What are combi rigs and how to use them for carp fishing

Combi rigs are a popular choice with carp anglers these days and are a very effective way of fishing wafters or bottom baits.

Darrell Peck’s own version, the combi multi rig, is a presentation that he swears by and has accounted for many of his biggest carp in recent times, both at home and abroad, and if it suits the situation, it is the first thing that he will be casting out.

What is a combi rig

The combi rig is nothing knew and has been around in carp fishing for many years, and the name basically derives from using a combination of different materials, often with one very supple and the other much stiffer.

This is often as a result of joining two totally different types of hook link material – such as Super Natural braid and stiff Boom fluorocarbon – but a similar effect can also be achieved by using some sort of coated braid, such as N-Trap or Hybrid Stiff, where part of the coating is stripped back to reveal the much more supple braided core.

When it comes to exactly how the hook and bait are attached, this can vary greatly depending on personal preference and the type and size of hookbait being used.

Attaching your hookbait to a combi rig

Some sort of blowback style presentation, or similar, usually where the hair exits the shank roughly opposite the barb, is a popular choice and works for anything from small wafters or plastic baits, right through to very large boilies fished snowman style, or even with two bottom baits on a longer hair, which is often used on large public lakes in Europe.

The same goes for some sort of micro ring swivel, or similar, running on the shank of the hook and stopped opposite the barb with a hook bead, and then with a hookbait either attached tightly to the micro swivel, or fished on a hair with more of a gap between the hook and bait (certainly when it comes to things such as snowman hookbaits, or any larger bait).

It can also literally just be as simple as a knotless knot set-up using a coated braid, either with or without some sort of kicker or shrink tube extension.  

Using two different materials with very different properties can give you the best of both, with good anti-tangle properties from the stiff part of the hook link, combined with suppleness close to the hook which allows freedom of movement for the hook and bait both when the carp is taking it into its mouth, and also when it comes to the hook finding a hold before it is ejected.

Joining two different materials - crimping

Choosing to use two different materials will usually give you a lot more versatility than opting for a coated braid, although for some rigs the latter makes more sense and is a lot easier to use as there is no need for joining knots.

Any time you are adding an extra knot, and therefore potential point of weakness, into your set-up you need to be able to have total confidence that it won’t let you down, and for less experienced anglers or those new to combi rigs, this can be a big concern – after all the last thing you want is to put all that effort into hooking a carp only for the hook link to part at the knot during the fight!

The most popular choice for the longer part of most combi rigs is some sort of very stiff material, such as Korda Boom, which provides a stiff boom section that will help prevent tangles and also kick the rig away from the lead when it lands on the lakebed, plus has excellent reset properties after an aborted take.

With materials like Boom the easiest way to create a strong join is via the use of a crimp, either to attach it directly to the hook link swivel, or to create a small loop that can then be easily attached and detached from a quick change swivel, with some sort of anti-tangle sleeve to ensure it can’t come adrift when playing a carp.

When it comes to joining Boom to the more supple hook section and for the hair, the easiest way is to crimp a small loop in it and then tie the supple material to that.

Crimping creates a very strong join as long as it is done correctly and with the right sort of material – fluorocarbons such as Boom are ideal as they don’t stretch and change diameter when under extreme pressure – and when using the Korda Krimps and Krimp Tool correctly, you will get a join that won’t let you down.

Knotting a supple material to a stiff boom

Some anglers though, including Darrell Peck, prefer a smaller, neater join than that created by crimping a loop and then having another knot attached to that, and favour using an Albright knot.

With practice this knot also makes it easier to get the length of the supple part of the hook link, between the boom and hook, the exact length that you want it.

You can tie the Albright using a single strand of the supple material, and then use a continuation of that, once knotless knotted to the hook, for your hair.

But a far more common and popular method is to double up the braid to form a loop, and then use the Albright to attach that to the boom – thus you are left with a braided loop, which you can easily attach your hook to multi rig style (no need for a knot, just a piece of shrink tubing or a kicker to hold the hook in the right position).

Using an Albright creates a very neat knot that can easily be covered with a small blob of rig putty or a piece of fine diameter silicone tubing.

The disadvantage though is that it doesn’t allow you to quickly change the supple part of the rig, as you can when using a crimped loop, and with plenty of hooks already tied on doubled up braid via a knotless knot (trimming off one of the tag ends, and using the other for the hair or however you’re planning to attach the hookbait) – so you’re basically attaching the two materials loop-to-loop style, which makes it all very quick and simple.

