What are your favourite rigs?

The big question

You’re best known for the Chod and Hinged Rig, but what are your other favourite rigs and presentations that have done well for you over the years?

“Some of the anglers reading this might remember the old Maruta Kinryu’s, which I featured in my first book. I used the size 12’s at Yateley, simply with a little ring on the shank that slid up and down. Don’t be mistaken into thinking that a size 12 was a small hook – it wasn’t; it was just the way that particular company labelled their hook sizes. In fact, a size 12 Kinryu was probably equivalent to a size 4.

“Anyway, nowadays you can get little rubber stops that you can position on the hook’s bend to stop the ring going passed the barb. Back in the day, Nige and I used to use Drennan Float Stops with a bit of superglue, but they never had the same grip as the modern hook stops available today. In the end I found a product called Super Steel. It’s a bit like Araldite, you mix two materials together to make a metal-like substance and I would blob a bit on the bend to make a stop. I used to take great care doing a whole pack of ten hooks in one go, forming perfect stops that didn’t obstruct the inside of the hook’s bend, and then nicking them into old wine corks until they dried.

“I caught the bulk of my Match and Copse Lake fish on that rig, and thinking about it, all my North Lake fish too, including Bazil, plus some of my early Car Park Lake fish, before eventually playing about with the Hinged Stiff Link.

“Nige and I have often talked about it and think this rig would be a great set-up to use today, especially when wishing to keep your pop-ups low to the deck, or maybe when fishing balanced baits on long hooklinks over weed, but there’s no longer a hook available like it. It wasn’t just a very short shanked, beak pointed hook, it also had a spade end, something you just don’t see with big hooks of today. In fact, that’s where the Snell Knot which I still use today for my Hinge and Chod Rigs originated from… it’s the knot I used to use to whip on the spade ended Kinryu’s.”