Took my new double hook rigs, as sent by argyll, to 'the Moat', this morning. I had three pike, this being the largest at just under 10lb: all caught on smelt.




The rigs are fantastic: no trouble to unhook any of the fish. The fishery is on good form, although a lot of silky green weed would make lure-fishing impossible at present.

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Brilliant stuff Pangolin - and thanks for the tip about Smelt too!

Just a word of warning, spindle: I'm back early because when the wind got up, it became unbearable! I was holding onto my new 'wavelock' brolly for dear life..... pick a still day!

By the way, did you pop-up the bait or fish hard on the bottom?

Nice fish Pangolin, pleased you liked the rigs.

The smelt were float-legered, just beyond the near-bank lily pads. I used two swan shot on the trace and a small bob float, set overdepth. The baits were still frozen when they were put on, so I reckon they would have sunk very slowly and sat just on top of the green weed, which seems to be covering most of the bottom.

Great fish mate, well done.

Argyll, what are these rigs? Can they be easily home-made?

Anything makes unhooking easier and better for the fish is welcome.

Argyl's rigs are rather special: a double hook, consisting of a small 10-ish barbed single hook, back to back with a large 2-ish barbless hook. The smaller hook is to go into the tail of the bait fish, with a tie round the tail root. Argyll kindly made up a couple of these on traces, with swivels for me.

I can't take all of the credit, it originated from an idea by Archie Braddock. He holds a view that traditional wire traces with two trebles are fallable in that a fish when mouthing a bait will feel the wire running between the two treble hooks..... and spook. I can't prove or disprove this but it does make sense. However there is an old adage that I do believe in and that is

'a big fish only gets to be big by being careful'

If you look at a typical pike deadbait hooking arrangement or snap tackle as they were once known and them look at all of the adjoining bits then it can look like a Heath Robinson diagram. Two trebles with two joins to a trace with a loop in the end crimped or twisted to a swivel, then a clip, then a runnig ledger, then an uptrace, then another swivel then the main line then a large float.Its a bit like a hardware store. I once had a debate with Gord Burton about the use of trebles for piking. I could never understand why pike deserved some kind of special treatment that required two trebles. I've fished all over the world and no other style of fishing uses that much hooking power. Gord reckoned that pike have such boney mouths that two trebles are the least you should use. Clearly the man had never seen a wahoo, a barracuda, a kingfish or even a sailfish close up. These fish have the boniest mouths in Christendom and yet they are traditionally fished for with a single heavy guage hook, sometimes circles, but never trebles unless using 'out of the box' lures like the big yozuris that come armed with a couple of trebles and even those can be doctored with a big barbless circle.

A typical pike trace hasn't changed in fifty years, but remember that pike have not always had the respect that they have today and the way we used to catch them was only a prelude to knocking them on the head, thats what usually happened when I was a kid. So the hooking arrangement was all about snagging rather than safely hooking a fish.

I first tried Archie Braddocks rigs on perch using small perch deadbaits and was very successful. I had a good head of big perch to play with locally and it quickly became abundantly clear that they did not like wire. Archies rigs only run to the tail end so a fish mouthing the bait will not feel any hardware until the whole bait is in the mouth. so I also used them for pike with a larger hook and they worked just as well. However Archie has a view that you can get away with braid traces for pike and thats where we part company. I always felt it such a shame that the root idea should be spoilt by the suggestion that you could get away with braid traces. True I use fluorocarbon traces where the target is chub or perch but only where I know there is only a very slim chance or no chance of finding pike. For out and out pike fishing I use only titanium traces. They are very slim, very strong and very kinkproof as pangolin will testify. I also use small swivels. Not much point in using big 200lb bs swivels on 20 and 30lb wire. I leave out the uptrace and use extra long main traces (up to three foot)instead and thats all there is between hook and the swivel connecting to the main line (30 and 50lb braid)with a running ledger above the trace. Float is homemade, Fenland style. A small white polyball with a cocktail stick through the middle with a starlight tube glued to the top. Very small and very visible and with a starlight can be used in the dark. I'll use larger floats (double polyball) in bad weather or in a faster current.
The hooks are either Partridge doubles or better still Drennan doubles. They are hooked into the deadbait just up from the root of the tail and to ensure that dont drop out they are overbound around the root of th tail (over the trace just behind the hook) with 8/9 turns of shirring elastic, the stuff that sea anglers bind peeler crab on the hook with.
Undoubtedly there are those that prefer the traditional two tebles, I have no problem with that. This method doesn't suit livebaiting although its equally possible to use a one hook rig on live bait, it just looks a little different to the rig that I described. But use what you're comfortable with. This way suits me. If I get a moment tomorrow (I'm fishing) I'll post some pictures.
If you are interested in simplified rigs then take a look at Archies site at http://www.braddocksbaits.co.uk and also take the trouble to find a copy of an excellent book called Fenland Zander by Steve Younger. Neville Fickling's shop usually has it in stock. You never know, it might change the way that you think about fishing for predators.