Pop-ups - Do You Bother?

[Damian Kimmins]

I was wondering, having fished the Avon for a number of years now, I consider the effectiveness on my rigs really quite an important part of my angling.
I regularly look at critcally balancing, particularly when things are tough. The use of those rubber casters and maggots, occasionally some hempseed, is not something I'll shy from. What with sub 2lb breaking strain mono hairs, I'll look at trying anything to get presentation to a point to where its how I feel a fish may views things in it's environment.
Fishing more and more with boilies and pastes, its pop-ups that help me get that presentation just right.

Fishing with boilies and pastes, do you go to those lengths of balancing rigs with the use of pop-ups?


Damian

 

[Chris Jones]

Damian,
I'm with you on the thought process. However, I've come to a slightly different conclusion. I'm of the idea that most pop ups are too agressively bouyant for balanacing without actually weighting the hook length. I feel that they'll give a pretty unnatural presentation, even though I know pop ups do catch fish on some rivers. For this reason I'm going to be pratting about with wafters. The hope being that a little bit of extra bouyancy will impart a little extra movement without the bait needing to be anchored. Just waiting on my usual bait supply to make me some. Whether it'll make a blind bit of difference is open to debate.

 

[Adrian Williams]

I've started tipping my boilies with a piece of rubber corn and am having a bit of success. It came about by a combination of pure luck and laziness when late into a blank session instead of tying up a new rig after loosing a set of gear in a snag I simply popped on an old one which I had been using for a spot of carping the previous week.
I dont know if it was the added buoyancy from the corn or just the bright yellow aiming point the corn offered but I went on to land three fish on that rig while the pellet rig had been biteless.

 

[Paul Thomas]

I'm a regular pop-up user on the Lower 7rn using an over shotted set up as I don't think that critical balancing is necessary in moving water - yet!!

I tend to fish the pop-up either glued onto a long shank ALA S. Morgan esq. or tied tight to the eye of a Mugga hook....that way the eye of the hook is "light" making the point "heavy" and more likely to nab a wary fish as it investigates - I think???


Paul

 

[Richard Mawson]

Hi Damian,

I'm also a regular on the Hants Avon and over the last couple of seasons have been using paste wrapped cork balls rather than boilies.

When I make my paste I use a good amount of fish oil which seems to slow down the break up of paste and has been working well for me.

 

[Damian Kimmins]

It's very strange you should say that Chris.
I have generally messed around with pop-ups for some time now, and will create my own using Nutrabaits Pop-up Mix. I have always added to the mix a small amount of the base mix that I had planned to use in conjunction with the pop-ups, just to retain a little consistency with what I am using, that is, maintaining my baits profile. I have never really taken into account the effect that that had on the buoyancy of the pop-up, until now.
Accidentally on my last batch of pop-ups I inadvertantly added a little too much base mix to the pop-up mix. What I have ended up with is a bait of almost neutral buoyancy, which like you Chris, I consider now, much more of a benefit than one that wants to pull shot from the bottom!
The hook alone will be enough to keep the bait from rising in the water, but, the bait contains just enough buoyancy to impart that free-from-anything look.

A little bit of an accident but there you go.


Damian

 

[Simon Haggis]

I have been using 'wafters' for a while. I can't honestly say it has made any difference to my catches but I like messing about with this sort of stuff.

I'm not fishing somewhere with enough fish in it to be able to judge a difference so every little helps to try and get that first bite.

the wafters just balance out the hook, and anything that helps the bait shoot into the mouth quicker gives you a better chance of a hookhold is my thinking.

cheers, simon

 

[Adrian Williams]

When I was working in the nhs I acquired a big lump of high density foam from the physiotherapists which is exactly the same colour as luncheon meat, when I did allot of meat fishing I used to use a disk of this foam under the bait as a cushion to stop it flying off on the cast, I later used it as a hair stop and to offset the weight of the hook, thanks for reminding me.