A simple and effective pop-up bait for carp fishing is Carp Catchers with a diameter of 14 mm. In the era of high popularity of mini lures, little attention is paid to the fishery with classic pop-ups. At the same time fishing with the traditional pop-up (and a snowman, but not about them now), in my experience, is more effective in combination with large-fragmentary bait, pellets and boilies, than fishing with a mini pop-up.
I do not like hard baits. When making my leashes, I always follow the principle of “cutting off all unnecessary”. If the bait works fine without some swivel or detail, it’s better, in my understanding, to exclude it. As it seems to me, the more straightforward and more accessible the bait is, the more implemented bites we get. You can disagree with me. But for sure you will agree that by simplifying the bait, you leave much more room for thinking about tactics and choosing the place of fishing and think less about which swivel or rifle you use today and how it will all look on the bottom. However, this is a digression.
Going to the classic pop-up almost always requires the balancing of the hook (it is necessary that the pop-up slowly sink to the bottom along with the hook – and then could not lift the bait up). Such balancing provides easy absorption of the nozzle by the fish and a correct presentation of the baits.
Today I will share with you a bait that can be effectively applied for fishing with a single pop-up Carp Catchers 14mm.
This simple but effective bait for fishing with an isolated pop-up can be used in different conditions and on different types of bottom. Depending on whether you are fishing on mud or a hard bottom, the length of the leash, the weight and shape of the sinker will change, but not the design of the bait itself.
For the manufacture of this equipment we will need:
- Soft leashing material – in this case Gardner Ultra Skin
- Swivel Gardner Covert Flexi Bait Screw standard size – with a ring
- Hook Gardner Covert Continental Mugga №4
- Lead pellets
Step-by-step instruction:
- First of all, remove the part of the braid from the Ultra Skin material (so that the hook with the finished bait retains about 0.7-1 cm of a braid-free area) and tie the swivel Gardner Covert Flexi Bait Screw over the ring by any useful knot for you.
- Attach the swivel ring to the fore-end of the hook so that the knot remains on the inside and place the swivel ring opposite the hook stitch – this is important, in the finished bait, it will give an aggressive angle of attack of the hook.
- We place the end of the leash material in the eye of the hook in the direction from the sting, so that the length of the leash from the nodule on the ring and up to the ear is located precisely along the inner side of the forearm.
- We knit a usual knot, conduct the end of the leash through the eye of the hook towards the igloo, and tighten the knot (at the final stage the leash material must necessarily go out from the hook eyelet from the inside).
- Glue pop-up on the screw swivel Gardner Covert Flexi Bait Screw. Due to the ring, the pop-up moves freely through the tail, and this complicates the fish’s task of getting rid of the bait.
- We install a medium-sized lead pellet practically close to the hook eyelet, leaving a small (about 5 mm) piece of soft braid to ensure free rotation of the hook. Without additional loading, Carp Catchers 14 mm entirely lifts the Gardner Continental Mugga No. 4 with the swivel, so filling and balancing are necessary.
- We will balance the bait in the water. If the pop-up pulls the whole structure up, you can either put the second pellet or initially choose the heavier one, if it sinks too fast, reduces the weight of the bullet.
- The final design looks like this.
The material in the braid reduces the likelihood of overlap. The bait returns to its original position after the attack of small fish and is not entangled due to the hard part which is also called the boom section. Due to the aggressive angle of attack of the hook and its shape when the fish eat the pop-up, it is instantly detected. The equipment has a
minimum of details.
It is important to adjust and remove the necessary amount of braid to leave a small soft part free from twist (0.5 mm – near the hook to the pellet, and another 0.2-0.5 mm – just behind the bullet: on the braid the lead pellet is kept more reliably, than on a flat twist).
Pop up baits for carp fishing retain a stable buoyancy for a very long time, and you don’t have to worry about the quality of the nozzle presentation, even leaving it for many hours in the water. The main thing is to fix the pellet and balance the bait securely: without additional loading 14 mm Carp Catchers raises the Gardner Continental Mugga # 4 entirely with the swivel Flexi Bait Screw, and if you do not balance it, you risk fishing in the water column, and there is no such type of equipment.
This bait is pure, but it requires proper observance of the nuances: the length of the braid-free area, the location of the swivel ring opposite the hook stitch and the weight balancing. Try it in action!