One thing I keep on seeing in social media sites and on line forums is too many people think that, when building a rig, they should use as many components as they can. The more components that go into their rig the better the rig will be.... WRONG!
The first and most important rule of any rig building is K.I.S.S. - keep it simple stupid!
If you follow this rule and make sure the presentation of the rig is perfect there is no reason why you shouldn't catch your quarry on the rig you are using. If you use loads of different components to make up the rig there are more things that can go wrong and stop you from catching your fish of a life time. I have always found that the simpler the rig the better it performs. The truth of the matter is no matter how good your rig has been made if you are not on the fish then you just wont catch and this comes down to water craft. I do agree with many that the presentation of the rig is vital so using the right materials and ensuring the rig blends into its surroundings is vital when deciding on what rig you are going to use on your session.
Modern Carp and Specimen fishing has become too complicated in my eyes and there are too many tackle companies trying to sell products that in reality you don't need but with these modern presentations comes variety and using a rig that the fish has never seen before can be its downfall and land you that monster fish you have been chasing. The best way is to find a couple of rigs that are simple to build and suit your style of fishing and stick to them. The only changes needed are little tweaks such as lengthening or shortening hairs, adding or subtracting weight for buoyant baits or changing styles of hooks such as wide gape or curve shank. If you stick to these rules you will find your catch rate will improve and your confidence in your rigs will be much higher.
What things to consider when rig building.....
1. What type of Lake or River bed are you fishing over
Knowing the type of lake bed you are fishing over is very important as this can effect the presentation of your bait. The trick is to try and make the bait act as natural as possible. What we mean by this is to make it act like the free offerings you are putting in to attract the fish into your chosen swim. If the bed is really silty and soft you will find heavy baits and leads will sink into the bed of silt and you will require a longer hook link in order to present the bait correctly, IF the bed is harder then you can get away with shorter hook links enabling you to hook the fish quicker.
2. Is the area weedy or Choddy or Gravely
It's no good chucking out your rig into a lake and then having it land in a huge patch of weed. Not only will your rig eventually snag up on the weed or drag it in but it will also mask the hook and this will result in lost fish or no bites at all. Using rigs over weed requires a subtle approach with finely balanced baits so they flutter down slowly and gently rest on the top of the weed bed so it can be seen and even taken by the fish. The same goes for choddy lake beds, if you cast out over a choddy area with a stiff rig it will tend to land on debris and the hook link can then stick up in the air and possibly spook potential captures resulting in a blank session. This also goes for clear and gravelly bottoms. Why use massive hook lengths on clear bottoms when you can get away with short fast hooking rigs and of course the deadly stiff hinged D-Rig made famous by Korda Carp anglers.
3. What time of year you are going to fish.
A lot of anglers think that the time of year doesn't matter when you are Carp and Specimen fishing as people seem to catch them even on the coldest of days. This is so untrue! It DOES matter, especially when it comes to our rig presentation. During the colder months the fish are less active and tend not to feed unless it out weighs the effort needed to eat the free food. What we mean by this, a carp for instance will look at 2 baits (for example) one dull brown with very little attraction and the other a bright pink pop up with loads of goo oozing out from it and the carp will ALWAYS choose the brighter more flavoured bait. Why is this? It's down to the amount of attraction coming from the bait as the fish will feel its getting more out of the smelly bait than it will from a dull one. You have to remember fish are instinctive animals so you have to use these natural instincts against them in order to catch them.
4. What bait are you going to use.
Since the hair rig revolution, the time when anglers realised that placing the bait on the hair and leaving the hook bare and proud resulted in catching more fish and hooking them better than pulling the hook through the bait, we have seen no end of different gadgets and accessories to help you mount the bait on or near the hook. The most important thing is to get that bait to move naturally. Its no good sticking the bait on a stiff hair and strapping tight to the hook so when the fish takes the bait it feels false and the hook doesn't move or twist and doesn't catch in the fishes mouth. Movement of the rig is vital in any presentation. There are so many different styles of rig building to choose from such as:
Pop-up Presentation: Mounting a highly buoyant bait and using a counter weight so it sits 1 to 3 inches off the bottom
KD Presentation: Using again a pop up but counterbalancing it on the hair rig by placing the weight just under the boilie on the hair making the hook lay flat on the bottom
Chod Presentation: This is where we use a pop up that is counter balance about 2 or 3 inches below the hook but only on a very short hook link made from stiff material that contains an aggressive curve. This helps the bait and hook move and react no matter what direction the fish approaches from resulting in a good hook hold.
Wafter Presentation: This is where we use a critically balanced bait on the hair that will sit (like the KD style) just over the hook and waft around in the water just like free offerings and because the bait is lighter than the freebies it is usually the first to fly up into the carps mouth.
Bottom Presentation: This is the OLD SCHOOL style of fishing that never fails. A standard boilie of your chosen size on a hair rig laying across the bottom of the river or lake bed and fished amongst a scatter of free offerings. This rig is the oldest and probably the most successful of all rigs. As they say why change a good thing. The most important things with this rig is to ensure the rig is nailed to the bottom. In other words the entire rig is designed to lay flat and not stick up in the air so sometimes blobs of putty is used along the hook link to ensure its nailed down. (again very important to know what type of bed you are fishing over)
Zig Presentation: This is the newest of all the styles of fishing and it is where you are presenting the bait at different depths up in the water. This is used at certain times of year when the fish tend to stay at certain levels in the water (known as thermaclines, again down to water-craft). In order to find the correct depth it can sometimes mean fishing a couple of rods at different depths from the bottom and changing every hour until you find the right depth. Once you find it you change all you rigs to the same and off you go...
(Spring and Summer)
For details on how to build these rigs with step by step guides from Taska
