How to make a tungsten putty carp rig

To catch carp off guard, it is advisable to make your hook bait behave differently to the uniform bottom baits that are commonly used on the hair.

Here’s how to make a tungsten rig to critically balance a hook bait to fool carp on tricky waters and when the water is cooler…

1 Many anglers prefer to use a fairly stiff hook link material, in this case 25 lb ESP Two Tone in silt colour. The material comes in three different colours to match the terrain that you’re fishing over – silt, weed and gravel – and consists of tightly woven dyneema core with a translucent polymer coating, ensuring that it sinks well. The outer coating is stiffer than most braids, allowing the hook length to kick off the lead, so when a fish picks up the bait there is always a fast contact with the lead.

2 Taska has some highly innovative rig components. They make a number of products in their Baseline range which are impregnated with tungsten. Their tungsten aligners, which are pre-formed and hold their shape well, make critically balancing baits a lot easier to achieve, and the aligner does the normal job of making the hook turn over quicker in the fish’s mouth.

3 The aligners can be trimmed with a pair of scissors so that you can adjust the weight to critically balance the hook bait so that it will look identical to the bottom baits, but will react in a different way when picked up. The aligners come in two sizes to suit different sizes of hooks

4 Terminate the rigs using a link loop using a five turn grinner knot, eased up slowly with a bit of moisture which will give you a knot strength over the stated breaking strain of the two tone material. Using a link loop like this makes changing you hook length simple and quick and allows you to use a PVA stick if you later decide to.

5 Using some baseline putty, tear off a blob and divide equally into two – wrap around the hook length and roll between fingers and thumb so that you produce what almost looks like a small olivette.

6 Here’s how the completed carp rig should look.

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