I caught these off the river when all the lakes were frozen over.

With this cold weather still persisting and due to take yet another dramatic drop in temperature with more snow due (check out the forecast for my local waters http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=uk7dayx2;page=4;type=free;ct=~NG9;sess=#forecast ) there is little chance of getting out onto the lakes around here (Nottinghamshire) this week-end. Everything is still frozen solid so the only real chance of a bit of ‘carp sport’ will be on the river.

I must admit these days I enjoy fishing for other species on the rivers but I have spent an enormous amount of time in past years fishing for river carp during the cold winter months.

One of the big problems of river fishing is the fact that in the majority of cases when fishing in the flow the hook length is fully extended making it very easy for the carp to work out which is the dangerous bait. Quite simply by facing upstream which is their total natural way of coping with river life the carp merely has to come close to each bait to see if it is totally tethered.

Very often in still water situations the fish can approach from any angle so the chances are there will be a little slack and a little movement in the hook-link to allow the bait to be easily taken. On the river this is very different, you will usually have the scenario of the lead anchored in place with the hook bait extending the hook link as far as possible so any fish approaching the bait and mouthing the bait experiences very little natural movement albeit very difficult to suck the bait in and baits hanging on hairs even further away from the lead than the hook deems most rigs very in-effective.

As is often the case in angling – once something is pointed out then it all becomes so obvious yet almost all of the carp anglers I see on the rivers use very similar set-ups to those used in still water situations and they are often quite un-suitable once the fish have been subjected to a little pressure.

There are two very simple dodges to help in achieving decent hook holds on the river. I found a long while ago that river carp tend to like

Encouraging greed.

a mouthful of bait – they can be quite competitive and greedy at times and this greed works against them when it comes to slipping up on a rig.

The problem in presenting double baits to encourage the greedy nature in the conventional manner is that it exaggerates the problem of the fish pulling at the bait but being no-where near the hook.

The picture speaks for itself

I use a very simply to tie rig which presents 2 baits side by side and on top of the hook rather than hanging in the current below the hook.

Simply tie a conventional knotless knot but trap a small ring in pace under one of the turns.

Make a hair up long enough to take 2 baits with a loop in either end.

Thread one bait on the hair in the conventional manner and fix a boilie stop in place.

Now take the other loop and pass it through the trapped ring then attach a second boilie.

Increase the hooks effectiveness by slicing the bottom off the baits.

Simple but highly effective – two boilies side by side (who said they had to be in a line on top of each other

anyway?) and the hook in between them free to drop down and catch the lip of a carp simply mouthing the bait.

So, there you have stage one of my river set-up. This gave me much better hook-holds than I had been managing on conventional still water rigs but I went on to make a further improvement on this with another small tweak on the terminal set-up but alas space is rather limited here so part two will follow in a couple of days in a further Blog.

Best fishes

Shaun

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