Angling-Adventures.co.uk

                                                 MY FIRST HAIR RIG

As a long time coarse angler with over fifty years experience I had always regarded dedicated Carp anglers with the same suspicion that I still regard Pole anglers and Match anglers. There was obviously something seriously wrong with someone who was prepared to sit for days on end staring at the water with one bait out and not bothering to renew it. That wasn’t fishing, that was terminal boredom! All that was soon to change as I met a man who convinced me to at least try session fishing for Carp and if I didn’t like it, well so be it. And so I took my first tentative steps on the road to becoming a ‘Carp Angler’.

My first action was to try and familiarise myself with the terminology, boilies, bivvies, hair rigs, PVA and all the rest of the terms were like a foreign language to me so with the help and patient guidance of my new found Experienced Carp Fishing Friend I was able to build up a very basic knowledge of Carp fishing language and to my surprise it was not all gobbledegook, some of the terms were familiar to me albeit under different names and the expression “oh you mean a ****** “ became a regular part of our internet based conversations. So I finally became confident enough to start to consider this Carp fishing lark for real. My friend had instilled into me the importance of using good reliable terminal tackle, something I could relate to from my coarse fishing experience as the number of good fish lost at the net as a result of poorly tied terminal rigs is every is every anglers worst nightmare. So one day while chatting on the net I asked my new found Experienced Carp Fishing Friend “ what do I need to tie a hair rig?”  “Simple “ he said “ some line and a hook “, well not quite, it seemed that I also needed to make a list of bits to do the job properly but to start with some line and a largish hook would do. Fortunately I do a bit of sea fishing so I had a size 1/0 hook and some 10lbd line handy so away we went, lesson one was to be ‘ The Hair Rig’. “ Firstly tie an Overhand Loop Knot “  “ a what?”  I could imagine the patient sigh emanating from Experienced Carp Fishing Friend  “right, double your line back on itself and now form a loop with the doubled line and pass the tail through the loop and pull it tight, leaving a small loop at the end”  “Duh! “ well of course I know that knot, I just didn’t know what it was called. “right now trim the tail so the loop is at one end of the line, this is for your hair stop” “ok I have done that “ thinking what the hell is a hair stop? “now thread the other end of the line through the back of the eye of the hook, and pull it through until you have a hair of the desired length”  “how do I know the desired length?”  “well that depends on the size of your boilies”  “you mean boilies come in different sizes?”  At this point there was a long pause, and eventually my new found Experienced Carp Fishing Friend typed “yes but we will come to that later”  “ok “ I replied rather sheepishly. “ now whip the line down the shank of the hook until you are level with the point” hey I can do that I thought “now turn the line back to top of the hook using fewer turns and pass it back through the eye and pull it tight and that’s a hair rig “ wey hey I thought, “this is simple” little did I know then of the trials and tribulations I was to go through to get it right with braid and smaller hooks!.

  For the next few days I practiced my new found skill, gradually reducing the hook and line size until I felt I could tie a reasonably competent hair rig that wouldn’t be a complete embarrassment on the bank. Now for stage two, actually tying the thing using  ‘proper carp tackle’ ie braid, carp hooks, swivels and the mysterious heat shrink tubing. Full of enthusiasm  (and a wallet full of cash) I set of for the tackle shop armed with a list of “ a few bits you will need “ supplied by my Experienced Carp Fishing Friend to acquire the necessary items to complete my first lesson. This is where I had my first setback. As I live in a seaside Town on the South Coast the two tackle shops tend to stock mainly sea fishing equipment and only carry a small range of coarse tackle and bits, so after a cup of tea and an exchange of exaggerated fishing stories, Bruce the owner advised me to try a tackle shop in Canterbury that allegedly carried vast stocks of what I needed. Undaunted I set of on the half hour drive to this carp tackle Utopia determined to purchase my first set of hair rig making equipment, however I had forgotten the roadwork’s so an hour later I parked outside the shop. As I entered the shop a sweet fruity aroma hit me, no it wasn’t the shopkeepers aftershave it was, as I was to learn later the smell of boilies. I wandered nonchanantly up to the counter and desperately trying to look and sound like an experienced carp angler and asked, “Have you got any rig braid mate?”  The Neanderthal behind the counter gave me a withering look and grunted “s’over there” pointing vaguely in the direction of the back of the shop and went back to his conversation with his camouflaged cladded mates. I walked to the back of the dimly lit shop and surreptitiously took my list from my pocket and started to look for the bits I needed. I was confronted on three side by a vast array of hi tech items that looked like spare parts for a spaceship, at this point a slight feeling of unease came over me and as I perused the rows of hooks, lines boilies stops and all the other packets of ‘things’ the unease grew into panic until finally breaking into a cold sweat I fled this torture chamber and stumbled out into the fresh air. Sitting down on a wall I lit a cigarette and sat to contemplate the stupidity of what I had done, I was after all going to spend my money in this mans shop and if I wanted some advice he should be willing to answer my question if he wanted to make a sale. Beep, Beep my mobile phone went off causing me to jump like a startled rabbit, I answered it and a voice said, “where are you love?” it was then that I realised that three hours ago I was “just popping down the tackle shop” and had promised to get some shopping on the way back! So somewhat crestfallen and disappointed I made my way home via the Supermarket thinking, “tomorrow is another day“

