SIMPLICITY IS KEY - by Colin Walford
Hi everyone. My name is Colin Walford, and I’ve been asked by John Elmer to write a little for the Scattered Baits Rig talk series. First off though, id better introduce myself.
I have been fishing since I was 8, serving my apprenticeship catching all sorts of fish from my local River Cray and surrounding lakes, and progressed into Carp Angling when I was 14. I have been fishing for carp ever since on a multitude of waters in Kent and Essex, enjoying a fair amount of success along the way, but it wasn’t until I started fishing Cemex Sutton Lake 2, that I really started to get into the riggy side of my angling.
I had never been one to over complicate things anyway, but took a lot more interest in the way I setting my rigs up to angle for some of the trickiest carp in the country, and although the rig I’m going to talk about is nothing new or revolutionary in terms of modern day carp angling, it’s my way of setting it up, and knowing that it will help me put fish on the bank.
As I mentioned earlier, I really try to keep my rigs as simple as possible and my blow back rig is as simple as it gets!
I use this rig for most of my bottom bait angling, and at the moment my favourite way is to fish it snowman style. I am confident that you can use this rig over any bottom, taking care to match the hook length to type of bottom you are fishing, as I do like to make sure my end tackle is as inconspicuous as possible. But the most important thing that I have learnt, through trial and error about this rig, is the positioning of the ring on the hook shank.
If you look at a normal blow back rig, the ring is quite often, right down towards the end of the bend of the hook, putting everything in a straight line, bait, hair and hook. I know this will work for some people, and the principle idea is for the ring to be blown right back up the hook on ejection from the fishes mouth and expose the hook, but I have worries that the hook point will not catch the carp’s mouth as they eject the bait and you may receive false indication, a hook pull or no idea at all that the fish has picked up your bait! So, like I said, after playing about with various size rings, different hooks, sizes of hooks, lengths of hair etc, I have no found exactly what I’m after. A rig that gives me the maximum hooking potential I believe I can get, and from that, CONFIDENCE!!
My version requires the ring (I use Korda 3mm rings as they are dark, or anything similar in the same size) to sit right opposite the point of the hook. The ring stands off the shank, forcing the hair away from it, and creates an angle of 45 degrees from the hair to the shank of the hook. This obviously makes the hook stick out and the angle catches the fish’s mouth on ejection. I have used this rig with both double and single hook baits, and find the hooking potential is the same, although I do favour using it with double baits, either bottom or snowman style, and think this is definitely harder for the carp to eject! To back this rig up, I have had 3 carp from Sutton this week on this rig including a 38.14 Mirror (pictured), and numerous carp on it over the last 3 or 4 years! The other factor in this rig when is the Korda sinker and putty that I place in the centre of the hook link. This helps turn the hook over and adds, with the angle of the hook, even more hooking potential!
Feel free to experiment with hook link length, and hook size, but I use this hooking arrangement with lengths of between 3 and 8 inches, depending on the sort of swim I’m fishing in at the time, i.e. if I’m fishing up against pads, I will shorten the hook link to 3 or 4 inches. In the silt, I increase the length to a maximum of 8 inches. My hook size will be from 10 to 6, and I use Gardner Mugga’s, as the curved shank is a must when using this rig. It just doesn’t work anywhere near as effectively with a straight shank hook.
I have included photos so you can see how I set the rig up, and how the angle makes this a very aggressive hooking arrangement. Add this rig to your armoury and increase your catch rate!
Good luck and tight lines!
Colin Walford
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