The Mag Aligner Rig

This rig was truly a revelation when it was first ‘outed’ by Mr. Maylin! Originally a concept that Bernie Lofushousen came up with – the simplistic, but highly effective hooking arrangement works amazingly as a single cast trap (or over the top of spodded maggot). When it is combined with a big bag of maggots it all works together so phenomenally that it is now a lot of seasoned winter anglers number one maggot rig.

Once again, I personally favour a size 11 Covert Mugga hook or a size 12 Covert Dark for the Mag-Aligner, hence I sometime dub ‘our’ version the ‘Mugg-Aligner’. By incorporating an Enterprise Tackle Mag-Aligner Grub on the hook with the line coming out the inside face to create a line-aligner mechanism, all that is needed is a few maggots conventionally hooked onto the hook and a tailored lead arrangement designed to cope with the big bag of maggots and rig hitting the lake surface when it’s being lobbed out.

We tend to use a short super soft hooklink like Trickster Heavy for this rig – I think it’s largely true of most very minimalist hookbait and hook arrangements that small baits and hooks are better with soft natural feeling hooklinks that don’t inhibit the bait’s and rig’s movement: just enough to give them enough movement to do the job, but short enough to react quickly and tighten as it is inhaled with a load of maggots.

The soft hooklink isn’t a problem (with regards tangles) because the lead arrangement allows the PVA bag to be tied to the Flexi Ring mounted on the underside of a inline Bolt Bomb. This way, the hookbait is nicked onto a couple of strands of the PVA mesh securing it in place and controlling it exactly in flight. When it’s in the water it keeps the hookbait in close proximity to the exploding bag of ‘germs’ when it has settled on the lakebed – hiding the terminal tackle amazingly well.

The positioning of the grub has to be right, with the exit point of the hooklink coming out of the end of the Mag-Aligner Grub perpendicular to the hook point – to ensure that the rig is working as well as it can

When and where

I’d use this on any relatively weed-free lake that allows maggots! Honestly, using maggot in winter is such a game-changer, in terms of consistency of action when you would likely be struggling on all other conventional methods. The multi-layered of attraction and feed triggering stimulus of the smell, sight and sound of maggots moving in a concentrated area around the hookbait. The trap is both blatant (visually) and extremely subtle in terms of the overall camouflage.

Lewis Read’s Mag-Aligner set-up

Little tricks

1. The critical positioning of the grub has to be right, with the exit point of the hooklink coming out of the end of the Mag-Aligner Grub perpendicular to the hook point – to ensure that the rig is working as well as it can. It’s a very aggressive flipping arrangement, and when you have the angle right it works in both directions of spin (rather than just one if it’s not centralised correctly).

2. I find that you need to change the lead arrangement/PVA bag set-up to help in terms of attaining range consistently - and if I’m pushing the envelope of my casting (anything over a 15yds LOL!) rather than tying the bag onto the ring positioned on the base of the lead (which unbalanced the arrangement in terms of attaining a smooth cast) I prefer to tie the bag onto the leadcore just above the lead. This way the rig flies out lead first and therefore goes out far more smoothly/consistently without wobbling and cutting range
down dramatically.

3. Adding crumb or other stimulatory powders like GLM or Krill Powder into the maggots is always an option to create another level of attraction. I like this if I am campaigning on a water and means that the chosen boilie is consistently being fed on almost by ‘accident’, along with the maggots. This gives your boiled bait application a little more consistency throughout the year and should keep
the fish grubbing a little bit longer
once they have got a taste for it.

4. Finally, a lot of fish have been caught out of relatively gooey silt on this Mag-Aligner approach – I think the large bag tends to add a lot of resistance into the rig and it settles nicely in the upper layers of the silt beds and pockets exploding up and out, with a nice cross section of maggots through different layers of sediment… LOVELY.

The lead arrangement. When casting short distances, Lewis just ties the mesh PVA to the ring swivel at the base of the lead. For longer distances, he ties it to the leadcore, just above the lead

Best session: I’ve enjoyed some fantastic session using this rig – but one of my favourites was when DT James and I came up against the dynamic powerhouse duo of Rob and Joe (the owners of CARPology) on the North Lake at Elphicks in a heat of ‘Cricket Fishing’ (this was many years ago, before Joe developed a mouse nest/monk hole in the top of his hair). The words ‘trounced’ and ‘annihilated’ spring to mind… Poor little fellas! At that point it was still only used by very few anglers at the time and we knocked them out the metaphorical cricket ground… The next time I fished against them guess what they were using… [sniggers childishly]

Biggest carp landed on the rig: Shoulders at 50lb 2oz.

Best run-to-take ratio: It’s one of those arrangements that gives amazing hook holds – and you rarely have any hook pulls thanks to the good old Mugga hook. I don’t keep notes as such, but know I rarely, if ever, drop a carp on the arrangement when it is right.

Anti-Roll Bar

“The Mag-Aligner works best with a smallish hook - something like an 8 or 10. However, if you do want to use a bigger hook, then I’d suggest moving over to the Medusa Rig. And when it comes to “edges” for this presentation, I either add a piece of silicone or a fake maggot to the Hair, as this keep the hook and ball of maggots separated, plus to knocks a bit of weight off the hook as well.”

Or add a swivel

The Medusa Rig: brilliant, but it does have one Achilles heel: when the maggots wriggle and rotate, they can twist your Hair up and cause lots of problems. To overcome this problem, replace the rig ring for a micro rig swivel so when the maggots rotate and twist, the swivel will do the same, meaning you still have a perfectly presented Hair and rig.