I decided to write this piece about one of the hooklink presentations I have been using to good effect this season. I would recommend the use of this rig on firm bottoms such as sand and gravel, light silt and sparse weed, but not fished in thick weed or heavy silt as I feel the hooklink may sit up off the bottom awkwardly.
Just recently I have started using a lot more combi-link rigs again, and for the life of me I can’t remember why I stopped using them in the first place, perhaps the introduction of the coated braids maybe played a part in this. With a lot of anglers switching to combi-rigs made by simply stripping coating off the braid I think I may have been a little paranoid that the fish would suss it out and my results would suffer.
I used them almost all the time in the late nineties and I guess I must have either moved onto a venue that I found an alternative more productive, or as I said, become paranoid about their effectiveness with so many other anglers now using a similar type of presentation. Anyway I have been using them quite a lot again this year on a couple of venues and have tweaked them to suit my requirements really well. (more…)
Since James Harrison’s first piece in this magazine about carp captures being a result of many things coming together at the same time and most captures basically being ‘meant to be’, I have got to thinking an awful lot. Obviously, the more experienced angler will always catch a few more because he/she makes sure to be there when the right factors are coming together and the rig is in place ready for where the fish will undoubtedly turn up.
I have looked long and hard at my own fishing and, these past couple of weeks apart, I have never particularly struggled to catch carp and for many years I have used exactly the same rig for all of my bottom fishing on everything except soft silkweed. (more…)