Preservation

This article will explain a method for the preservation of hemp in its raw state to be used in conjunction with a fine hair rig , of course the hair rig is not a new method of presenting your bait , but it is a relatively new concept to those on the match circuit as often is the case for the pleasure angler.
Anglers coming from categories set out by certain individuals whom feel the necessity to arrange anglers into their specific field of angling, i.e., MATCH, PLEASURE, SPECIMEN ,for purposes of identification, this however causes many problems, typecasting people into certain roles, if a match angler were to go fishing without any involvement in a match are they pleasure fishing, apparently not, they are practising I am told, even the specimen angler fishing with a whip or other catching roach to pass the time between runs will exclaim “I am tidler bashing” not really realising the importance of what they are doing, why these ramblings, well to gain a greater understanding of all things in angling you must first experience them, unfortunate is the match angler whom professes to be unable to pleasure fish because of his competitive edge, or the specimen hunter whom will not fish for tidler's! because they are “specimen hunters", sad as it is these people will not develop their skills further than the bubble that they live in and when that bubble bursts leaving them to stare upon a new horizon, most just blow another bubble and climb back in content in their stereotype attitudes.
Every angler takes information from wherever, be it visual verbal or written, after all you are only as good as the person whom goes with you or teaches you but I am a firm believer in there being certain people who lead and people that follow as is the case in many walks of life, I am not saying that these people that follow are anything but good anglers but that some might be on a faster learning curve being far better equipped to take in or decipher that information or train of thought than others after all not every politician goes on to make prime minister etc, etc.

The method that I will explain is not an answer to every angling situation but merely an extra arrow in your bow and it is not likely to work for some anglers as it is more the idea which is of interest, the fact that it works so well in certain situations is merely pleasing, not paramount as this has made me realise that all of those things that I have read and taken for granted to be true about the feeding habits and behaviour of fish to be non conclusive statements giving me a whole different outlook to my angling and you will no doubt come to your own conclusions upon the reading of these facts, As I have explained this method is not the answer to everything but I have found it to be devastating in some situations but near to useless in others, much like some other methods, It relies on the ability to manufacture the item before it can be used which will no doubt put some people off in the first place, I am sure most of you have been in a situation, especially when fishing the feeder, when frustrating bites have been missed on the caster chucking that little feeder rig to the far bank of a canal baited with a single or double caster only to see the tip twitch a little then spending the next ten minutes wondering if the caster is still intact, this being far greater when fishing say the Trent when much heavier weights of lead are used to hold the riverbed and fish are more often caught at far greater distances, this is most definitely when the method works as the bait is assured to be in tip top condition at all times even when the tip has been pulled round several times, I have also used it to great effect fishing up in the water on rivers when the bait is moving through at a steady speed being able to feed and pick up the rod only when a fish is on, having hooked itself, as you all know these situations can be very demanding and any bait or rig to overcome these problems is a bonus to the angler whether it be to win a match or just in a good days sport it is all the same for fish in the net is the goal of all anglers, It became apparent to me that the problem of shelled casters lied within the rig itself but on a number of occasions this was not true, after trying every rig known to me the problem still persisted, rearing its ugly head at times when I needed those fish on the bank, so it was to the bait I looked, after many trials I was now fishing the caster on a hair rig which had improved my catch rate 40% or more depending on the situation, with one small drawback, after landing one or two fish the caster had been smashed depending on the fish that was being caught, if you were lucky you would perhaps land a sizeable Chub with the bait still intact but the next fish would crush it or suck out its insides, as they do, so this left me to replace the hair rigged caster with a fresh one this taking a considerable amount of time, super gluing casters onto a fine hair in good weather is fine but in rain and wind or cold weather it is a little like playing pin the tail on the donkey or “lets stick our fingers together”, the only thing left to do was to enhance the bait in some way so it was tougher and less likely to be broken down with the fishes feeding upon it, without falsifying it or changing its appearance, The obvious solution was staring me right in the face every time I opened my tackle tray, as is the case with most things, Inside lay my hemp and tare rigs, lined up like soldiers always ready to do battle, Whilst tying up one of my caster rigs on the banks of the tidal river Trent these aforementioned rigs leapt out at me, literally as it was blowing a hooligan, as I scrambled to retrieve these items, caster in one hand hemp in the other, the two things came together I wondered if a similar process could be applied to the caster thus making it bullet proof as well, this possibly being the answer to my shelled caster problems.

After much experimentation I had a few prototypes ready for action and early one Wednesday morning I was off to chub city (a stretch of my local canal) to give them a whirl, after a few hours I was catching roach and the odd chub up in the water over at the boats, fishing three feet deep blasting in hemp and caster I was hitting around one in five bites which is about average, some chub tend to hook themselves but the majority of my bites were coming as soon as the waggler hit the surface of the water, as we all know a classic chub scenario with a difficulty ratting of 7-8 at times, this was the perfect time to give the prototypes a go so I tied one up and chucked it into my surprise the rod tip pulled round as the waggler hit the water, not prepared the fish made a hasty dive for cover and racked me off “!***!***!” I cussed, for I new that I had only four of these casters to fish with, without hesitation on went another but this time I sat back sipping a cup of earl grey preparing myself for the next chuck, in went another pouch' full of hemp and casters followed by my waggler, under it went once again but this time the bite had been hit and missed, repeating the process gave me a couple of quality roach a perch some small chublets, I now blasted in the caster and hemp only picking the rod up when the tip went round, it was not long before the inevitable large chub grabbed the caster whooping the rod over to its maximum test, two minutes later and a 4lb plus chub stared up from the folds of my landing net, testimony enough I thought to myself, the day only got better from then on especially as I was catching all my fish on this revolutionary new method, that days fishing taught me enough to carry on making and improving this bullet proofed caster until I had an item which worked well, unless of course you were bust off this caster remained as good as the first time that it was put on, as I have stated before this is not a method that will work all of the time as a lot of other methods it tends to work better in the warmer months when fish will really compete for food and especially when fishing rivers when the fish have little or no time to inspect the bait as it flows past or on some of our carp orientated Stillwater's where the fish can be caught up in the water, this last option I have used to great effect on some pleasure sessions taking over 100lbs of fish on one single bait, I must however point out that there is a set pattern of fishing with this to extract the best from its capabilities, I can only liken it to fishing the method feeder, for those whom have done it will no doubt agree that the first few times are a bit hairy, trying to sit on your hands whilst your brain is telling them to strike, waiting until your rod pulls round and your bait runner zips off before this happens, but couple this with a waggler set-up and the urge increases considerably with waggler bobbing about up and down, this must however be left until the rod tip arches round, to pick up the rod is enough as the hook will already be set firmly in the fish, normally in the top lip or the side of the mouth as the fish turns on the hook, both being good indications of how the fish are feeding at the time.

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