My first session of the year after carp. I’m planning on fishing two waters this year: A Mid-Kent Fisheries Gold Ticket Venue, and Another Mid-Kent Fisheries Gold Ticket Venue. I want to make sure I’m totally happy with my baits and rigs before approaching the ‘Another’ venue so I am trialling various ideas and baits before going on there.

There is a leader ban on virtually every carp water in this area, this means no leadcore, no Safe Zone leaders etc. But when is a leader not a leader?

Presumably, these bans are intended to stop anglers from using rigs which are potentially harmful to fish - I’m thinking of the lead wire on leadcore leaders coming through the outer sheath and scraping the sides of the fish here. Principally though, I think it’s the splice on the join between the leader and the mainline that is of concern. Helicopter rigs require some sort of top bead and the worry is this will not be able to slide over the splice or knot. For this reason there are only two viable alternatives - the Naked Chod, and Tubing.

This is what I have come up with in response to the problem:

Fox naked chod beads and buffer.

A very short length of Korda ‘Boom’, crimped at each end with a conventional choddy at the business end.

In the edge this seemed to present very nicely. I do use conventional chods on naked chod setups but I am always worried that there is little to no free movement to enable the fish to lift it off the bottom. However, the system does catch fish; I prefer however to use a Stiff Hinged Rig whenever I can as the boom permits greater movement which gives me confidence even if it doesn’t, for the fish.

I tried this rig today and was disappointed to find the hook tangled around the join with the helicopter. Next time I shall make sure the boom is longer than the choddy and this should solve the problem.

This does not solve the problem of how to construct a helicopter rig for longer, more supple rigs such as those you’d fish for wafters for example. The essence of a helicopter rig is its distance casting ability and the advantage of the lead being able to sink into the silt - but leaving the rig clear up the line.

There are tubing helicopter rigs but again I am not happy with these. In order to ‘work’, the tubing must be fixed at the lead end and so far I have not come across a satisfactory method of doing this. The recommended method of pushing the end of the tube into the small end of a tail rubber which in turn is pushed over the swivel of a lead simply doesn’t work for me. The anti-tangle property of a rig is obtained by the stiffness of the tubing or leader on the side which follows the lead in flight. Therefore, some sort of stiffness is required above the top stop; if you were able to slide a bit of tubing onto the mainline so that it sits above the naked chod bead this would work if you could get it to stay there. It would need to discharge however in the event of a break up the mainline. Hmmmm…problem.

Blue Rod-rests! The very epitome of carpiness!