Fish activity ruining your presentations?

Q: Do you place any importance on, or consider the effect fish activity is going to have on how your presentation sits when leaving hookbaits in position for long periods? How major a factor do you think it plays in missed opportunities, and also how do you go about avoiding attention from bream and tench, or don’t you?

Gaz Fareham says: “This is an area I have always been conscious of, and if I’m honest, has a really significant impact on the type of rigs I use and how they are designed to work. A lot of my fishing is done on fairly difficult, low stock waters where bites are hard to come by and there is a lot of waiting. I honestly think there is no point having a delicate set-up out there that hasn’t got the ability, or mechanics, to ‘reset’ itself when you are angling blind out into the lake and leaving your rigs in position for 12-24hrs at a time. Tench, bream, roach, birds, carp… all manner of things are very likely to come into contact with your rig at some point whilst it is out there. I’ve always believed that, and the Korda Underwater films illustrated it perfectly for me… time after time a rig would get moved, kicked around, or picked up and ejected, and would suddenly be sitting awkwardly with little or no chance of getting picked up again or hooking a fish effectively. Whilst they had the privilege of a camera to know when to wind in and reposition it, when fishing blind, you have no idea what is happening out there and so using something that will always be sat right I believe is vital.

The Amnesia D is easy to tie, but super-effective

“There’s two basic things I do in all my rigs that help achieve this; one is to use a hookbait with some element of balance, and the other is to use a hooklink that has some element of stiffness to it. The two work together to create a rig that can be picked up, moved, swirled around with pecs or a big waft of a tail and will just reset itself. The Amnesia D-Rig, whilst it is not the most subtle of rigs and actually looks and feels a little clumsy out of the water, once balanced and underwater behaves far differently and most importantly I think, no matter what happens to it, it is always fishing, and that is, I believe, one of its biggest benefits. The same with the Hinge Rigs, and anything that uses a boom section.

It will also always be fishing, no matter how much it gets kicked around out there

“It is also the reason I don’t bother with little PVA Sticks or bags for the vast majority of my angling. I honestly don’t believe that little bag will still be sat there at 6a.m. the following morning at bite time if I’ve put the rods out in the evening, unless your swim is devoid of any fish activity of any description at all, which for the most part they never are. I rarely purposely try to avoid bream or tench activity, in fact sometimes I will happily encourage it, but what I don’t want is for them to ruin a carefully laid trap and leave it sat poorly when a carp finally does arrive on the area.”

And you can use it with a multitude of hookbaits - just make sure it’s balanced