Should you change rigs depending on the time of year?

The big question

Do you vary your rig choice much during different times of the year?

“This depends on the type of water I’m fishing, but say I were fishing a big pit, where the Hinged Stiff Link worked well through the summer months, then I would probably carry on using it through the winter months. I think that there’s a big difference between carp in large, un-pressured pits and carp in smaller pressured waters. Carp in big waters are harder to locate but when you do find them they are generally much easier to catch. They seem happier to eat angler’s bait, especially boilies. This could be due to them being more used to feeding on larger food items, like zebra mussels for example which are generally more abundant in the bigger pits, as apposed to smaller food items like bloodworm, which are often the most abundant food item in the smaller silty waters.

“I’m going off on a tangent now, but there could be other reasons why big pit carp are often more angler friendly. Less angling pressure for one, along with a higher quality of water. Bigger pits are generally more open to the influences of the wind and therefore have a higher dissolved oxygen content in comparison to the smaller waters, which can often go pretty dead mid-summer. How many small waters do you know where the big fish only tend to get caught early spring and then again in the autumn? This is largely down to water quality I’m sure. The better the water quality, the happier and more angler-friendly the carp.

“The effectiveness of any rig used is dependant on the bait being used with it. If it’s all about boilies then Hinge and Chod Rigs are often my first choice, even in winter, but somewhere else I might be better off using a little balanced tiger or maybe even a thin slither of Peperami with a little bag of pellets, in which case my rigs, hook sizes etc. are changed to suit.”

One in the bag! And taken on a Hinged Stiff Link which I’d been using all year