What Lead Should I Use when Carp Fishing?

Paul Cooper passes on his knowledge of different leads to use when carp fishing and what he believes are the best situations to use them for. What is the importance of using the right lead and size of lead in certain angling situations? In my opinion, selecting the right lead can mean success or failure […]

Planning your next French carp fishing trip? Go large this summer…

The appeal of vast, windswept gravel pits is undeniable: acres of untapped, uncharted water, unsullied by angler pressure; the allure of the unknown; the chance of a previously uncaught leviathan. Question is: where the … heck do you start? Pay too much attention to social media, the mags and myriad YouTube vids, and you’d be […]

3d Fishing For Cold-Water Carp

Far from a ‘chuck it and chance it’ daylight-hours-only tactic, to be deployed only when all else fails, zig fishing could be your best chance of a bite around the clock, throughout the year. So why isn’t it more widely adopted? An old school carper friend of mine likens zigging to lure fishing; going so […]

How To: Effective Zig Rigs For Carp

The Zig-Rig a simple method for fishing bait mid water that has accounted for many large carp. Here is an article by Ian Gemson from Smart Carping on how to set up a Zig rig… The Zig-Rig allows a buoyant bait to be fished from the lakebed at any set depth from a couple of […]

Ramblings of a Carp Angler – Short or Long Hook Rigs?

How long should you make your hook links and does it effect your catch rate? Paul Cooper discusses the length of hook links and types of materials used for carp fishing. What are the main materials available to create hook links? Firstly I do not want to go into naming brands and makes, as I believe […]

How-To… The Kebab Rig

Despite the name, this carefully engineered setup does not involve heading down to your local Turkish fast-food establishment, however tempting that may be. There’s no chilli sauce, pita bread or strips of greesy, grey matter simply labeled ‘meat’. No, the kebab rig is in fact Solar Tackle boss Martin Locke’s favorite presentation. Having landed his […]

How-To… The Coiled, Unleaded Rig

Coiling your hook link may sound bizarre, but there is method in the madness as Martin Locke details a setup he’s used to catch carp in excess of 60lb. Here’s a rig that, for want of a better phrase, flies in the face of convention. With almost all rigs being designed to lay straight and […]

How-To… Supple Hair Fluorocarbon Rig

My next rig is one that Neil Spooner from Korda showed me at the Northern Angling Show, I told him that I need a rig to use at Bradshaw Fishery as an alternative to the D-Rig, since all braid is banned there rigs such as the D-Rig can’t be used. He told me this is […]

How-To… The Combi-Rig

Following on from the D-Rig last week, my next rig is one that I have used for a while and is my second choice of rigs when out on the bank, the rig in question is the Combi-Rig. To tie this rig you will need Curve Shank hooks, Fluorocarbon hook length, rig rings, uncoated soft […]

How-To… The D-Rig

While I have a bit of down time I thought I’d refill my rig box and what better way to start than with my 2 favourite rigs and a new rig which was shown to me by Neil Spooner from Korda at the Northern Angling show. I used to buy readymade rigs from time to […]

Ramblings of a Carp Angler – Dropping Lead

Should I set up my rigs to drop a £1 plus lead on every take, or not? This is a subject that again is becoming a controversial issue amongst the carp angling community. It appears to be the fashion to set a rig up so that if you get a take the lead is released immediately. […]

The Ramblings of a Carp Angler – Barbless

Barbless or Barbed, that is the Question. Over the next few weeks I will be putting a few blogs together about a number of controversial issues around carp welfare and carp rigs. My first ramblings will be around the controversial use of Barbless hooks. Throughout my carp fishing career I have come across a number […]

Safe Carp Rigs – Lead Ejection

Leads must eject safely from a carp fishing rig in the event of a break-off or a carp becoming snagged – if they don’t it can result in death for a tethered carp…   In this video Ron Key, Chairman of the British Carp Study Group, explains how to construct a rig from which the […]

The Ultimate Barbless Hook Rig

Paul Cooper shows you the perfect barbless hook rig… As some of our newer lakes, such as Jonchery and Brie, now enforce a barbless only hook rule, our field testers have been set the challenge to find the right rig for the job. This is the rig Paul Cooper found to be most successful when […]

Splicing, Leadcore and It’s Uses…

With leadcore being banned on most venues due to the danger to fish welfare, Paul Cooper shows us some of the alternative uses for leadcore… Including being used in the construction of the combi-rig and a replacement for heavy mono on a marker float set up and spomb. For over 60 other technical carping videos […]

Carp Rigs – The Sliding D Rig

Whilst our business is all about providing great carp fishing holidays in France we do also have a great on-line video library of carp fishing hints & tips.You can find 54 videos here – https://www.anglinglines.com/videos/technical.php Subjects covered include long range casting, feature finding, bait storage, tackle & tactics – it’s a really useful resource for […]

Carp Rigs – The Line Aligner Rig

Paul Cooper shows you how to construct the Line Aligner rig. Note from Paul; “The Line Aligner rig was first used in the early days of carp fishing and was introduced by Jim Gibbinson. This rig has accounted for the capture of thousands of carp and when fished in the right situation is exceptional. I’ve […]

Free Running and Dropper Carp Rigs

A large proportion of anglers carp fishing in France still prefer to use free running lead set-ups incorporating little or no bolt effect.  This combination of no bolt effect, slack lines and slack bait runners results in many anglers missing many takes, or when the anglers are winding down to the carp and striking to […]

How To Construct The Helicopter Carp Rig

Chas Cook is the owner of Vaux French carp lake.  This is the 5th article in an excellent series which gives you instruction on how to construct a series of carp rigs he’s used to great effect for his carp fishing in France. You can read all the articles here. Both of the following rigs […]