Maggot fishing and the ‘Germs’ Rig – David Meek

Carp of all sizes love maggots...

It came about because I wanted something to reset itself and enable me to use a large hook. Which would hopefully eliminate as many tench bites and the rig being fouled on an aborted pick up. Remembering Dave Balls amnesia ‘D’ Rig article, from way back when I started to play around with some ideas. I really wanted to keep everything super neat and tidy, but also create something that was balanced.

Originally Marcus had shown me how he attached his maggots via a couple of mini rings and a small pop up. I liked this a lot. I found that by using a hook ring swivel on the ‘D’ I could bury the swivel within the foam and expose the top eye of the swivel. Which I would then tie the lucky ‘7’ maggots. The foam would then be pushed back up flush to the wriggling ‘germs’. Neat indeed.

An absolutely stunning carp

After a couple of trips to ‘Lesser’ waters, I started to find that the carp just couldn’t deal with it in the same way I found the traditional braided maggot rig. So after a sabbatical on the Rivers for the best part of Winter I Revisited Roach with a lot of optimism.

The spring was cold that year. It was so bleak, but when it’s bleak the maggots have to be in favour. First night I had a large tench. It worked. Second morning the fish were poking their noses out to my right, so with a lucky fist cast the rig landed in the rings. A nice thud vibrated up the carbon, so I was happy to leave the cast. A short while later the rod was bending in the rests and the result was a pristine common lying in the folds of the net.

The spring become warmer and the maggots soon lost their appeal. Switching over to balanced boilies for my approach for the spring into balanced nuts for the summer. All on the “D’ rig. I had a great summer catching some lovely fish. Increasing my confidence with the simple set up. Using brazil nuts on this set up was deadly. The options really were endless.

Maggot muncher!

As Summer drifted into Autumn, I realized it would be soon time to be thinking about using the wrigglies to try and gain an advantage. Over the Summer I had come to the conclusion that I wasn’t happy with the foam, so I started to play around with tiny 6mm pop ups. Laced in liquid. This meant that I could add a lot of attraction, which I could have done with the foam. However I liked the shape of a small boilie.

Keep the bites coming with maggots when all else fails...

I would slice the top of the pop off with a Stanley blade, so everything could be neat. By the time I tied the maggots on and pushed the pop up back up. It was all flush and resembled medusa’s head of snakes. With the buoyance of the pop up underneath the maggots it sat so pretty. Subtle but in need of attention of Mr or Mrs Carp. If I was fishing on a really smooth bottom I would use amnesia or Ghost. If I felt the area was a little bit dirty I would use Tungsten Coated unstripped. As I felt it would settle over bits and pieces a lot nicer.

How to put the rig together...

I have caught some very large fish using this rig with the combination of maggots. It really puts my mind at ease being able to use such a big hook, with such a delicate bait. From the hooking positions I have seen since I put this arrangement together if would seem that the fish struggle to eject the rig as it is quite the mouthful.

David Meek