  Bright and early the next day I set off for the tackle shop determined not to come home without actually buying something. On entering the shop I went straight to the back and started looking, after about five minutes a voice said, “are you ok there?” I turned and saw a different chap with an enquiring smile on his face and breathed a huge sigh of relief  “at last a friendly face “ I thought “ no not really “ I replied “ I am not sure what I am looking for “ I then briefly told him about my Experienced Carp Fishing Friend and my list. “ ok then lets see what you want “ he said. So twenty minutes later and a few quid lighter I left the shop a happy man. I knew today was going to be a good one as there had been no roadwork’s in my way. Arriving home I sat down at kitchen table and spread my new goodies out in front of me.

I had a 25m length of hooklength braid, a packet of size 8 carp hooks, a packet of swivels and some assorted heat shrink tubing. The first thing to do was to cut a length of braid to make my rig, this presented a problem as apparently ordinary scissors wont cut braid, something my Experienced Carp Fishing Friend had forgotten to tell me!! After several abortive attempts with various types of scissors my nice new length of hooklength was somewhat depleted, then I had a brainwave, use a craft knife! At this point I thought my wife wouldn’t be pleased if I made deep cuts in the kitchen table so some invention was required. I had some MDF in the shed so I made myself a ‘rig making table’ that I could cut on to my hearts content without upsetting the domestic authorities. This was also to double as a boilie making table as well, but more of that at another time.

First I cut an 8” length of braid and tied my overhand loop in it I then tried to thread it through the back of the eye of the hook leaving a hair of about ½ an inch, duh! Its braid and it frays  “what now “ I thought I had tried wetting it, recutting it and every other thing I could think of. But still I couldn’t get it to thread through the eye. Then my wife suggested using a needle threader, brilliant!! and guess what ,, it worked, I then proceeded to whip the braid down the shank and back again and using my needle threader passed the braid back through the eye, pulled it tight and hey presto it worked. Next step was to tie the swivel at the other end. My Experienced Carp Fishing Friend had said that short hooklengths are best so I decided on a four inch one to start with, apparently they can be tied as short as one inch but to attempt that as a novice seemed a bit unwise to say the least. I managed to tie a respectable grinner knot to the swivel and placed my handiwork on the table to admire it, then my wife asked me in all innocence “what are those bits of green tubing for?”  The ensuing five minutes have been heavily edited.  With a large sigh I cut the swivel from the braid and started again, this time remembering to cut a short length of heat shrink tubing and sliding it over the braid. I then realised that I had several different sizes of tubing and I had better check that the one I had chosen actually fitted over the swivel, unsurprisingly it was much to large! Realising that it would shrink I tested different sizes until I found one that seemed to just fit, I cut another piece from this and slid it over the braid, retied the swivel and following my exertions decided at that point that a little rest was called for. (definitely a session Carper in the making)

Fully refreshed the time had come to finish my rig by applying heat to the tubing, the best way is by holding it over a steaming kettle. The shrinking process requires constant heat and as electric kettles turn themselves off when they have boiled this could be a problem, my Experienced Carp Fishing Friend had told me that it was perfectly possible to do it by dunking it in a freshly made cup of tea when tying rigs on the bank but it was better to do the job properly so a saucepan of boiling water was used and holding the hook I gingerly lowered the braid and swivel towards the bubbling water. “Ouch! that’s hot” I said and promptly dropped the whole thing into the boiling water, with great presence of mind I didn’t plunge my hand into the saucepan to retrieve my rig, I quickly turned the gas off and removed the pan to a safe place, the instant thought of your work colleagues turning up with sirens wailing and blue lights flashing to take you to hospital for doing something incredibly stupid really concentrates the mind! And knowing my workmates as I do, recognising my address I wouldn’t have got just one ambulance, the whole bloody Station would have turned out plus Incident Officers also Fire and Police as well.

 Using a fork I retrieved my rig and laid it out on the table and picked it up it was then that I was reminded that metal retains heat as the hook branded the end of my finger and thumb.  After I had done a dance around the kitchen vaguely reminiscent of Sitting Bull’s war dance and roundly cursed anything and anybody within range I finally picked up now cooled rig to examine it. Although not the most perfect hair rig ever it was at least a respectable attempt and will definitely be used at some stage!

 This is my first attempt at tying a hair rig with sea tackle.

Although this story will only take a couple of minutes to read it actually took me the best part of a day to complete ‘My First Hair Rig’. Since then of course I have become fairly proficient at rig tying to the extent that I have even tied different types of rigs for other people to use.  My Experienced Carp Fishing Friend now says that I am at ‘intermediate’ level in my session fishing education and that I should progress to advanced within the next year or so. The whole process has been an enjoyable learning curve for me, something that I feel that kids miss out on in today’s world of instant fishing with 10 and 11 year olds dismissing 5/6lbd Tench or Carp as tiddlers.