Prolific big-fish-angler Miles Gibson runs us through his go-to rig that he uses for most of his carp fishing and one that has seen him catch an obscene amount of big fish in recent years

Most of my fishing is done to spots, mainly clean ones in an area that I have either seen carp or believe them to be. When you are fishing these sorts of areas, it’s important to get the rigs right, as the fish would have most likely been fished for on that particular spot or areas similar to it.

The rig I use depends on what I am feeding and more often than not, particularly on the cleaner spots, I like to feed lots of small items. Crushed and chopped boilies, corn, pellets, maggots in the winter; loads of small items. I want my hook bait to match what I am feeding, or at least be a similar size and behave as the freebies would.

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It's a very aggressive rig, that allows the hook bait to be small and fished low to the bottom

The rig that I like to fish over this mix is what I call The Claw rig. It’s a very aggressive rig, that favours a small hook bait, which is fished low to the bottom. I use a fairly supple, coated braid in the Camsoft, which is soft enough to give it  flexibility, but stiff enough to kick away from the lead on the cast or when ejected by the carp.

This is tied to a size four hook, which not only helps me land more fish, it also adds more weight to the rig, which in turn helps bring the pop-up down. I want it sat like a claw, so that you can’t see the hook, just the bait. I use two patterns of hook, depending on the spot that I am fishing.

If I am on gravel, I use the Curve Point hooks, which will keep the point slightly off the bottom. If I am on softer spots, such as silt, I use an Out-Turned Eye hook. Combined with a decent sized bit of shrink tube, I use that to aggressively curve it and make the gape much bigger. On the Out-Turned Eye hooks, it makes the gape nice and big and this is what I would usually turn to. A small piece of silicone traps the hair on the shank and allows the bait to come off at the right angle. It is a very subtle presentation, which is very easy and quick to tie, but has accounted for most of the carp that I have caught for the past 5-6 years.

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