| * Some big fish rigs and bait combinations | | | | |
| are little known, or with a little | | | | I love to use boilies cut down into around 7 |
| adaptation, can bring fantastic rewards! Here | | | | millimetre cubes soaked in amino acids and |
| are proven rigs and bait combinations to keep | | | | fished 2 or 3 on a hair or using two hairs, |
| those big fish getting hooked! | | | | with the hook wrapped in dough of the same |
| | | | base mix. This really fools the big carp! |
| A great little known rig 'edge' for carp is | | | | |
| the normal dog biscuit fished on the bottom! | | | | Where pellets have really been used |
| Side hook dog biscuits or slide them on a | | | | extensively and catches are slowing down on |
| hair as normal, but fish the rig on the | | | | them, move onto 'scalded' pellet paste and |
| bottom, under free offerings on the surface. | | | | fish this bait 'method feeder style' with a |
| | | | great big ball of paste on the hook hair |
| In summer it is often difficult to get | | | | wrapped on a 21 millimetre pellet! Or try |
| 'takes' on pressured big fish waters on the | | | | using two hairs with pieces of 21 millimetre |
| surface, but many 'free baits end up sinking | | | | pellets on, wrapped in scalded pellet paste. |
| and being eaten with confidence on the | | | | This is really great for big carp and catfish |
| bottom. Try them soaked on amino acids | | | | too. |
| compounds or flavours any time of year where | | | | |
| the fish see many of these in the summer | | | | I bet you do not hear of this really genuine |
| months! | | | | big fish hook bait method! I have caught |
| | | | numerous very big carp using this and I am |
| Using a larger size long-shanked hook and | | | | surprised not more people have worked out |
| foam or cork as a 'balance or buoyancy aid on | | | | this extremely effective idea: Make up a |
| the hook, you can put on many small worms, | | | | batch of homemade boilie baits of roughly 6 |
| grubs, slugs, short lengths of lobworms or | | | | to 8 millimetre diameter size. |
| night crawlers. Try this using a 'ground bait | | | | |
| stick' or PVA bag or swim feeder with | | | | Then Tie a long hair measuring around three |
| maggots. Again this is proving the downfall | | | | centimetres beyond the bend of your hook, |
| of many big fish where the more 'conventional | | | | preferably a size 4 or 2. Feed onto the hair |
| rigs and baits' have lost their 'edge.' | | | | a cube or ball of foam, cork, or polystyrene |
| | | | about 1 centimetre in diameter. Now loosely |
| Or even try the above hook baits fished with | | | | tie about 8 or 9 of your small prepared baits |
| a PVA bag full of crushed boilies! Or try a | | | | onto the foam and hair surrounding it. |
| 'mag-aligner' rig with maggots, alongside 21 | | | | |
| millimetre pellets and boilies in a PVA bag. | | | | Like the 'popped-up' maggots 'medusa rig' and |
| | | | similar hemp stuck with "Bogey" idea; the |
| Another well proven winning method for big | | | | carp or catfish has no option but suck in all |
| carp and catfish is to use size 2 hook with a | | | | of this unusually shaped package of food. It |
| 4 centimetre cube, ball or 'cone' of | | | | really gets around those big fish used to |
| pepperoni or garlic sausage or luncheon meat, | | | | testing and rejecting single, double bait and |
| soaked in amino acids supplement. This might | | | | normal pop-up bait rigs and baits... |
| be might be just the ticket for your first | | | | |
| big catfish! | | | | The author has many more fishing and bait |
| | | | 'edges' up his sleeve. Every single one can |
| How about fishing whole and crushed 21 | | | | have a huge impact on catches. (Warning: This |
| millimetre halibut pellets, carp pellets, | | | | article is protected by copyright, but |
| salmon pellets or trout pellets in a PVA bag, | | | | reprints with a link are OK.) |
| with fish oils added, while using a small | | | | |
| artificial pellet on a small hook for some | | | | By Tim Richardson. 'The thinking angler's |
| really big wary carp? | | | | fishing author and expert bait making guru. |