Anatomy Of A Carp Rig

Dan Wildbore reveals his go-anywhere 50/50 Slip-D rig. Developed from Martin Clarke's brainchild, Dan believes these few additional tweaks have helped him put more fish on the bank.

For the majority of my fishing, I try to target a clean and firm bottom. In the spring I like to fish with pop-ups, but from May onwards I prefer to fish the hook bait closer to the lake bed. I used to be a big fan of the snowman rig, but over the years it has been used tirelessly by so many anglers and I don't find it as efficient as it used to be.

With the lakes being so busy now and the fish receiving heavy angling pressure, I have moved over to something a little more inconspicuous and subtler.

I like the idea of fishing a match the hatch bait but want it to carry an element of buoyancy. The easy way round this is to use an out-of-the-bag wafter, but the way I want the bait to sit is like a claw. To do this, I use half a Tuff Ones bottom bait and half a pop-up. That way I can check it in the edge and, depending on how it is going down, I can trim either one to make it go down perfectly.

The ideal rig for this presentation, for me, is the slip-D. It is quick and easy to tie, offers superb movement and can be used with a variety of hook baits too. I found myself using this almost exclusively around four years ago, and come the summertime it is the only rig in my board.

There are some key items of tackle that make this rig work. I use a length of a soon to be released hook link from Thinking Anglers called Kamskin; what makes this right for this rig is that it carries some stiffness but is fairly limp too, which allows it to settle down over any lake bed, flip back on itself should a fish suck it in from the wrong direction, but also have enough stiffness to reset should it be wafted about.

The hook ring swivel also offers great movement due to the D, but the bait can spin on the swivel too. I also like a small piece of shrink tube, just enough to open the gape up on the hook.

To ensure the rig never tangles, I do like to thread down a PVA bag of either small pellets or crumb. What you are left with is a perfectly balanced rig with a bait that matches the freebies that you are feeding. When the carp are gorging on your baited spot, they don't see a match the hatch type of bait as so much danger, which I think helps me get more bites.