Rigs and their benefits

[Gary Knowles 2]

Part 2

?Excluding when I?ve been conducting these tests, I normally hit probably 80% of all tip movements as they start to bend round, many of which don?t get further than 2 inches because I?m on it. Total concentration on what I'm doing, and that's catching chub not lounging about waiting for a pig to take the baitrunners. Both rod handles are within 9 inches of the movement of my right hand at any time, not yards away.
The remaining 20% that I see late is because I'm doing something else (having a drink -taking a leak - rolling a fag - putting a bait on the other rod, etc) hook themselves no question about it. And the reason they hook themselves is because of the way I position the bait tight up against the back of the hook and up towards the eye?

This doesn?t surprise me at all, however your talking about the ratio of bites that you?ve seen, I?m also including the ones that due to using a hair and having rods on the rests have not registered.

?The fish cannot take the bait in its mouth without taking the hook in?

Again I disagree here Phil, I?m pretty sure the chub often pick a bait up with their lips and move backwards, if this is the case then the hook, no matter how tight the hair could very easily still be positioned outside the mouth.

?And because of the angle the hook bends when the bait is positioned as it is, it acts as anti-eject rig. Many of the fish I?ve landed have been hooked just inside the bottom lip. Suggesting the fish was in the process of ejecting the bait when the hook caught?

Or backing up with the hook pricking the bottom lip against the feeder/lead/line resistance.

?I also believe the feeding pattern I use (frenzzed feeding) also aids the rig success?

Agree wholeheartedly, get them competing for bait and they can be staggeringly easy to catch on any rig.

?Chub as one salmon angler said to me are, ?the dustbins of the river (not the dustbins of Stillwater unlike carp)? By that he meant they are greedy and will chase food items variously?

Forgive me if I don?t take the advice of a salmon angler too seriously, half the salmon anglers in Lancashire still shove any chub caught down rabbit holes??

 

[Stuart Dennis]

Some superb points there Barney, its just got me thinking about the dustbins I target with regard to the backing up that is.

 

[Bill Maitland]

Phil, you say that you like to create a feeding frenzy, in my experience you could catch chub on a bent nail when they are in a frenzy. (well almost)
As for your fishing tally last winter, how many sessions was that over otherwise it is hard to say how good it was.
I agree with the others that bait direct on the hook is better for chub but have an open mind.
I base my opinion on years of experience and on actually seeing chub back off with a bait in there lips and striking in to fresh air.

 

[jason fisher]

gary wrote "I?m pretty sure the chub often pick a bait up with their lips and move backwards,"
they do in the windrush at least i've seen them do it many times.

 

[sash]

"The conceived wisdom says fish for chub with bait direct to the hook. Am I not doing precisely what you advocate and counterblasting it, and supporting it with my average catch evidence?"

You are Phil, all I'm saying is that you're increased catches are not down to your hair rig. I will wait 'til I've seen the article tomorrow before commenting further but however you've rigged a sliding hair the principle still revolves around bait and hook seperation and that isn't going to increase a bites to fish hooked ratio for chub.

You misunderstand my comments about feeding chub. I'm talking about the mechanics of their feeding, how they take food in to their mouths not their feeding behaviour patterns.

 

[Cakey]

blimey ...go footy come back....its moved to chub

 

[Wooly]

I always thought the carp boys were an argumentative bunch when it came to rigs. You chub boys are really up for it!
Just as well you're on the net and not in the pub together - could get nasty.
Surely though if someone is catching chub on the hair and not with bait on the hook it must be worth listening to?
It's that sort of wisdom thats helped me catch lots of carp.

 

[Stuart Dennis]

"Surely though if someone is catching chub on the hair and not with bait on the hook it must be worth listening to?

Wooly, its defintely worth listening to, but whats your point with that comment? What are you taking from this?

