Creating a bait with the perfect combination of smell and taste won’t help you if you don’t present it properly. The carp elite share their go-to rigs for their carefully created bait blends.

Jeremy Fardoe
“I present all my hookbaits using a hair rig and a braided line hooklength (the carp angling term for leader),” Fardoe says. “In tying the hair, I rarely use a sleeve down the hook shank. Instead, I run a knotless knot down the shank until it ends opposite the hookpoint. I like a Partridge F4 or F5 pattern hook in size 4 or 6.”

Louis Cook
“I usually fish boilies up to 20 mm or maize on a hair attached to a 4 Gamakatsu G-Carp Specialist hook. I run a 6- to 10-inch hooklength of 20-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon or 65-pound Power Pro. I attach that to a size 8 Korda swivel and a 2- to 4-ounce inline lead weight.”

Brian Wingard
“I use a hair rig with shrink tubing on the hook shank, and extending over the eye. This makes the rig turn faster in the carp’s mouth for instant hooksets. For hooks, I use dull-finish size 6 Kordas, with a 6-inch hooklength. I typically use 3 ounces of weight incorporated in an inline gripper.
This can be fished in two ways: If you place a bead between the swivel and the lead, it will be called a run rig since the line passes freely through it. If you don’t use a bead and instead insert the swivel into the gripper, it will be a bolt rig. With a bolt rig, when a carp picks up a hookbait, the hook is set instantly as the fish turns.”

Steve Lojek
“I use one 11-foot rod with a hair rig baited with a boilie or particle bait. I also use a second shorter rod with a plain carp hook (no hair) for fishing my homemade doughbait.
“Run quality size 6 hooks and braided line all around, and a 2-ounce round lead sinker on a breakaway inline rig.”