Fishing in Weed.

Most of us try to avoid the stuff like the plague, but it can be the most productive form of fishing on the pits or reservoirs during the summer months, i will discount my personal love, the lilies and go for the Canadian and blanket weed that populates much of our untreated still waters and rivers.
Firstly we need a rig that will sit on top of it and not get buried, chod, PVA bags loaded with foam, foamed hooklinks, helicopter rigs, weedlink paternosters, where do we go. I prefer the weedlink paternoster with a bag and foamed hook, i only use chods if the lead is dropped on take, i reckon a retained lead will hit the fish around the head on the way in. Rivers, cant beat a bag with a 3 ounce bolt inline and 2 foot hooklink in my books, Helicopter rigs, i have very little faith in, just dont sit right with me. Freelined bags, good method but the bite indication leaves much to be desired, Zigs, with a drop off lead can be deadly, especially during a fly hatch but foul hooking is a big risk. Netting boats should be allowed where weed id heavy, thoughts guys.

If I'm fishing amongst dense Canadian or blanket weed I often mask my hook in PVA foam so that It has a little less chance of getting caught up on its way to the bottom.

If I want my bait to rest on top of a drift of blanket weed below the surface I have been known to use a home made semi buoyant ledger; which is some wooden doweling with just enough shot added each end to give it a near neutral buoyancy (see pic).



I originally made my neutral buoyancy leger to use on thick soft silt but it has also occasionally worked on a thick sub-surface drift of blanket weed.

Keith

Keith, I made a some similar devices from balsa dowel. I pinned and glued a swivel in one end and a snap swivel in the other.
The snap swivels take an arslely bomb and the swivel is the running eye.
They are from about 4 ins to 9 ins and are in effect a long slow sinking ledger weight . Any choice of bomb weight can be used and the device sits upright through bottom muck.

yes, that looks pretty streamlined Keith, should come throught without snagging if the fish dives, i played around with semi buoyant method feeders a few years ago, either cavity foam or polystyrene glued in, we packed them with riser pellets and as they came of the feeder came up with them.

I'm lost as to the question?

You say that you're not a fan of helicopter rigs? You know the chod is one right?

Are you fishing chods correctly in the weed? As in, you've worked out how deep it is, slide the lower bead up several inches more, so your hook sits ontop of the weed and lead on the bottom?

i reckon i do, chods tend to present pop ups where helicopters a bait laying on the weed rather than popped up, usual method is drag some out with the lead and measure it, personally not a fan of either rig, the lead on a chod ends up around the fishes head because the bottom stop bead is pulled down to the lead by the hooked fish, dangerous rigs in my opinion, Korda helisafe eliminates the danger.

Keith M said:

If I'm fishing amongst dense Canadian or blanket weed I often mask my hook in PVA foam so that It has a little less chance of getting caught up on its way to the bottom.

If I want my bait to rest on top of a drift of blanket weed below the surface I have been known to use a home made semi buoyant ledger; which is some wooden doweling with just enough shot added each end to give it a near neutral buoyancy (see pic).

I originally made my neutral buoyancy leger to use on thick soft silt but it has also occasionally worked on a thick sub-surface drift of blanket weed.

Keith

Click to expand...

Ever tried a very light one of those on a swingtip?