IS THIS THE BEST MARGIN RIG EvER? - Preston Innovations

is This
The BesT
Margin
rig
ever?
When those margin
munters keep bolting
off whenever they see
your tackle, what’s the
answer? Ed Warren has
an ingenious solution
– the leadcore rig!
H
ands up all those who have pulled
their hair out after a frustrating
margin fishing session. We’ve all seen
it happen; the margins are alive with feeding
fish yet they won’t go near your hook bait and
bolt off as soon as they see your pole tip or
brush your line. It’s even more annoying when
you can actually see their backs breaking the
surface and their tails waving at you! These
fish are hungry and eating, otherwise they
wouldn’t be there, but they are also immensely
suspicious and wary. On your typical pressured
commercial fishery the fish have seen it all
before and are masters at evading capture. At
times they really will eat everything except your
hook bait!
Ed Warren has seen this situation time and
again on his local stillwaters. Venues such
as Maver Larford Lakes in Worcestershire
and the New Pools at Cudmore Fisheries in
Staffordshire are prime examples. On these
venues the margins are very shallow and at
times the fish will come into literally inches
of water. Even though you can often see them
feeding, they are unbelievably cute and difficult
to catch. It’s exciting fishing, yet infuriating
at the same time, and for every carp that you
»
venue File
Maver larFord lakes
Location: Larford Lane, Stourport,
Worcestershire DY13 0SQ
Contact: 01299 829373 or 07774
703067
Website: www.larfordlakes.co.uk
15H Hollo elastic
through a Pulla Kit
4x12 Preston
0.17mm PowerLine
4x12 Preston
PB Black dibber
Three No9s
Two feet of 20lb Maver
Carp leadcore
Four inches of
0.17mm PowerLine
4in hooklength
of 0.17mm or
0.15mm PowerLine
angler File
ed Warren
Age: 31
Occupation: Chef economist
Lives: Penkridge, Staffordshire
Sponsors: Preston Innovations, Sonubaits
Pole: Preston Innovations The One
Size 18 PR36 with
a Quickstop hair
Ed’s clever rig keeps the line
pinned to the deck to conceal
it from wary fish.
98 AUGUST 2010 AUGUST 2010 99
Punched
polony

Ed uses a needle knot to join
the main line to the leadcore.
An inline Preston Black
dibber makes a tangle-free
sight indicator.
manage to fool there are probably 10 more
that are spooked or foul hooked.
Not one to accept this frustrating situation,
Ed put his thinking cap on and began
experimenting with rigs. A conventional
margin rig with a longer line above the float
to keep the pole tip well away from the fish
still spooked them whenever they brushed the
line. Fishing overdepth seemed to hold the key
because this would hopefully keep the main
line on the bottom and the float away from
the mass of bodies churning up the water.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough because
the line would be wafted about and caused
even more foul-hookers. The next solution
was spreading a long chain of shot on the line
to pin it to the bottom, so the fish could swim
over it and feed confidently. This system was
still too light and was easily wafted about.
This is when Ed started to look at other
branches of angling, particularly specimen
fishing. Big-carp anglers have devised all
sorts of rigs and systems to conceal their
leads, main lines and hooklengths. Of these,
Once in the water, the rig
almost fishes itself.
two materials immediately stood out: hollow
tungsten tubing and leadcore. Both are
extensively used by the specimen fraternity to
pin their rigs to the lake bed, but could they
be successfully combined with the sensitivity
and accuracy of pole fishing? The seeds of
an ingenious new pole rig had well and truly
been sown…
Pinning iT doWn
When Ed began incorporating leadcore
or tungsten tubing into his pole rigs he
immediately saw the benefit. These heavy
materials weighted the rig down, so the fish
could happily swim over the top without
getting spooked. It also
The float is just
there as a marker
so don’t strike if it
buries or moves.
meant that the pole
tip and float were kept
well away from the
hook bait.
