How to find the right pop-up rig
There are various pop-up rigs around – The Withy Pool Rig, The Hinged Stiff Link, a standard combi pop-up rig – but which one is best and when would you use one over another? Robert Creek, via e-mail
Lee Wagner says: “It’s not so much the hook end but the boom section which will dictate what rig I fish, with both the ‘standard combi’ and the ‘Hinged Stiff Link’ there needs to be a relatively even lakebed. Because the boom section of both these rigs are stiff, if you’re fishing in silt or over uneven bottoms presentation can easily be spoilt and in these situations a Chod is the better option,
“If I do have an even surface over clay or sand the ‘standard combi’ rig with a bait just popped up off the hook would be my first choice. If I wanted to present over an even layer of light silk/blanket weed or leaf litter then the ‘HSL’ with a two- to three-inch curved section would be my weapon of choice. In these situations I’d use a nugget of Rig Wise Dissolving Foam placed inside some PVA mesh, I’d then nick it onto the hook through the mesh rather than the foam. By doing this, the nugget of dissolving foam will be guaranteed to release a lot quicker, especially in cold water dropping the rig down gently on top or lightly through the debris leaving your bait wafting on the top.
“As for the Withy Pool Rig, it is basically the same as the hook end on a ‘HSL’ but the curve was created with shrink tube, designed out of necessity when certain anglers recognised the added hooking benefit of extending the shank of the hook. Stiff hooklink materials like Gardner’s Trip Wire wasn’t common place and the trademark ‘Choddy’ curve had to be manufactured by those pioneering anglers in a different way. The same effect can now be easily achieved by putting that familiar curve in your Trip Wire, in effect creating a stripped back version of The Withy Pool.”