 

[Phil Hackett 2]

Bill somewhere in the region of 20-25 trips. Certainly once a week, twice some weeks End of Nov to close of season. Within that there was three blanks where I didn?t have so much as a touch. Of course some will say well you wouldn?t because you were using hair rigs and/or not touch ledgering. The word starts with B and ends in S. and has two LLs in somewhere.

Barney are you really suggesting that chub in winter on the Ribble can be so choosy and have the time to pick up a bait, and back off in those type of flow conditions? The Ribble in winter has an average Flow Rate of 15 mph and quite often is in excess of this and fishable. That?s a lot of water and water pressure to contend with, not to mention the competition from other shoal fish members.

I disagree totally under such flow conditions. The bait is taken into the mouth as quickly as possible or it?s gone down the river. The fish then move on looking for the next morsel of food that will sustain its energy levels to fight the flow and survive through the winter, until spring when food is more plentiful.

I also have to say my observations over many years on many rivers, stillwaters and under tank conditions are that chub when feeding on free offerings, windfall caterpillars, grubs, etc take the food and turn down river or away from the point at which they took it. Other observations I?ve made whilst carrying out some research over a two year period on chub numbers in a particular river, are that when they?re actively seeking food under natural conditions, they are never slow moving They are even paced, only accelerating at the last moment to grab a food item, exhibiting the same turn away as above. They also cover the same ground many times, turning back on themseleves very quickly. Their feeding characteristics resemble the movements and patterns to me, of sharks when they are actively feeding, as shown in the classic underwater TV shots

 

[GrahamM]

Here's Phil's sliding hair rig:

Phil Hackett's Sliding Hair Rig

Like others, from time to time I've seen chub backing off with the bait held at the edge of their lips, and the rate of flow has little or no bearing on it, except that in a faster flow they can back off faster.

The bait that they're used to finding when we're fishing is the bait we're feeding, which can be loose, or via a baitdropper, swimfeeder or PVA bag. Whichever, it doesn't all flow out of the swim as Phil suggests, but much of it gets trapped in nooks and crannies, in between stones, etc, on the river bottom. And the flow on the bottom is often a lot slower than it appears at the surface and for some distance down. If it all just flowed away with the current then the only way to fish would be with a float and trot the bait down with all the rest of the feed we were putting in, or with a rolling leger and try to follow the feed with a hookbait. If it all flowed away we would be wasting our time using free feed when static legering.

It's easy to prove. Just find some fast, clear water along the margins of a river and drop your usual feeder or baitdropper in. Most of the bait settles on the bottom and, if it isn't consumed by fish, stays there for quite some time before the current gradually peels it away - giving a chub plenty of time to inspect and toy with it. Unless of course it's competing with other fish.

So yes, chub do have time to be choosy even in fast flows.

The fact that they are less inclined to be choosy when they're well on feed and competing with others can be taken for granted for all sorts of things go out the window when fish are feeding well and competing with each other. They then drop much of their natural caution.

The 'perfect bite' problem that is at the heart of this hair rig/chub debate, where the chub sucks the bait to the edge of its lips and then backs off, giving a perfect but largely unhookable bite, in my experience at least, only gets worse with a hair rig (of any kind), not better.

 

[Cakey]

The more and more you lot go on ,the more and more it looks like luck has the biggest share !

 

[GrahamM]

Cakey, luck has always been the angler's best friend, but like someone has said many times, "the more you practise the luckier you get."

 

[Cakey]

Phil just one Q .....why go to the bother of putting tubing on and not turning it into a line aligner ?

 

[sash]

"Surely though if someone is catching chub on the hair and not with bait on the hook it must be worth listening to?"

Precisely why I'm challenging Phil's idea Wooly. Would you change rigs just because someone says it's better? If Phil can prove to me that his thought process and rig development aids in hooking chub then I will have learnt something special that I could use/adapt for my own fishing but I'm not just going to take his word for it that it is better in the same way that he, or any other thinking angler, wouldn't take mine!

Nice article Phil. Couple of questions: I'd duplicate Cakey's question re the line aligner above and secondly what are your thoughts on how the rig works in relation to hooking?

