Hair rigging and hooking

[davedave]

In the last year or so i have been using hair rigs whenever i go carp fishing. I have found my catch rates go up and although i think sometimes hooking is better, most the time i hair rig. But what im not sure about, is if you are hair rigging a bait, can you also put bait on the hook? I know this is probably not the accepted thing to do because i have never seen or heard of it being done but is there a reason why not?

 

So say you were hair rigging a maggot clip, why couldn't you put 3 or 4 maggots on the actual hook as well? Or the same with sweetcorn etc etc. So long as you didn't mask the hook it wouldn't be a problem would it?

 

 

So what im asking is is there a reason why people dont put bait on the hook and hair rig? And have any of you guys tried this? thanks

[BoldBear]

I have on occasion used a maggot or two on the hook when using hair rigged Pellets with some success for Barbel especially if I want my hookbait found amongst the loose feed around it by adding something moving.

 

But usually I rely on the Barbel homing on on the flavour trail leaking from my hair rigged bait and something on the actual hook could mask the hook and be counter productive.

 

But overall as long as the hook penetration is not impeded I can't see any problems.

 

Years ago a friend and I used to fish for Pike with several small livebaits (and I mean 1 to 3 inch baits) on a short hair through their lips and one lip hooked bait on the large single hook as an experiment imitating a small shoal, and I remember it worked fairly well although it was a bit fiddly especially on a freezing cold day, but we didn't percivere with it.

Edited February 22, 2011 by BoldBear

[Dales]

I don't see why you can't give it a try, but I think I would be cautious about which baits I put on the hook. I think I would worry about soemthing like corn effecting the hooking ability of the rig but maggots as BoldBear has used might not be such an issue. When I hair rig a bait I like the idea of nothing masking the hook. I think I would worry about any kind of bait on the hook reducing the chance of the hook taking hold but that might be just one of my hang ups. I like to allow the hook to move around and find easy purchase in the fishes mouth, So I tend to go one way or the other. Bait on the hair or on the hook, but nothing is set in stone and if you think it may add something it's worth a try.

[Anderoo]

I hair rig baits if they are either too hard to hook directly, of if I want the hook left free for self hooking purposes. In either case I wouldn't want anything on the hook itself. However, as the others have said, try it and see what happens!

[tony tinca]

In the last year or so i have been using hair rigs whenever i go carp fishing. I have found my catch rates go up and although i think sometimes hooking is better, most the time i hair rig. But what im not sure about, is if you are hair rigging a bait, can you also put bait on the hook? I know this is probably not the accepted thing to do because i have never seen or heard of it being done but is there a reason why not?

 

So say you were hair rigging a maggot clip, why couldn't you put 3 or 4 maggots on the actual hook as well? Or the same with sweetcorn etc etc. So long as you didn't mask the hook it wouldn't be a problem would it?

 

 

So what im asking is is there a reason why people dont put bait on the hook and hair rig? And have any of you guys tried this? thanks

 

 

i dont believe the fish see the hook when it is slightly away from the bait , all they are interested in is the food , but when you have a hook showing through a bait then they are gonna be more suspicious and the only way to stop that would be to bury the hook inside of the bait but then you have the problem of hitting the bites unless like anderoo says your using soft baits in which case you can hide the hook inside it like paste for example .

[Dales]

i dont believe the fish see the hook when it is slightly away from the bait , all they are interested in is the food , but when you have a hook showing through a bait then they are gonna be more suspicious and the only way to stop that would be to bury the hook inside of the bait but then you have the problem of hitting the bites unless like anderoo says your using soft baits in which case you can hide the hook inside it like paste for example .

 

The whole issue about whether a fish can see the hook or not intrigues me. As you point out when using soft baits and putting them directly on the hook, I often like to bury the hook in them and hide at least a good part of the hook and sometimes all of it. However I have no problem with using hair rigs and leaving the whole hook showing often in larger hook sizes then I use when hiding a hook in a bait.

 

It's weird, in one scenario I try to hide the hook and in another I leave the whole hook exposed. This seems a total contradiction, as time goes by I think I am coming more and more around to the idea that they either do not see the hook or just ignore it and it may just look like an other bit of detritus on the bottom. So why ever bother to hide the hook? I know it's not a simple as that and the way certain fish feed etc effects it, but it so odd that some times we hide the hook and at other times it's on full show

[Dick Dastardly]

Of course you can Dave.....its just that it defeats the whole point of using the hair in the first place really!

[davedave]

thanks

 

As i don't have a need for it i'll just leave it but maybe in summer i'll give it a go. I just want my first carp of the year so dont want to spoil my chances haha

[poledark]

A good compromise is to put a half dozen on a hair/clip and about 3 on the hook. This leaves plenty of hook point clear, but offers a good bunch of maggots.

 

Den

[Andy Macfarlane]

Of course you can Dave.....its just that it defeats the whole point of using the hair in the first place really!

 

Kinda where I was going.

 

Anyway.....Dales, I don't believe for a second that fish see a hook and fear it for any reason. I don't believe they have the capacity to make the link between hook and bank. What I do believe though is though is that certain hooking arrangements affect the behaviour of the bait in question, whether it's the way it moves, the weight, the colour or just that it doesn't look right.

 

The fact that some fish seem to leap at the chance of spending yet more time on the bank suggets to me that the hook itself is not the factor in whether the bait gets taken or not. It's the effect that hook has on the bait that is the problem. How you overcome it by either showing the whole thing or hiding it completely is just a matter of presentation.

 

For me it's never about hiding the hook so the fish can't see it. I don't think they know their arse from their elbow, never mind a hook.