Although most of the time it is just the hook anyway that will need changing, and the multi version allows that quickly and easily.

Combi multi rig

As already mentioned, this set-up has become a favourite of big fish ace and Team Korda angler Darrell Peck, who has been honing it over a number of years to get a presentation that he has total confidence in.

You’ll have seen Darrell using this rig to very good effect in various Masterclass and Thinking Tackle films, as well as in his own fishing to catch some of the largest and most sought after carp both in the UK and in Europe.

It is a rig that is also favoured by many of our other team anglers as well, both at home and abroad, in certain situations and where they want to fish a bottom bait or balanced bait/wafter, rather than a pop-up.

Darrell’s version of this rig incorporates the Boom fluorocarbon material with a short section of braid, which is the stripped inner core of our Dark Matter coated braid – that largely comes down to personal preference and other anglers opt for supple materials, but which still have a little stiffness, such as the Korda Loop or Slip D braid, which has been specifically designed for use with combi rigs like this. Even Darrell himself has become a convert of the Slip D Braid since its fairly recent launch.

It allows him to change his hook very quickly when necessary – a sharp hook is something that Darrell is obsessive about and he hand sharpens his own – and he uses a small piece of shrink tubing to hold everything in place (or one of the soon to be released Kickers that give a longer extension than the original ones, and are perfect for use with the combi multi rig).

The rig can also be adapted depending on the type of fishing he is doing and size of fish being targeted – when fishing on inland seas on the continent where the carp grow massive and the lakes are full of snags, such as Orient in France, he can beef up both the strength of the boom and of the braided section, as necessary, whilst achieving the same presentation.

Reverse combi rig

There are also some rigs which are tied the opposite way around to a traditional combi rig, whereby they have a short stiff section by the hook and a longer much more supple boom.

These type of rigs are particularly popular for pop-ups and can be seen as a variation of the hinged stiff rig, or even a chod rig, with the same mechanics at the hook end of the rig, but with a much more supple boom allowing them to be fished on spots that aren’t necessarily clean gravel or sand. The more supple boom section means that where the bottom isn’t clean, the hookbait can still settle nicely and be well presented (unlike a stiff boom that can be left sticking up off the lakebed if it is cast onto debris).

They give a lot of flexibility to exactly how long the stiff section is, and therefore how far off the bottom your pop-up is presented – with this rig you can fish pop-ups very close to the lakebed if you wish to.

You’ll see this rig referred to by other names as well, such as the soft hinge rig, and it has been used to good effect by some of the most successful anglers in the country and on some of the toughest waters where the carp have seen everything.

Korda Loops and Booms - ready-tied Combi rigs

If all of this seems confusing or too fiddily, especially things like tying Albright knots if you are relatively new to the sport; suffer issues with either your eyesight or dexterity in your fingers; or even just want to try a combi rig but don’t want to go out and buy the components you need, then there is some good news.

The Korda Loops & Booms provides everything you need in a ready-tied version of a combi rig, and is very easy to put together – basically just a case of attaching your chosen loops section tied on whatever hook pattern you prefer, to a boom, loop-to-loop style.

Both the Booms and the Loops come in packs of three, making them perfect for getting all your rods out using a single packet of each, and the Booms will last until you lose or damage them, with no need to keep changing them.

The Korda Booms are constructed from 25lb Boom, with a small, neat crimped loop at one end, which your Loops section attaches to, and with a larger loop, tied with a figure of eight knot, at the other end which easily fits onto a QC swivel (you just need to add an anti-tangle sleeve or a piece of silicone tubing etc to hold it in place). They come in 7.5in. and 5.5in. versions, to cover different types of fishing and baiting situations, plus personal preference – even within the Korda team opinions vary greatly on what the optimal length of boom and overall hook link is!

The Loops are ready-tied hook sections, which you just have to attach to a boom – either a ready constructed one or one that you have made yourself – with three different hook options available.

There is a choice of Wide Gape X or Krank hook patterns, in sizes from 4 to 8, and tied on a semi-stiff 18lb braid; plus a heavier duty set-up using a Klor hook, with sizes 4 to 8 tied on 30lb braid, and size 2 on 50lb braid, making it ideal for situation where you want something stronger, such as when fishing abroad, as well as being perfectly suitable for UK fishing as well.