For a typical 12in to
18in shallow margin,
the main component
of Ed’s new rig is two feet of leadcore. This
clever product has a soft outer material
and a thin strip of lead running through
the middle. Although it can appear quite
rigid straight off the spool, it becomes much
suppler and malleable once wet and moulds
to the contours of the lake bed. Almost every
specimen company has its own brand but
Ed uses 20lb leadcore under the Maver Carp
banner.
The alternative is hollow tungsten rig
tubing. As the name suggests, this heavy
material has a hollow core through which
you can thread your line. It is actually heavier
than leadcore and typically comes in 2m
lengths that can be trimmed easily. Again this
is sold by most of the top carp brands.
While tungsten tubing can be simply slid
onto the line, leadcore is a bit fiddlier. There
are two ways to join it to the main line;
either splice it to create a loop and attach
it loop to loop, or a neater method is the
needle knot. This involves peeling back an
inch of the outer sheath and snapping off
a short length of leadcore. You then push a
needle or splicing needle through the side
and out through the hole, grab the line and
pull it through. Then, form a loop with the
line and pass the tag end through five or six
times to securely whip it around the leadcore
before tightening. This creates a continuous,
seamless and very secure connection
between the leadcore and the main line. For
extra security, carefully melt each end of
the leadcore material under a flame before
threading the line to prevent it fraying.
The resT oF The rig
To the top end of the leadcore, Ed attaches
two or three feet of 0.17mm Preston
PowerLine and slides on a 4x12 Preston PB
Black dibber. This is shotted with three No9s
directly under the float to help cock it. The
inline dibber is virtually tangleproof and
merely acts as a sight indicator so that he
knows exactly where the rig is.
At the other end of the leadcore he
attaches four inches of 0.17mm PowerLine
and leaves a small loop at the end to attach a
hooklength to.
For today’s session, Ed opts for four inches
of 0.15mm or 0.17mm PowerLine to a size
18 eyed PR36 hook. This is tied using a
knotless knot with a Korum Quickstop fitted
to the end of a 2cm hair. Finishing the rig off
is 15 Hollo elastic
through a Pulla Kit.
Although many
anglers like to use
heavy elastics,
thick lines and big
hooks for margin
work, Ed rarely sees
the need to fish any heavier than this. In
fact, he is keen to stress that this is quite a
delicate method and not a crude or heavyhanded
approach, which some people may
initially assume. It is also a safe rig that a
fish should be able to eject with ease should
an unexpected breakage occur. There is
also no striking involved because the fish
hook themselves, pull out the elastic and
usually kite out of the swim without too
much disturbance. It is therefore much
more discreet than a traditional setup where
you need to lift or strike at bites to set the
hook, which can cause the fish to bolt off.
Remember, the float is just there as a marker
so don’t strike if it buries or moves; just lay
the rig in and hold it fairly taut to the leadcore
and wait patiently until the elastic is pulled
out. What could be easier?
hair rigging is The keY
One key component is a hair-rigged hook bait.
After much trial and error, Ed believes that
hair rigging is essential to leave the maximum
amount of hook showing for a fish to prick
itself. It is the fish’s sucking in and inability
to blow the bait back out without getting
hooked that makes hair rigging such a deadly
way to catch fish.
BaiT and Feeding
What you feed will naturally depend on the
venue and its rules but wherever allowed Ed
opts for meat and hemp. Margin-feeding fish
seem to go berserk for cubes of meat, while
the hemp is a relatively heavy particle bait
that keeps them foraging. He isn’t too fussed
which brand of meat he uses, as long as it
cuts into 6mm cubes easily and isn’t too fatty.
For the hook, he likes to use a similar cube or
a 6mm or 8mm piece of punched polony.
Ed has brought three or four tins of
meat, polony for the hook and a large tin of
Sonubaits Hemp ‘N’ Corn. He also has corn
and fishery pellets to use elsewhere while he
waits for the margins to respond.
