The rig evolution that changed Danny's fishing forever!

The Korda Underwater films are about far more than just seeing fish being hooked and caught on camera, they are a unique chance for everyone to learn – both those involved in the actual film and whose rigs are in the water, as well as you, the viewer, who can see what is happening and what conclusions our experts are drawing from that.

It is all about evolving our rigs and the way that we fish, in order to make it more efficient, with the result of that being more carp hooked and landed by everyone who watches this latest Underwater film. Some of the tweaks and changes will blow your mind – they certainly did for both Danny Fairbrass and Tom Stokes, who had their favourite rigs in front of the cameras and quickly learnt that they were nowhere near as effective as they thought they were!

Hookbait colour

One of the things that became apparent very quickly was just how much of a difference the colour of the hookbait can have. Now that is nothing particularly new, as we know that certain colours do well at certain times of the year, or on particular waters, but Danny was still very surprised to see the reaction of the carp to some of the things he put out.

Buoyancy of the hookbait

The way in which the hookbait acted was also noticeably a big factor in whether or not the carp would even eat it in the first place, to give you any sort of chance of hooking them.

Critically balanced baits may be very popular with anglers, but during this filming it was apparent that they were far less popular with the carp, which were incredibly wary of any bait that wobbled around or wasn’t hard on the bottom. Even wafter baits if they were too buoyant and moved at all when the carp came close to them.

Camouflage

It was also very apparent that the carp could see the rigs on the bottom and at times even appeared to be looking straight at it. They were definitely very wary of any bait that was around the leader or line, and left most of that, to the extent that if your hookbait ended up near the leader – either due to the way that it landed when you cast out, or ended up there after a carp ejected the hookbait – then you weren’t getting a bite.

As Danny says in the film, you can’t fish without a lead and line, so the next best thing is to try and camouflage everything as much as possible and break up the outline. In his words ‘there are no straight lines in nature’, so it makes them really stand out.

Baiting pattern and frequency

Danny most definitely got it wrong initially in terms of how he was baiting and he was very impressed by the way that Tom Stokes used a catapult instead of a spod/Spomb to get a much more even spread of bait and to keep the fish moving between mouthfuls, thus increasing the chances of hooking one when they did pick up the hookbait.

He also learnt that in some situations – such as this one on Turner’s Lake – regular baiting, in an almost match style, could really get the fish going. At times he thought that Tom was wrong to put more bait in when he did, but quickly changed his mind after seeing the reaction of the carp, as at times they were on it almost straight away and it kept them feeding well for longer. So, in situations where he can catapult the bait out, in future that will definitely be Dan’s preferred way of baiting up.

Lead systems

One thing which blew Tom Stokes’ mind was just how ineffective his favourite helicopter lead set-up was in this particular situation, and how many times he got done on it by the carp before he decided to make a change. This was a system that he had caught loads of huge carp on from some of the hardest lakes in the UK, yet the fish at Norton seemed to find it easy to deal with most of the time.

Danny was quick to suss this out whilst watching Tom fish, and whilst a switch to a lead clip proved to be better, when it came to Danny’s turn to have rigs in front of the camera again, he quickly showed why an inline lead can be so good, despite it being a set-up that is ignored by the majority of carp anglers these days.

Hook link length and stiffness/movement

Even Danny was surprised by the length of rig that he ended up using on the clear gravel spot that they were fishing to in front of the camera, as initially he had thought that there wasn’t enough movement there for the carp to actually take the hookbait into their mouth – but the fish quickly proved him wrong! Going as short as he did might well have been something he wouldn’t even of tried had it not been for what he saw happening on the underwater cameras.

The three inches of stiff Boom material that he opted for meant almost the instant that the carp had the bait in its mouth and felt the hook, then it was hooked as there was so little movement/opportunity to eject it before the lead did its job and set the hook.

Anti-tangle sleeve

One thing that is often overlooked is how the rig is acting at the swivel end, as there is so much focus on the hook and the way the bait is attached to it, and the mechanics of all that.

But this Underwater film proved just how important it is that the rig not only kicks away from the lead and lays out straight, but also that if it does get picked up and ejected then it will reset to the same position.

It was very noticeable, with Tom Stokes’ rigs in particular, that if the rig ended up close to the leader/tubing/line then the fish were very reluctant to take it and your chances of a pick-up were massively reduced.

This is of course very different to the common thinking that you want some sort of hinge at that end of the rig as well, and instead Danny did away with any movement at all via the addition of a Dark Matter anti-tangle sleeve.

Shot on the hook

The final piece in the puzzle wasn’t actually something completely new as it had been around for years, but the way in which Danny used it was very different to the way that most anglers had in the past.

The shot-on-the-hook rig – a shot on a piece of dental floss or similar that was tied on somewhere near the barb to make the point as heavy as possible – has been around since at least the 1990s but it always tended to be fished with a pop-up or buoyant bait positioned so the basically the hook sat upright parallel to the bottom with the point and eye resting on the lakebed.

Using it with a bottom bait, like Dan decided to do, gives a totally different presentation – although the lakebed needs to be clean to fish it like this – and also one that is extremely aggressive because as soon as the hook is in the mouth of a carp, the point is already facing the flesh, as the shot pulls it over every time and makes that point heavy, and this pricks the fish much more quickly than it would do if you were relying on the weight of the hookbait to cause it to flip as the hook link tightened.

This meant that when used on the underwater film – in conjunction with all the other rig tweaks that he had made to perfect the rig - Dan observed that the fish that took this rig were actually hooking themselves when they sucked the bait in, and you could see the shocked response from them on camera, as if they weren’t quite sure what had just happened!

 The Holy Grail of rig mechanics

Dan explained: “The reason why these rigs were proving so successful is because there was no opportunity for the fish to spit the hook bait out. If you look at it closely, they are hooking themselves as they suck the hook bait in. There's no moving off or anything else. “The second that hookbait and hook goes in their mouth, the hook is contacting flesh. Everything's gone bow string tight, and they are done. You can see it in their face. They're caught already.

“It's always been the Holy Grail. Getting the hook link the right length for that spot on that day with those fish and that baiting pattern, is more important than probably anything else. “Having something that goes tight straight away, and the point of the hook is already facing the flesh - the straight pointed hook enhances that effect - and the shot on the hook pulling that point over. So, if you run it across your hand, you can't get it two millimetres before it goes in. Often it doesn't need to move at all, the point is already touching your hand and you pull it and it's in without any movement. That is what you want every time the fish picks up the hook bait.”

Since coming up with this rig, Dan has put it to good use on countless different venues and has caught a lot of fish on it, including some big ones. Tom Stokes was also totally sold on the idea after seeing how well it worked on Underwater, and after the shoot ended he took it straight to Stoneacres, on the Linch Hill complex, and used it to land some of the trickiest and most sought-after carp in the country, that have seen everything before.

 To see exactly how the rig evolved and how the fish reacted to it, as well as loads of other tips and tricks, check out the full Underwater – Norton Disney film, which is out now.