When fishing over a mixture of different baits, with all manner of sizes present in the swim, a perfectly balanced rig and hookbait is my number one choice. While the carp are grubbing around over the area, a balanced rig fished really close to the bottom is far more likely to be taken over a blatant pop-up rig.

I use a match the hatch hookbait because I am confident that the fish eat my bait and I don’t want my hookbait to stand out visually. However, I like it to have more attraction in terms of smell and taste, which is why I use a coated hookbait in the form of the new Krill Active. The combination of super soluble liquids and powders used in the coating give off tonnes of attraction.

My general mix contains lots of broken boilies, some crumbed and a few whole too. This is complemented with various liquids and some Bloodworm pellets. All of this combined creates a competitive feeding response, due to the amount of small food items present in the swim. As a result, a wafter is the perfect hookbait to match the mix and ensures it is taken without caution from the carp.

Firstly, take off a length of Camsoft.

Strip 4 inches of coating off.

Take a size 4 Curve Point.

Tie it on with a knotless knot.

Trim the tag end off.

Blob it with a lighter to secure it.

Slide a piece of shrink tubing over the eye.

Steam it over a kettle to create a curve.

Add a Hook Ring Swivel to the hook.

Followed by a hook bead.

Attach the bait using some bait floss.

To finish off the rig, blob and secure it with a lighter.

Presentation

I do worry that the rig may tangle on the cast, with the hookbait potentially sitting wrong. To ensure this doesn’t happen, I attach a small PVA bag of Krill Powder, just to ensure the rig is presented perfectly; the small pile of added attraction can only help.

Half a pop-up

Sometimes I use the rig with half a pop-up, which will sit slightly off the bottom. I normally use this when faced with a lot of weed, but thankfully, my spots at Horseshoe were clean enough to present a wafter.

Hook Selection

I opted to fish the rig with a size 4 Curve Point with the spot being clean; not only is this my favourite pattern, it also offers a beaked point, which is more protected from burring on the sharp gravel, should the rig be moved at all.

Weedy Lake

Horseshoe has a barbless hook rule and with the added fact that the lake is very weedy, that beaked point gives you a much better chance of landing the fish, which worked, as I landed every bite.

Presentation

I do worry that the rig may tangle on the cast, with the hookbait potentially sitting wrong. To ensure this doesn’t happen, I attach a small PVA bag of Krill Powder, just to ensure the rig is presented perfectly; the small pile of added attraction can only help.

Half a pop-up

Sometimes I use the rig with half a pop-up, which will sit slightly off the bottom. I normally use this when faced with a lot of weed, but thankfully, my spots at Horseshoe were clean enough to present a wafter.

Hook Selection

I opted to fish the rig with a size 4 Curve Point with the spot being clean; not only is this my favourite pattern, it also offers a beaked point, which is more protected from burring on the sharp gravel, should the rig be moved at all.

Weedy Lake

Horseshoe has a barbless hook rule and with the added fact that the lake is very weedy, that beaked point gives you a much better chance of landing the fish, which worked, as I landed every bite.

I have taken this rig with me to lots of different lakes over the years, and no matter where I use it, I always have great results. It isn’t hard to tie and suits a multitude of different lakebeds by changing the hookbait and length of the rig dependently.

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