Carp fishing can be one of the most frustrating sports I have ever had the pleasure to be part of,l am sure you know what I mean, days and nights camped out in the wilderness, creepy and scary places at night, especially in some of the remote places I have fished. Having said that I think night fishing for Carp can be very rewarding, I have caught some of my biggest Carp in the middle of the night, maybe they just feel more confident at night time, I think there may be some truth in this, I have had my best fishing at these times.

I wanted to share with you a little about Hair Rigs and a recent trip where I was fishing a day ticket water close to where I live in Tamworth, it was one of the most frustrating days I have ever had but turned out to be a big learning experience for me and now you!. The water does not contain many big fish but does hold one or two 20's. and plenty of fish around the 10lb mark. I reached the bank at about 06:30 and the peg I always fancied was available, its called the suicide peg and for good reason, its full of snags and the Carp are always hanging around in this area, there have been times in the evening when you could have walked across the water on top of them, there were so many just basking on top.

Now although i just love fishing for carp on the top and this place is great for this methods, this particular day I wanted to test some new boiles that were made by a friend of mine, Squid flavour and they looked and smelt fantastic. I setup two rods both bottom baits with my usual short length hair rig, about 1 inch long, casted them out in my choosen spot and sent a few freebies out. This is when the fun started, or in this case frustration I kept getting pickups and the bleep, bleep but no positive runs, at first i thought they were line bites but after two or three hours of this I decided they were not and it was Carp picking the bait up and spitting it out. I has changed by weights, hooks, left line slack I had tried just about everything I could think of but still all I got was bleep, bleep and then nothing.

Now for the interesting part, after 5 hours of this madness I had an idea, shall I change the length of my hair rig, as I already said i usually fish my rigs about 1 to 1.5 inches long, well off the hook. I made the decision and quickly knocked up a rig that was 3 inches long, it looked quite odd and I thought the Carp will never get to the hook, how wrong was I!!.

After just thirty minutes I had my first positive run, no bleep, bleep just a screamer BLEEEEEEEPPPPPP and away she went, it wasn't a big fish but it was a fish and a hooked one at last. After making this change I had 6 more fish and they were all screaming runs. So, that day I learnt a lot, a simple change to my hair rig completely turned things around for me, I still don't really understand why this works but i guess by the time they feel the hook the bait is well down and they cant spit it out, whatever it is it works, so give it a try!.