Hindged Maggot and Worm Madusa D-Rig

Posted by Keith on March 7, 2010 under Carp and Coarse Fishing, Help and Tips, Sea Fishing | Be the First to Comment

Well, it’s started to warm up a bit by day at last….albeit another bunch of cold nights has plagued us again this week.

Unfortunately this put the stoppers on a trip to one of my syndicate waters in Reading this week.

The lake being all bar totally frozen again.

With this snap of cold weather being with us I thought that I’d show you one of the rigs which has caught me an awful amount of big carp through the last few winters, when all but a few anglers have caught carp.

My chosen venue for winter always has to have a decent stock of carp to target. Tie this up to shallow’ish water and time on the bank and you have the recipe for good results when most waters have shut up shop.

The rig needs to be simple, invisible and of course, highly effective. The same needs to be said for the bait…..it needs to be highly visible, simple and of course again, attractive!

The baits of which I talk of some of you may laugh at…it is of course the humble maggot and our best friend the  garden worm. These little wrigglers are just what the doctor ordered for a run of fish this time of year.

These baits couldn’t be easier to use and more readily available….obviously the worm from your garden and the maggots from the shop.

I really like a mixture of colors of maggots, red and white minimum really. Tackle for this sort of fishing needs to be gauged to the size of fish you are hoping to catch and of course the venue itself.

The syndicate water i’m currently on in Devon has almost no underwater snags to worry about which means I can get away with very minimal tackle. This of course helps no end in making the terminal tackle invisible. This allows me to step my lines and hook lengths right down to 6lb.

Some of you may now be gasping at the thought of using 6lb line for big carp, but believe me that if you fish with a soft rod, tie good strong knots and play your fish sensibly then there is absolutely no reason why you too can’t catch big fish on light tackle too.

In my old match fishing days down the south of England, we thought nothing of going down to size 22 hooks and 1lb hook lengths for silvers and even catching odd small carp like this too. The reason for fining down the tackle is obvious in that it makes the whole set up less visible in the usually clear water we have around during the colder months of the year.

I’m not saying you should be casting split shot out for weights and size 22 hooks for double figure carp, but the use of 6lb fluorocarbon rig material and size 12 hooks will certainly get you a heck of a lot more bites than using 20lb material and size 4’s!

You need to start thinking about how the fish react during the colder months of the year.

Many professors of fish science etc will tell you that the species Cyprinus Carpio (Carp) will not feed at water temperatures below 4 deg C….

I wouldn’t say this is a particularly hard and fast rule due to the fact that this year alone I have caught more than 20 fish from water temperatures down to as low as 2.4 deg C.

Choosing the right fishery is obviously the key point here. It’s no good trying to target a water of 20 feet deep and only a few fish to boot. The main reason being that waters like this will take much longer to warm up as opposed to one of just a few feet deep.

So, we’ve talked a little about the choice of water and our bait etc. Now we need to have a way to present these excellent baits to the fish. There are of course many different ways in which to do this including the use of ‘maggot clips’ which are available

from many of the major tackle brands. I like these clips for their ease of use and simplicity, but I have a preferred method which gives as far as I am concerned a far better presentation.

You will no doubt have come across this little gem of a method with in the press at some time or another in the past. It amazes me though how few people use it and just how many snub the idea of using maggots and worms for carp as ridiculous!

My principal rig consists of using fluorocarbon in minimal breaking strains as I said earlier in the text.

If I can get away with going down to 6lb breaking strain then the rig will be almost totally invisible withing the depths of the water….even in almost crystal clear water!

I like to team this up to a small hook of 10 or 12.

To start this rig we need to first cut off a section of fluorocarbon around 10 inches in length.

Now taking our hook, push the line from the point side through to the back of the shank. This is really important because if it goes through the wrong way your rig won’t work properly.

Now start to twist the line around the shank neatly, around 6-8 turns will suffice. Pinch the twist and hook between your fingers and with the other hand push the line back through the hook eye in the reverse manner to previously.

Pull this up tight and then you’ll have tied your knotless knot which forms the major part of many of today’s rigs.

Our next job is to take a small micro rig ring and place it over the tag end of line left hanging down the hook shank.

This section of line then needs to be also pushed through the back of the hook eye.

Now using a lighter, gently blob the tag of line to stop it pulling back through the eye of the hook.

If you’ve done this correctly then you should be left with a nice little D at the back of the hook shank.

Now, this is a little fiddly but place a small size 11/12 ring swivel onto the main section of fluorocarbon. This needs to be tied to the line using a blood knot of 5-6 turns.

Make sure that you wet the knot thoroughly with saliva as fluorocarbon will be damaged badly if it is not moist when pulled tight into a knot. The length you choose to tie this swivel on will be the depth you choose to fish the maggots at.

The principal behind this is that the small swivel will act as a hinge in the rig, allowing freedom of movement by the bait and also suitably counter balancing the buoyancy of our pop up baits too.

Right, our final rig part entails another section of the Fluorocarbon material. Cut away a section around 10-12 inches in length. Again this needs to be tied onto the swivel with the use of a blood knot.

At the other end of the almost complete rig we tie another ring swivel of size 8. This time I use an overhand or Loop knot which allows good freedom of movement in the rig.

Ok, so our rigs looking pretty tasty. We need to now look at our bait attachment. Using a section of dental floss, around 8-10 inches in length. Tie this onto the micro rig ring on the back of the D rig.

You can use any old knot for this attachment. Now with the two sections of floss left hanging from the micro ring we start to get things into shape.

Get yourself a small sewing needle and thread one section of the floss through the eye of the needle. With the needle end start to insert it through the ‘eyed’ end of each maggot gently teasing them onto the needle without causing them to ‘pop’!

Thread each of the maggots one by one down onto the floss. After you have sewn on around 4-5 maggots you’ll need to add a buoyant plastic maggot or two.

Restart the process of threading the real maggots again and after 5-6 of these add another couple of plastic one’s. I do this around 4-5 times. I like to add a few chopped worms to this as well.

I chop the worms up using a set of three tier worm scissors which makes quick work of a bunch of worms.

You can test the buoyancy of the baits in the margins of the water or in a bucket……I try to match it up so that the small hinge swivel is just enough weight to make the bait drop down in the water before sitting proud of the lake bed by the length of the hinged section.

Once your happy with the neutrality of the buoyancy then you can simply pull the two floss sections together and tie them in a knot.

This will in turn pull all the maggots and chopped worms into one tidy ball of bait.

If you find that the whole setup is just not buoyant enough then you’ll need to add a small section of buoyant foam to the floss.

I like to add this about half way through the threading process.

Now we have our rig ready to go, it’s just a case of casting it out and catching a few fish!

It’s obviously better to fish this method over some free offerings too though….I opt to either PVA bag these up or to spod the maggots and chopped worms out to the chosen spot.

As you can see in the pictures opposite….the baits look fantastic sitting in the water just off the deck of the lake and the colour and size of the baits look perfect for a bite!

So, what are you waiting for????? Get out there and dig some worms, get a few pints of mixed maggots in your bait box and go and haul some winter lumps!

Tight Lines

Keith