Tie a soft hair to a stiff section of hooklink
A rig edge so your hook can have a stiff section of mono connected to it and a soft supple Hair to give the hookbait freedom of movement
In recent years I’ve had a go at tackling some pretty tricky venues with fish equally adept at not always wanting to play ball. One of the biggest things to really stand out to me over this time was just how good a performer the Hinge Rig is – in the right situation it’s absolutely deadly!
That said, there are times when I feel other presentations can be better and so I began taking a look at how I might possibly apply what I thought were the best bits of the Hinge Rig to other rigs. For me these being the wide gape and out-turned eye of a Chod style hook and more importantly the short stiff section of mono connected to it – this I believe is what the carp really find difficult to deal with and what leads to a super-strong hook hold.
I wanted to combine this ‘stiff’ element with one of the things I liked most about my bottom bait presentations, namely a soft supple Hair that gave the hookbait freedom of movement. After a bit of playing around the resulting method, which creates a stiff section near the hook yet retains a soft Hair, is the cute rig ‘edge’ that I’d like to share with you. Well, here’s how it’s done…
1 You will need a stiff mono, some soft braid for the Hair and a sharp Chod, stiff rig style hook.
2 Cut off around 10cm of braid and create a loop in the braid parallel with the stiff mono like this.
3 Take one end of the braid through the loop, around the mono three times to create a Water Knot.
4 Blob the end of the stiff mono with a lighter and slide the braid Water Knot down against it.
5 The next step is to form a loop in the braid to set the length of Hair and retain a bait stop like so.
6 Now you can trim the remaining tag end down remembering to leave a little 1cm long section.
7 Cut away a 20cm section of the stiff mono now and thread through the eye of the hook (size 6).
8 Tie a five-turn Knotless Knot so the blob is at the end of the whipping and the braid tag is trapped.
9 Tie an Overhand Knot in the braid on the bend of the hook so the hookbait can be blown back.
10 Tie the mono to a hooklink material of your choice (I like coated braid) using an Albright Knot.
11 Tidy the knot with putty and the generally supple rig now has a stiff section near the hook.
12 Add the hookbait, ideally a wafter or balanced bottom bait and the rig, plus ‘edge’, is complete!