Tying a Carp Running Rig

Hello, I am Matt Collins, fishery owner of the Beausoleil carp lake in France, and I’d like to show you in this video how to tie a really simple yet highly effective carp running rig.

So, as you know, there are loads of carp rigs out there so what makes this one different? Well, for me, it’s about versatility. This running rig will fish over different bottom types. You can fish with it in silt, on hard patches, light leaf debris. It’s also very difficult for the fish to deal with and eject. It’s incredibly good for getting bite indication on very slack lines. You can fish this right against the margins and, no matter which way the fish swims, left, right or towards you, you will get a run. So, first, let’s have a look at the components that we are going to use to tie the rig.

What You Need

First, we need 2 20mm bottom baits, these are my hand rolled Blue Oyster baits. Next we have a size 4 Wide Gape in the X pattern, very strong hook. I’ll tie the rig with 25lb Super Nova, very good material. We’ll couple the braid to the mainline with a size 8 swivel. A short length of rig tubing. And a tail rubber. I use a 3. 5oz flat pear from Avid, I use Korda as well. Most importantly, you have to take the insert out. We start off by passing the braid through the front of the eye of the hook. You form an overhand loop. It’s very important that the length of that loop is about 1. 5 times the diameter of the baits.

We trim off the tag end and leave a couple of millimeters. Then, we’ll hook our baiting needle into the loop and slide both baits and put a hair stop. You can use any kind of hair stop you like, I use flat ones.

Tie the Running Rig

Now, let’s tie the actual rig itself. So, it’s very important the way I set this up. My nail is perpendicular to the point of the hook. The baits are pulled up behind my thumb and index fingers, so that fixes the length of the hair each time. Then I whip away like that, to avoid the join in the eye of the hook. I stop when I get to that point there and the braid is touching the point of the hook perpendicular to the shank.

Next, I’ve swapped hands and we’re going to put 2 whips behind the hair of the hook. Transfer hands again. Then go once over the knot to lock the knot in position and then pass the hair back through the eye of the hook. Keep 11” or 12” of the braid and then pass it through the back of the hook and then moisten it before tightening it down. Before we go any further, I want to explain exactly what we’ve done here and why.

Getting a Hook Hold

The reason for tying the loop at 1. 5 times the diameter of the baits, was so that the knot in the hair ends up in the middle of that bait. That locks these baits together so that that one won’t slide down and start interfering with the hook when the hook is trying to get you a hook hold. We’ve added 2 turns behind the hair to create a kicker, so that when this rig is under tension  the hook kicks out. The reason for the single overwrap is to help provide an additional lock on the knot and it stops the knot slipping and rotating.

That’s what all these little features do. So, when you pick up the rig by the baits, this is how it should look. The point of the hook should be hanging roughly flat to the floor. The position of that hair creates that pivot point. That’s why it’s important to have that pivot point exiting exactly perpendicular to the point.

Making Connection to Swivel

When we swing it round the other way, we’ll see that the hook is hanging down exactly  vertically therefore whether it goes in the middle, the left or the right hand side of the mouth of the carp, it’s going to get a hook hold. It’s not preferring to pick up one way or the other. It’s giving you a good chance of pricking either way. Now we’re ready to make the connection to our swivel using the 5 turn grinner. We’re going to pass through once, twice, form a loop and start whipping round 5 times. We need to wet that. Now, take your rig puller and a leather glove and tighten the knot strongly.

Connect Main Line

Trim the tag end off, I always leave 5mm. Next, we need to connect our main line. I have some 15lb GR60 line, some shrink tubing threaded on, and the first thing that goes on is the 3. 5oz inline lead with the insert removed. Then, we’re going to put on the tail rubber. Next, we make the mainline connection knot to the swivel, again using the 5 turn double grinner. Then the rig puller and glove again. So, you’ll notice that I have not cut the tail of the mainline. So, push the tail rubber over the swivel, put the anti tangle tube in the tail rubber as well. Now, we put the lead in place.

Take the end of the mainline and place it inside the insert, push the rubber in, and you see that you have a loop of line sticking out. To fishing, we’re just going to take a couple of blobs of putty and apply them along the line. So that’s what we’re fishing with.

Palm Test

Let’s have a look at how the running rig does on the palm test. The hook flips over straight away. This hook is brand new out of the packet, I would never fish with it like that, I would always sharpen it up. Because, if I do it again, you’ll see that the hook skids along my hand and you don’t have a hook hold. So how does this rig work? The carp comes along, picks up the baits. It’s going to tighten the rig, hit the lead, and the first thing he’s going to do is try and shake it off.

One little shake, and that lead is off. When the fish moves away from you, obviously you’re going to get a run. If the fish moves to the side of you, you’re going to get a run. If the fish moves back away from you, you’re going to get a run. So, this lead system is acting as a super slack semi fixed setup. It’s going from a semi fixed to a running lead, you can fish very slack lines with this set up and you’ll always get an indication on the bobbin and the alarm. Let’s look at what this “telltale” tail is doing.

Fishing Technique

When we get pressure from the carp in this direction, the tail rubber pops out, the tail of the mainline pops out, and if you wound the rig back in, it would look like that, with the tail popped out. That’s fine if you’ve got a carp on the end, you’ve just had a take. What happens if you haven’t got a carp on the end, well, you’ve just been done. Let’s have a look at what happens when you get a liner.

So, the carp comes along and moves the lead. The lead stays on the tail rubber and you’re going to get a bite indication. When you wind the rig in, you’re going to see that the tail is still in place. What’s happened is that you’ve just had a liner, you haven’t had a bite. So, let’s have a look now at how this rig casts.

Stop the Lead

When it is in flight, the lead is travelling first obviously and the bait is trailing behind. If you cast this rig straight into the water, the lead is going to plunge in, the baits behind will very likely spin round and tangle on the tail rubber. When you wind in, you’re going to be fishing with a mess. So, when you’re casting this rig, you must stop the lead before it hits the water. That means stopping the lead in flight, 12 inches above the water. What that’s going to do is the lead will decelerate and stop, the baits will fly forward and the whole rig will land on the water like that.

The lead will then plunge through the surface, the baits will follow and land in a little pile separately from the lead. So your presentation looks very good, there’s no tangle. It also enables you to feel what sort of bottom the lead had landed on, which is very important when you’re targeting a small hard spot among some silt. Now, when I’m dropping this rig from a bait boat, I’ll put it in the hopper like that, with a bend in the rig. When the trap opens, the lead will go first, the baits will follow, then the putty will keep the braid pinned down.

Using the Running Rig

The baits will land next to the rig and that’s absolutely fine. If I want to drop this rig from a rowing boat, I hold it by the baits, get over the spot, and let it go. The lead drops in, the baits follow and with a scattering of baits over the top, that’s perfect. Before I fish with this rig, the last thing I do is sharpen the hook. I’ll just do the finger hang test, I just hang it up, and if go to invert my finger, the hook drops off. That’s not acceptable.

So, in the next video, I’ll show you how to sharpen your hooks. So, there it is, the Beausoleil carp rig, very simple to tie and very effective. Good luck with it.

Running rig stuff on Amazzon.co.uk – Click here.