 

[Frothey]

back to one of the earlier points...

would you say there are two types of rigs, those that are presenting baits so that they are more likely to be taken, and those that are more likely to hook?

a bait on a 2ft long multistrand hooklink, with a small, balanced hook and a will act the same as a freebie (within the 2ft and so long as its not in a tangled heap!), whereas a critically balanced, stiff rigged, sliding ring pop up will give excellent hooking potential but MAY be less likely to be picked up in the first place.

can you combine the two approaches?

 

[Stuart Dennis]

Excellent article and practices Phil, but I must mirror Cakey's question. Surely just by applying the line aligner will push your odds up a little bit.

 

[GrahamM]

Good question Frothey, and one that's going to have multiple answers.

For instance, in a gravel pit, fishing fairly shallow, clear water, the 'cluttered', easily seen rig, may put off some fish from taking the bait in the first place. Yet when fishing a deeper, coloured water estate lake it won't matter so much about the visual aspect.

So can we say that the 'obvious' rig is best for coloured water and the not so obvious rig best for clear water?

No, we can't, because the obvious rig will be okay at night. Won't it?

And who wants to use the less obvious rig if this isn't going to hook the fish when it does take the bait?

But who says it won't hook that particular fish at that time? Who can say, definitely, it won't hook all the fish that take a bait on it?

Much of what we say and write about rigs (and I include myself) is based on assumption rather than fact. Only by fishing two rigs side by side with the same bait on the same day, for a period of several years, will you be able to make definitive statements.

Some of the time we can make a good guess as to which rig (you can read bait here too) is best. But that's all it will be - a good guess.

Most of the time rigs are invented to kill time between bites, and most of the time they catch more anglers than fish, and when that rig catches a few fish (sometimes just one fish will do the trick) the inventor declares he's discovered the ultimate rig, and from that moment on he never fishes with anything else.

Which means of course that every fish he catches then falls to the new wonder rig. He tells his mates and they follow suit.

"Wow, look at the number of fish 'Wonder Rig' is catching!" We hear over the next few months/years.

Until the next 'wonder rig' comes along that is.

Fishing is such a subjective sport we can hardly ever make definitive statements about rigs and bait. Just best guesses.

Over a good number of years we can safely say that some rigs are better than others for certain species at certain times, but until those years have passed it's mainly just a guessing game.

But don't let that stop anyone trying to find the ultimate rig and bait. It won't stop me, it's too much fun!

 

[Warren 'Hatrick' (Wol) Gaunt]

For those wanting to go out and 'enjoy' the forthcoming winter Chub scene then you cant really go wrong with a chunk of flake/crust straight on the hook, cage feeder, some mashed bread in it, marvellous fun. Cheese paste is a stonking bait to, but for the life of me i just dont know what rig/hair to put it on, so bollox, i just stick it on the hook and trundle it through with some swan shot.

Right, i must get back down to Broadwater and check my hairs, i blanked last night, and i cant be doing to many of those.

 

[Frothey]

i was thinking more of the way a bait acts in the water rather than the visibility of the rig. tie a stiff hinged rig with flouro and its only the ring and hook that visible anyway isnt it?
with a stiff rig, the rigs already straight, so theres a big area that the bait isnt going to get sucked in from as it has no more room to move. add a hinge, like the pop-up rig, and you have a bit more movement. i hardly ever pull back when using braid so it can travel in more directions

 

[Les Clark]

A bloody good debate,but my head`s hurting,
me I like to keep it as simple as possible,I have to agree with Ron (twice in the same week),location,simple rig,and good bait,a bit of logic,and a bit of luck.
there is a time that you have to try and fine tune your rig`s,but there`s no super rig,just the same as there`s no super bait.
All the rig`s made by the pro`s,Hutchy, Gardner, Warick, will catch carp but are made to catch angler`s and make a lot of money for these people.
There`s also a lot of factors to take into account on any one given day.