Should you scale down your rigs for winter?

Rob Hughes

"Colour is more important for me"

“Occasionally I will fine down and it certainly helps, but will I not compromise on having the gear I need to do the job. Getting everything pinned down and camouflaged where required is just as important in my mind. The main thing I will do though is change the colour of my end tackle and main line from a green bias to a brown bias. Generally in the summer there’s weed and algae around and that means that the water has a green tinge to it. Come winter the tinge drops out and takes on a more natural colour which, in our case is usually grey, the colour of light after it has been filtered through the cloud that usually covers. Add the fact that most of the living stuff has died and has turned brown or black, and for me, changing colour is, as if not more important, than fining down.” 

Matt Eaton

"I may drop a hook size"

“My experiences as a match angler many years ago proved, beyond doubt, that fining down when things were tough would indeed produce more bites although it really isn’t something I do in my carp fishing. Maggots and the like are very much at the whim of undertow and other water movement so finer lines allow them to behave more naturally whereas boilies, being larger, heavier and inanimate are pretty much static and fining down isn’t likely to make the same difference. I may drop down a hook size to accommodate smaller hookbaits but that’s about as far as I go.”

Gary Bayes

"Yes, I will fine down"

“Without doubt, scaling main line, hooklink and hook size down will get more takes at any time of year but unless you’re fishing open water, more takes isn’t always more fish on the bank; you see this when floater and Zig fishing, land the little ones but lose the bigger ones. I like mono hooklinks in the winter and will go down to 6lb and size 12 hooks if I can and do get more bites doing so as long as I know I’ll land all fish hooked. That said though, concealment is another advantage, light brown mono and fluorocarbons make a massive difference if they are hard on the bottom and then line diameter matters less.”

Mat Woods

"I think it's nonsense"

“I think scaling down for the winter is a bit of a nonsense really. The fish are more torpid than usual, they’re a bit docile, so disguising your tackle is not really going to make much difference. My best winter campaigns have been using relatively complicated rigs that are mechanically very difficult for the carp to deal with once taken inside their mouths – and I’ve had lots of great winter campaigns. I think the only benefit to using lighter lines and smaller hooks is a smaller hook tends to be sharper than a bigger one.”

Ian Chillcott

"It's a load of old shite!"

“I have no idea if someone started this off simply to get people to buy more tackle they simply do not need, or it was one of the equally common musings of someone who rarely, if ever, goes carp fishing. I am certainly no expert, and am more often than not making it up as I go along, but I catch more fish in the winter than I do in the warmer months. And never, not once, have I scaled down my tackle to catch carp. It’s not necessary and just adds another curve ball into the equation that will not only cost you money it will also, as your confidence wilts, cost you fish.”