leger rigs on a muddy bottom

[fantasticfisherman]

thanks again for the ideas guys will try both flat lead and running rig see which one works best.

[RUDD]

Here is a method I used years ago in a very silty village pond :

 

Take a length of weaker line than your main line and tie on a swivel. Thread swivel on main line and put on ledger stop.

Take a small piece of cork, cork ball or rig foam and using a baiting needle thread it on to line and push up to swivel.

 

Now pinch on AA or BB shot below the cork.

You have to get the weight just right so the rig sinks to the bottom.

 

As the weights are not in one mass (such as an arsley bomb) they wont sink to far into the silt.

You could also put bits od cork etc in between the shot to make the weight get a bit more of a neutral bouyency.

 

 

The cork will sit on or above the silt preventing the swivel from getting pulled into the silt, thus you have one correctly working running rig.

Tie on your hooklength and hook.

 

I would use a bait such as bread or expander pellets that have a neutral bouency that will sit ON the silt.

[Peter Waller]

A float is an obvious tactic. Or perhaps a simple paternoster using a flat lead.

[fantasticfisherman]

i have tried floatfishing but this pond has depressions where it is too deep to float fish and i have found out that these depressions are where the bigger fish sit.

[carping_mad]

how about a sliding float rig? can be a little difficult but can be fished perfectly in depths as deep as you like?

[knagy]

yes it will make it sink slower but if you buy some that dezolverble frm it sinks as slow but put the fake sweet corn on as well

my main bait of attack was going to be sweetcorn with one piece real and one fake on a hair so wont that make it sink slower onto the bottom?

[Broadbent]

How deep are the depressions? you could try using a sliding float setup.

Its possible to fish at 12/13ft without a sliding float anyways

[BoldBear]

I fish an estate lake which used to be very silted up and there was a foot or more of soft silt mixed with dead leaves & weed on the bottom. legering was normally out of the question as your lead & hooklength would sink into the soft bed and even if you used a slow sinking bait the lead swivel would get clogged.

We had to use either a wooden ledger (see picture below) together with a slow sinking bait, or add a bouyant stem to a lead weight using peacock quill (similar to RUDDs suggestion) painted a dull green, and fish a bait (usually a jelly bait or an air injected lobworm) suspended a foot or so above the lead. both of these methods worked extremely well and caught us many Tench, Crucians, Roach Bream and Carp.

 

 

Hope this helps

BB

Edited February 6, 2009 by BoldBear

[DavyR]

Frank Guttfield addressed this problem in the 60s (that decade again!) - he adapted drilled bullets by gluing an empty biro tube through the middle and inserting a swivel in the free end. Coupled with a buoyant or semi-bouyant bait (bread crust or flake), it did the trick for him and he caught several big tench from muddy-bottomed pools using it.

 

My Mum banned me from further experiment when I got biro ink all down me school trousers...

[Andy Macfarlane]

Would mini leger stems or bouncing bettys not work?

 

.....Regards.....Andy.....