Last week I gave away my little tip about using double baits for river carp but using them side by side rather than one below the other. This improved my catch rate  as I presumed it made the hook more likely to enter the carps mouth when tugging at the baits from a downstream position.

This increase in takes really got me thinking about the problem which obviously existed with the fish naturally

My original extending hook link from an old diary

laying facing upstream in a current and how difficult we made it for them to get hooked when feeding cautiously from a downstream position. This is a unique problem to river anglers as the fish on the still waters can approach the bait from any direction so there is often a little movement in the hook link allowing the bait to be taken easily – where as out in the current everything is straightened out and there is no more ‘give’ which makes it difficult for a fish to take a bait even when it wants to. Combine this problem with a wary fish and you dramatically reduce your chances of success.

I started off experimenting with extending hook lengths. This is something I used to do a lot on still waters but it hadn’t occurred to me to try it on rivers. Basically I had the hook link in two sections with one sliding on the other via Drennan Rings. I simply PVA one ring back to the swivel. This gives a shorter hook length which aids long range casting but also gives the bait a little more free movement before the lead is hit and saves the problem on still waters which I was trying to solve on rivers in as much as fish approaching

PVA'd for casting

the bait straight on could suck the bait in not tethered by the lead straight away.

I started to try this and I was surprised by how many Bream I started to catch. I hadn’t previously caught a bream from the stretch I was fishing for the carp but the first afternoon (mid winter) I tried the extending hook link I caught 3 bream. Now there had to be something in this rig tweak.

Suffice to say the carp fell for it as did more bream which to me spoke volumes. The only problem with this was that it was a lot of messing about drying rigs between casts and when the river was running with bits of rubbish coming down then this became a bit of a pain but I knew I was catching extra fish by ‘going to the trouble’.

One thing did concern me and that was if a fish (nuisance species or carp) moved the bait I could be back to square one again with the bait

Click on the diagrams to see them in full

tethered directly below the lead. I really needed a rig which would re-set itself then it came to me.

Trim the tag ends off - this picture was used for something else

I tied up a conventional hook link then tied a piece of pole elastic to it stop knot fashion and tied a secondary knot with the tag end. By stretching the elastic and letting it compress again I was left with a hook link with a loop in it. Pull the hook link and the elastic stretched allowing a little bit of give on the hook length.

I wasn’t too sure about it when I first cast out as I could feel the elastic tightening before the hook link was straight thus hitting the lead. I really needn’t have worried it worked from day one and saved all that messing around with Drennan Rings and PVA. The bream fell for it just the same as the carp did and I always think if you are catching the nuisance species then your rigs are good enough for the carp.

Best fishes

Shaun

Related posts

  • No related posts.