On The Zigs

By Alix Hepworth

For most people, casting out an ungainly length of mono with a small hook and potentially a piece of foam as bait is a very difficult thing to get their head round. It's only been in the last couple of years that I have myself put faith in this very prolific and underrated tactic. Numerous sessions spring to mind that were zig orientated so I'll highlight the ones that proved to be the most memorable, not necessarily for big fish, but just for the fact that I caught when had I not have used zigs I definitely wouldn't have.

An early evening trip for a few hours on my local syndicate saw temperatures up in the high seventies, with the chance of getting a bite off the bottom very unlikely. A close friend of mine was coming to the end of a twenty four hour session and had moved once already without having had so much as a bleep for his efforts. I moved in a couple of swims down from him noticing that a lot of fish were showing out in the middle, about a foot under the surface. The first zig was buzzed out and I made sure that as the whole set up was just about to hit the surface, I feathered the line so that the bait and lead separated nicely. As I was sinking the line and just about to put the rod on the alarm, I felt it start to pull in my hands. Caught completely by surprise, I was all fingers and thumbs, in complete disbelief that I could have got a bite so quickly. In the total confusion that saw me trying to connect with an angry carp, you've guessed it I lost it! Relaying those few minutes of chaos to my mate down the bank was met with obvious strong doubt, bearing in mind his concerted efforts over the last twenty four hours. Putting the loss out of my mind I managed to get all three rods out in the "danger zone" and sat back with my pal, helping him to try and winkle a fish off the top. Thinking my only chance of a fish was long gone, I was very surprised and overjoyed when the old "trot box" started to sing. The fish had picked up the bait and swam towards me so I frantically took up the slack line in a bid to keep in firm contact with my adversary. At this point I'd love to say that it fought like a demon, twisting and turning, but I would be lying because it came in as easy as a dog on a lead, without doing a great deal at all. Now fishing three rods on zigs (with bowstring tight lines) in a tight swim is difficult to say the least, so I was happy to see John by my side manning the net. Reducing such a stunning fish to mere numbers was inevitable and the needle was wrenched round to a very pleasing 26lb 10oz.

The next zig encounter was again on my little syndicate and saw me and a few other members struggling to induce any action off the bottom. Fishing a different part of the lake on this trip, the zigs were still the same 8lb Drennan double strength and size 12 Korda mixa hooks, coupled with varying baits of black/yellow foam and whittled down boilie all soaked in Hinders magic little liquid that is "Betalin". I'd always favoured fishing zigs on lead clips but after being involved with a charity event at Linear Fisheries on behalf of the Motor Neurone Disease Charity, I'd rethought my approach after watching a young lad absolutely at the top of his game. Tom Maker showed me his lead arrangement, which was set up with a relatively heavy in-line lead and rig sleeve on the hooklength pushed over the eye of the swivel. The regularity with which Tom caught fish made everyone else on the lake look less than average! The other piece to the jigsaw at the charity event was the feeding process, namely the food that was going out there and the consistency with how it was fed.

However, I will get back to the feeding over zigs at a later stage, as at the moment I'm still on my little syndicate. As I mentioned, things were looking grim off the bottom again, so wasting no chances I put three zigs out at varying depths, to try and get one of them(if not more) to make a mistake. This time round the first take was an absolute flyer! Stripping plenty of line off the old Basia and in complete contrast to the other fish previously, it wasn't going to give up without a dramatic fight. Luckily everything held solid and after a spirited battle, a lovely common rolled over the net cord at 24lb 8oz on the button. Feeling overjoyed at managing to winkle a fish out in very tricky conditions, I readied the same rod with another four foot hooklength because the previous one had started to resemble a pig's tail after the tussle with the common.

I did also change baits over to a Mainline milky toffee pop up straight out the tub, but whittled it down to a sort of pellet shape. Putting a piece of solar foam over the hook point just to be on the safe side I made sure there were no fish in the immediate vicinity and plopped it back out to the same spot.

Amazingly it didn't take long for another fish to show some interest, this time bow waving off the spot and gradually increasing speed as it did so.
Another epic battle followed and this time I was rewarded with a lovely mirror of 21Ib 4oz.Two fish caught, both twenties, a mirror and a common when nobody else had managed anything resembling a bite!

The final session of note was in complete contrast venue wise, as it saw me on Drayton reservoir with a friend of mine who was itching to increase his current PB of 10IB. He was hoping that I would be able to put him in the right spot and get him that special fish. No pressure then!
Now I mentioned previously about the regularity of feeding and food content for fishing over zigs.Having spoken to Hinders of Swindon and more importantly Bryan Jarrett, he put me on the right track with what I needed to be fishing with. It involved using Nutz Sludge, little Gemz pellets, carp crunch, a tin of golden grains and finally a couple of tins of tuna in brine.

With this lot all mixed thoroughly together, I started to spod at about 100 yds range over both our rods. Again baits were black and yellow foam soaked in betalin, but on this venue fished much deeper at around 12/13 ft in 16ft water. After putting the initial flurry of spods out to kick start the spot I put the first bait in and continued with a couple more spods , as it's a hungry venue and we had three match anglers to our right fishing the pellet waggler who were feeding pretty regular, so I wanted to retain the fish at our chosen distance. Thirty seconds was all it took for action to start and with the "sloppy spod mix" being whizzed out after every fish or if action tailed off it had the desired effect of keeping the fish at the right range and depth. Carp of all sizes were coming thick and fast, but unfortunately it wasn't the bigger fish falling to my mate's rods.

Eventually after spodding pretty much continually all day, only stopping to tie new zig hooklengths , it finally came good. Amongst my tally of fish were plenty of single and low doubles, topped off with 18Ib and 21Ib 8oz mirrors, but more importantly Aran had fish of 16Ib and 17Ib,smashing his PB to bits. Now what I failed to mention, was that initially I had started spodding at the same range with a bottom bait spod mix, but soon realised after obviously seeing crashing/showing fish and speaking to the bailiff, that on a day with clear skies and sunny conditions, majority of the stock would no doubt be in the upper layers.

Basically had we remained fishing with bottom baits for the duration of the day, our catch rate would undoubtedly have been next to nothing so having the ability to put faith in a method that does require a high level of concentration, effort and belief that it "will work" is something that we all should get to grips with as confidence is definitely a zig thing.