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Sat 03 Nov - Cod Trip


Sprinter
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Thanks,

and don't get me wrong a bad days fishing is still better than a good days shopping biggrin.gif

 

No the skipper turned the GPS off as soon as the hook was down, I was pretty swift trying to get in for a Pee (and a quick nose at the GPS) but he was quicker.

 

There was a large rock of about 20 foot at the white house grounds that we should be able to spot on the chart were going to have to have a look for that.

 

His trick for fishing the grounds was to drop the hook on the outside of the grounds and drift the bait and hooks back into the area so as not to lose to much gear we were fishing right on the edge.

 

If you are up for some fun Thursday give me a shout, I am off to London in a bit until Wednesday then Milton Keynes on Thursday and if they think i am going to do a stroke of work on Friday there going to be disappointed biggrin.gif

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Thanks for the replies

 

In my quest for better knots that dont undo so easily i have found a new cod rig, it is still a pennel but instead of both hooks being on the same trace the top hook was on its own leash.

 

it goes like this

 

one piece of 100LB trace 4 foot long

tie a big hook on one end

slide down a bit of tubing (optional)

then a stopper knot or a crimp (i have learnt stopper knots now as rig integrity became apparent on the last trip)

small bead, big bead, big swivel, big bead, small bead, stopper knot

tie another hook onto the swivel leaving about 8 to 10 inches of trace

adjust the stopper knots so one hook sits naturally above the other as per a normal pennel

 

Now the idea is i can easily slide 4 or 5 squid up the main line then another 3 or 4 up the top hook line, at that point i can feed the top hook through the tube or just bait elastic them together and another 2 or 3 squid to the hooks and there you go one massive bundle of bait if both hooks dig into the fish and for whatever reason the lower one snaps/unties the top one may be able to hold the fish with the stopper knots.

 

Dont know if it iwll work but i have made a couple up and will try them next time i go out. OPtionally you can squid the main line and lug the pennel leash.

 

I bet everyone else uses this and i have just found out about it.

biggrin.gif

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what ingenuity...............

 

I have to say this appears to be a hugely complicated approach to a very simple problem so maybe looking at the problem in more detail will help.

 

The generally accepted problem is in maintaining good bait presentation whilst avoiding the possibility of the hooks getting masked. To this end the fixed or floating pennel was developed. The lower hook is there as the primary hooking one and the upper is there to do the presentation job - it is sometimes smaller. At it's simplest this enables the lower bait to be threaded along the shank of the lower hook but held clear of sliding back down and filling the bend by judicious use of the upper hook. In the quest for a bigger bait people have then added 2 additional squid hung by their mantles on the bend of both hooks and providing they are at 180 degrees to each other there is little risk of these masking the hooks - they may get sucked off quickly but the integrity of the main bait remains and when that's taken in a hook up should occur.

 

Personally I believe that once further squid are added beyond the above the hooking potential of each hook is compromised and you would be better (1) using a sausage of squid made with netting or (2) using a bigger hook and hanging the squid from their mantles like a fan on the bend. I am a great admirer of PJs engineering feats but I have also seen the baits after 15 minutes in the tide looking like a ball on the lower hook.

 

Back to the original 'solution' - on 100lb line the basic floating pennel will do everything this does with no fundamental weakness (providing the top hook has an angled clean eye and you put one large bead between the two hooks) and you only loose the ability to feed 2/3 squid up the top hook........which is a recipe for a fully masked top hook anyway! It will work fine as a floating pennel without doing this.

 

Oh...and I know you are only joking about the stop knot holding any fish...........

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I must say that once again I agree with Duncan and Martin at his rig tying demo a few months back

 

KISS

Keep it simple stupid

 

 

Is how I appoach a lot of my rigs

 

My floating pennels now use two big hooks, 6/0 if uptiding 8/0 if downtiding

I have caught so many large fish that have shaken the fixed hook out and are only held on the top floating hook, that I no longer use a smaller 4/0 hook for that job

 

1st hook threaded on the trace and the other tied on the end of strong mono

 

Bait the fixed hook, slide the other hook down the trace take three turns of the trace around the shank of the hook and then pass the point through the top of the bait.

 

Charlie biggrin.gif

 

 

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I'm not against complexity Charlie - but where it's needed.

 

I won't drift fish strip or live bait on anything other than a helicopter/portland rig and that always seems overcomplicated..... (a simple 3 way swivel 2 foot above the weight link should do the same surely unsure.gif - it doesn't!!!! sad.gif )

 

your comment re having the bottom hook shaken out - I have always felt that with any pennel and fish that shake their heads (cod and turbot are great examples) there is a danger that the two hooks can work against each other weakening the hold of both when the fish shakes - this is another thing in favour of the floating pennel.

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Just to be clear:

 

The bait shown on the other post is way OTT

It was a "last drop lets use all the left overs up as we only have 5 mins left to fish bait" and done for a bit of a laugh.

 

Masking the hook and dropping cod is fairly common and not much fun so don't over do it!

The hooks need to be extra sharp!

 

PJ

Edited by Paul J
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Hi Duncan

 

As I said simple is how I aproach most but not all of my rigs

 

The portland rig is a very good example of a more complicated one that outfishes the simple alternatives

 

what I was trying to advise against on the floating pennel was the small floating hook I used to use for bait presentation purposes.

After just landing some big fish that were only held on fairly light 4/0 hooks I decided to use larger and stronger hooks for that purpose

 

Charlie biggrin.gif

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Hi folks,

Whilst I agree with the KISS application, I tried out a cod rig similar in a way to Zed's last season that worked very well. That was a pennel on the main line and a second pennel as a short dropper off a very short boom. The dropper was set so that the dropper bait sat just above the top hook of the main pennel.

That let me load up two pennels worth of squid with decent hook points presented but the baits lined up in the tide and were effectively one bait. I expected it either to tangle or the baits to stand too far clear of each other but in practise the dropper generally took a turn or so round the main trace and they came up as one continuous bait without balling or masking each others points.

 

I'll not mention the booby beads or the muppets though blink.gifph34r.gif

 

Steve

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No the skipper turned the GPS off as soon as the hook was down, I was pretty swift trying to get in for a Pee (and a quick nose at the GPS) but he was quicker.

That's pretty sly and underhand of you, you should be ashamed of yourself! I certainly wouldn't take any of you lot out on my boat! sad.gif

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