Most of my fishing revolves around short mid-week overnight sessions between work so I prefer to use rigs which are quick and easy to tie. I don’t like carrying around loads of ready tied rigs, preferring to tie them up on the bank, depending on what I need for the situation I am fishing in. A few years ago I started using a bottom bait presentation which got christened the ‘Simple Faithful’ rig.
This is a very simple coated braid combi rig with, depending on what size hook bait I am using, an ESP Curve-Shanx in either size 5 or 6. The rig utilizes a long hair fixed to the bend with a short length of silicone, with about an inch gap from the top of the bait to the bottom of the hook. I substitute shrink tubing for simply forming the knotless knot with coated braid and then putting a crack in the coating about 10-12mm above the hook with my fingernails to create a stiff angled section immediately above the eye with a short flexible hinge of about 2mm. The stiff coated section immediately above the eye acts a bit like a section of shrink tube, helping the hook turn and catch hold upon ejection and combined with the sweeping, in-turned shank of the Curve-Shanx, makes for a very effective hooking arrangement without having to get the kettle on for shrink tube!
I have combined this rig with exclusively a boilie approach. I believe a long hair is key to gaining good hook holds when using boilies. The separation between hook and bait makes the whole lot more difficult to eject and the hook much more prone to catch upon ejection. This combined with a relatively long hook link of around 12 inches means that the hook is usually well back in the carp’s mouth as it rights itself and moves onto the next freebie – another element that helps result in a very positive hook hold. As a result some of the hook holds with this rig have been the best I have ever seen.
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