Matt experiments with stiff rigs on the river and catches a 20lb common from the Mayenne
I’ve already talked about the challenges of catching a river carp and after my first success, I couldn’t wait to try again. In my latest video, I’m back out on the river Mayenne and I’ll introduce you to the design of the carp rigs I’m using. Watch the video here:
Some of you will be familiar with my standard universal carp rig which is very simple, very supple and extremely effective at Beausoleil, but it’s just awful on the river. The current keeps on tangling it, the bream mess with it and it just hasn’t worked so I’ve started to experiment with new rigs which I want to be anti-bream, anti-eject and anti-tangle. The first one is the stiff hinged rig which has a home-made Blue Oyster bait and a popup. I’ve got some Riga Mortis in 20lb as hooklink which seems to be very anti tangle.
The other rig I’m trying during this session is the stiff rig with a big 28mm Blue Oyster bottom bait D-rigged to be anti-tangle and again 20lb Riga-Mortis about 5-6in long.
I’ve also put captive backleads on which are absolutely essential when you’re fishing the river. I’ve got some 4oz Fox ones which I’ve modified to be 2oz (the engineer in me isn’t entirely dead!). They take some getting used to and can be tricky to set but when you’ve got boats that can wipe your lines, it’s the only way to fish.
During this session, I managed to land my second river carp, a lovely 20lb common that fell to the stiff rig.
