John Bailey – The Kingfisher Diaries
February 1st 2010
Thoughts on Hair Rigs
It was interesting out in India this year that, after years of talking about it, we actually used hard balls of ragi paste in conjunction with hair rigs. However, we did miss good bites and there were endless debates why this was so. Perhaps we weren't striking hard enough. Perhaps the hooks were too big or too small or, anyway, the wrong size.
My feeling, though, was that it was all down to the length of the hair itself. My thinking is this. Hair rigs have obviously blown the carp scene apart over the last two or three decades and there's a good reason for this. Watch most carp feed and you will see they actually suck baits in along with bottom silt - and hooks - from some distance above the lake bed. Now, if mahseer behave exactly like carp, it explains why hair rigging ragi paste works. If they don't behave exactly like carp, it might explain why quite a percentage of bites were being missed.
Let's take it a stage further. I know many anglers fish hairs these days for barbel and I do myself from time to time. However, in truth, I've often had trouble hitting barbel bites on hair rigs. My feeling is that barbel don't feed quite like carp do and are more discriminating when it comes to actually, physically picking up individual baits. In fact, there are many occasions when a barbel will hold a bait in its lips before taking it into its mouth. If you're on a hair rig - certainly a hair rig of any length - you're unlikely to set the hook. And you certainly won't unless the barbel decides to gulp the bait back greedily.
This is even more the case when fishing for chub. Yes, I know some chub get caught on hair rigs but I've never had much luck with them myself. Again, I think chub particularly are adept at holding baits and testing them before finally consuming them. Again, this can easily militate against the use of hairs.
Hairs and tench? Well, they don't really work for me very often. I'm still happy with traditional rigs there. Roach? Well I've never seen the need and I'm not going to begin now. And those missed mahseer bites? I guess that from time to time, the mahseer were behaving like barbel or chub and simply picking up the bait without sucking it in in a full-blooded, carp-style fashion. The message? If you're a general fisherman, hairs can revolutionize your results but they're not necessarily the be all and end all and they always demand you fish them with thought and with an open mind.