Hair rtg help please.

Being very much a caster roach and skimmer bashing type angler hair rigs are something that I havent used that much and I have everything to learn about.

I dont fish carp commercials and its not my desire to hit loads of 4-5lb carp. Most of my days are spent on our various club waters that all have good heads of F1s to 3lb, tench averaging 3-4 but go to 8lb and theres always a chance of getting amongst the slabs that tend to be in the 4-6lb mark.

Im using a match rod and want to use hook lengths of around 0.14 on soft pellet and hair rigs with a Preston size 14s-16s so as to still hit the skimmers.

Ive watched several carp lads and several videos and I see the rigs they use and all well and good if you are targeting fish with gobs like landing net heads but how do you go with scaling that right down?

Sweetcorn is a good example. Its a bait I dont like too much for the reason that I personally tend to miss a lot of bites on it and so I went over to hair rigging it and I still miss loads of bites on it. Im getting it wrong.

I have it so that the bait sits on the bottom bend of the hook. I use a small sleeve of pole float silicone tube slid just onto the start of the bend on the shank of the hook to line it up.

What denotes how long the hair should be bearing in mind the smaller size of the mouth on skimmers and F1s.?

Id be very intrested and grateful for any help please fellers.

On that size a hook you are better having the bait on the hook.

Otherwise try to keep the bait a close to the hook as possible.

Yes that is a 5p + 1p.

You can make hair-rigs as small as you want.


These are a 18 hook with 4lbs braid , as long as you can get the line through the eye of the hook twice then its possible. The way I tie mine i can put any bait on the hair.

Why the sleeve Steve?

The quick link sleeve ? or the tiny bit of plastic bloodworm covering the metal of the hook ?

Thanks Steve. On mine at the minute the bait sits more to the bottom of the hook than the pic you have of the sweetcorn rig.

What decides wether you have the hair longer or shorter?

I guess Im trying to have my cake and eat it. I want to nail the tench but at the same time still get the other fish as in the skimmers to.

I think you've answered my question it was the longer black sleeve i was wondering about.

Risque , some days they want it short some days long , I'm afraid its up to them !! I do seem to use a slightly longer hair if I am not covering the hook up as in the boilie rig.