting needle then take some lead wire from your leadcore and slide pieces into the bait until you achieved the right boyancy.

 

I'm not too sure about this method, as occasionaly the baits will come off the hair and the carp will eat them...leaving them to digest bits of lead wire? Surely not very safe for the carp?

[vikingboy]

If your wanting the snowman type rig, then usa a same size bottom sinking bait as the pop up bait. This normally cancels each other out to a certain degree to create a critically balanced bait. Ie easier for the carp to hoover up into its mouth and move more naturally in the swim.

 

Sometimes when you test your rig in the margins you may find the pop up bait a little too bouyant and gives more of a pop up effect as apposed to a critcally balanced bait.

 

A piece of shot on the hair will usually help if this happens, or alternatively a piece of rig putty on the eye of the hook and top of shank will work equally well.

 

Ive tried squeezing my pop up boilies to make them sink and have never had much success that way.

 

If you dont fancy using shot or putty, use a slightly smaller top pop up bait than your bottom bait and that should work too.

 

Just keep experimenting and find which works best for you.

[stoogi]

Your pop up/snowman hookbait may look great when testing in the margin, but don't forget that once it's sat in deep water it won't behave in the same way. Pop ups lose their bouyancy after a certain depth

[vikingboy]

I cant see how a pop up will lose its bouyancy??

 

Due to the depths that the average depths of lakes in England etc.

 

Maybe it would make a difference to how your bait reacts if you were talking depths like in sea/boat fishing where your fishing hundreds of metres.

 

Surely it wouldnt make a diff in depths of 6,7 - 12 ft etc?

 

Cant see it affecting bouyancy in lake fishing.

 

You sure you dont mean how the bait/rig reacts regarding movement due to undertow etc?

 

Cos that a different topic me thinks.

[levigsp]

if you want to balance a bait get your pop-up pierce it with a baiting needle then take some lead wire from your leadcore and slide pieces into the bait until you achieved the right boyancy.

i find you want the bait on the deck, but with a little boyancy so the weight of the hook and link is taken away and hopefully not as noticable to the carp. Eaqually you can achieve any boyancy or presentation without the use of split shots etc

I am very puzzled by this

Three things to think about here,one is by inserting lead into the boilie you are in effect creating a poison bait,as already pointed out by iambun.

The second is the fact that if you drill a hole that the very flimsy wire will slide into,it will just as easerly slid out.

If the whole is tighter you qwill never get the wire in in the first place.

The third is this,to insert enough lead wire into a 14mm standard off the shelf popup and create a balanced bait you need a lot of wire.

The people doing this use thick lead solder wire and insert 2-3 pieces at a time

So unless you are useing 500lb bs leadcore the wire would be useless .

[stoogi]

I cant see how a pop up will lose its bouyancy??

 

Due to the depths that the average depths of lakes in England etc.

 

Maybe it would make a difference to how your bait reacts if you were talking depths like in sea/boat fishing where your fishing hundreds of metres.

 

Surely it wouldnt make a diff in depths of 6,7 - 12 ft etc?

 

Cant see it affecting bouyancy in lake fishing.

 

You sure you dont mean how the bait/rig reacts regarding movement due to undertow etc?

 

Cos that a different topic me thinks.

 

 

I know what i mean. It's all about the effects of water pressure, some info here

 

https://forum.carp.com/carp-forum/viewtopic.php?t=23478&highlight=

[bigger_al]

if you want to balance a bait get your pop-up pierce it with a baiting needle then take some lead wire from your leadcore and slide pieces into the bait until you achieved the right boyancy.

 

I'm not too sure about this method, as occasionaly the baits will come off the hair and the carp will eat them...leaving them to digest bits of lead wire? Surely not very safe for the carp?

 

well said that man!

 

i don't tend to fish pop ups on thier own, if i want a small bait then i will cut a pop up in half and cut a bottom bait in half and hair them together to make a single bait, then trim either to get the critical balance, same thing if i use a full bottom and full pop up, again trim either of the baits to get the critical balance. i tend to use smaller baits in the main also, 15mm is my preference unless i'm fishing "wild waters" (big lakes/Rivers in France) where i will use largeer baits.

[coops_northants]

I use balenced baits very regularly, I mainly use cork balls or plugs for bouyancy rather than the typical snowman. The main reason is a pricked popup will only be critical for so long where as the cork keeps almost the same no matter how long you leave (or have to leave) your baits out.

 

One other thing you can do to help is if you use a line aligner you can push in some lead wire into this to weight down the back of the hook, this gives enough to sink the bait and also aids turning once picked up. Just thread it in then with nail clippers just clip away until its just sinking, perfect for wafters.