With any type of margin approach it is
very rare to catch down the edge immediately,
unless it is late in the day. This means that
you normally need to prime the margins for
an hour or more to attract the fish. Fishing
elsewhere for an hour or so while you wait
for the fish to build up confidence therefore
makes sense.
Ed doesn’t like to feed massive potfuls
because this could risk overfeeding the fish
and sending them into a frenzy whereby they
won’t find the hook bait so easily. Instead,
he uses a small 150ml pot on his cupping
kit, which he rarely fills more than half full
with a mixture of meat and hemp. If you
can reach, throwing little and often can also
ensure that something is always there to eat.
He would much rather feed small amounts
regularly than massive potfuls less often – but
active fish will quickly mop it all up, so top up
every five or 10 minutes if possible.
When the time finally comes to start fishing
down the edge you can then experiment with
feeding methods to see if potting, throwing by
hand or feeding with a pole-mounted pot is
best. Sometimes all three ways can be utilised.
If you have the luxury of a margin swim
either side then it also pays to experiment and
try different methods for each swim.
PresenTaTion
Laying the rig in is extremely important. Ed
prefers to line things up so that he accurately
feeds the same spot each time and then
carefully lowers the hook bait right on top of
the feed. Immediately the hook bait is in place
he pulls the pole tip towards the bank to lay
the leadcore out in a straight line. He then
holds the pole float on a tightish line to the
end of the leadcore simply to help a fish prick
itself. On many occasions you will experience
an odd tap and pull on the tip before the
elastic streams out – almost like legering on
the pole!
Once the fish are in the swim and feeding
avidly you can begin to experiment by
laying the hook bait further up or down the
marginal slope. When the fish are in really
shallow water you might have to lay the pole
float on the grass!
»
It didn’t take long for the
rig to work its magic!
Small potfuls are all that’s
required to avoid the fish
getting into too much of a
feeding frenzy.
100 AUGUST 2010 AUGUST 2010 101

The session
With it being such a hot, sunny day it
took far less time than expected to get the
fish crawling up the bank for Ed’s meat
and hemp. In fact, some of the fish were
spawning elsewhere on the lake, which
was probably why they had such a big
appetite!
The water was surprisingly clear,
though, and even in just 12 inches of
water the fish were not stirring up the
sandy bottom too much. They were
definitely cagey to begin with and only
his left-hand swim yielded a run of
bites early on. Another hour of careful
nurturing later, however, and his right-hand
swim also burst into life. If anything, this
swim was eventually the better of the two
because he could also feed here by hand. He
soon got into a steady rhythm of catching two
or three fish off each swim before rotating
them. Timing was absolutely crucial and if
he waited more than 10 minutes between
feeds the fish had eaten everything and
disappeared.
As an experiment, Ed also had a standard
margin rig set up and, although it did produce
fish, the leadcore rig outfished it easily. It
was only when the cameraman knelt just a
couple of metres away from the baited area
that the fish started to get twitchy! Even then,
however, he continued to catch fish and the
bigger ones could be seen creeping up to
the bait in inches of water. It was a brilliant
session where the merits of the pinned-down
rig were clear to see.
What was really interesting were the fish
that Ed was catching. Larford is fished so
heavily that the biggest F1s have become
extremely elusive and difficult to fool. His
rig was obviously something that they
hadn’t wised up to yet because he bagged a
succession of wary old F1s over the 2lb mark.
Later on, the bigger commons and mirrors
also put in an appearance and a catch of
more than 120lb filled his three keepnets.
The leadcore rig accounted for at least 90 per
cent of those fish and it was difficult to see
how a conventional pole rig could have been
any more effective. So, the next time you are
tearing your hair out fishing down the edge,
try pinning the line to the deck. It could be the
key to bumper catches this summer!
102 AUGUST 2010
Meat, hemp and corn are
the main offerings for
down the edges.
Punched polony on a Quickstop
hair rig complements
the rig perfectly.
Almost every single one
of these fish was taken
on Ed’s leadcore rig!