With the growing pressure carp face these days due to their popularity, making small adjustments to your rigs can help trick these cautious, "riggy" fish. Have you reached a point where you're struggling to get runs—or worse, losing fish? Fear not! We've compiled some great tips to help you improve your carp rigs, ensuring you land more fish than ever before and enjoy your best carp fishing season yet!
Sharpen your hooks
Most hooks are perfectly acceptable straight out of the packet, but a few minutes with a quality hook sharpener can make them razor-sharp. A sharper hook penetrates more easily, reducing missed bites and hook- pulls. If you’re fishing a low-stock water where one or two bites in a session would be classed as a good result, the percentage gains of using an ultra-sharp hook are certainly worthwhile.
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Get the length of hair rig right
Adjusting the hair length so the bait sits just right – usually 5mm-10mm from the bend of the hook – helps with turning and hooking efficiency. Too short, and the bait can obstruct the hook... too long, and the fish might not get hooked properly. It may seem like a small detail, but it pays to take the time to get this exactly right when tying up a fresh rig.
Add kickers & shrink tubing to improve "mechanics'
A short 1cm piece of ‘kicker’ steamed into a simple curve or an aggressive angle can make the hook turn quicker in the carp’s mouth, increasing hook-ups. One thing to pay close attention to, however, is the length of tubing. If it is too long, and shaped at an overly aggressive angle, it can extend beyond the hookpoint, which actually reduces the hook’s gape and hooking potential.
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Give tungsten putty a try
A small dab of tungsten putty on the hooklink, around an inch from the hook or on the spot where the coated braid outer has been stripped back can help pull the hook down into the carp’s bottom lip when it picks up the hookbait.
If you’re using a longer hooklink you may want to add another blob of tungsten putty to ensure the hooklink is pinned flush to the lakebed. In this case, make sure you place a larger blob around the middle of the hooklink and a smaller one closer to the hook. This will help the hooklink to settle in a straight line.
If the heavier blob was closer to the hook, this would cause this part of the rig to fall quicker and potentially leave the hooklink looped up off the bottom.
Impart movement with swivels and rings
Mounting the hookbait on a micro swivel allows it to rotate freely. These can either be threaded directly on to the shank of the hook and fixed in place with a small hook bead, like on a Ronnie rig, or fixed within a D-rig arrangement on presentations like Chod, fluoro-D or slip-D rigs.
When fishing with blowback rigs, a small ring on the shank of the hook is better than a sliver of tubing, as the ring can reset its position and allow the rig to continue ‘fishing’ in the event of it being picked up and ejected.
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Use anti-tangle sleeves and stiff hooklinks
Adding an anti-tangle sleeve pushes the hooklink away from the lead and helps prevent the rig from tangling on the cast, ensuring perfect presentation every time. Using a stiffer type of hooklink (such as fluorocarbon or a stiff coated braid) can also stop the rig from looping over itself on the lakebed.
Try balanced or critically-balanced baits
A critically-balanced hookbait – whether it’s a wafter or a cork- dust boilie – makes it easier for the carp to suck in the bait and the hook. Experiment with pop- ups and wafters to fine-tune the buoyancy so they only just sink under the weight of the hook.
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Go with a bigger hook!
The accepted wisdom used to be that you should match your hook size to the size of hookbait you’re using. These days, however, many top anglers advocate the use of larger hooks (such as size 4 and 6) even when using smaller hookbaits like a 12mm boilie.
The main reasoning behind this is that carp – even smaller double- figure fish – have large mouths, and these larger hooks stand a much better chance of grabbing hold than smaller ones, which can easily be blown out and ensure you land every fish you hook.
Of course, larger hooks weigh more than smaller ones, so if you intend to use one with a small pop-up hookbait you need to ensure that the latter has plenty of buoyancy.
Choose a stealthy hooklink
Choosing a camouflaged or low- visibility hooklink can make a big difference, especially in clear water or on pressured waters where the resident carp have become used to encountering rigs. Most brands produce their coated braids in weedy green, gravel brown, and silt black versions to match pretty much any lakebed type, but for the ultimate in low-visibility you’ll struggle to beat fluorocarbon, which is pretty much impossible for even the most ‘riggy’ of carp to detect!
Pick the right lead system
As well as providing the weight required to cast to your spot, your lead set-up can actually enhance how your rig works. Consider the situation you’re fishing over. In silt or low-lying weed a helicopter rig will give a better presentation, but if you’re fishing over a firm, clear area, a lead clip system or inline lead will generally convert more takes into bites.
Try to find out what others on the lake are using. If most are using 3oz leads, try one of 4oz, or even 5oz if you’re placing the rig close-in, to give the carp something different to deal with. Likewise, running rigs are vastly underused, yet they are incredibly sensitive in terms of bite indication. Most carp find them hard to eject as they can’t use a fixed weight as a pivot to throw the hook out.
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