The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Not exactly what I was doing then. I always had the bait on the surface. I have used it more recently and it still works. I have used it in water up to about 3-4' deep. Anything more than this and casting becomes too difficult.

Sorry to go off topic here but Terry Hearn fooled the big fish from Nutsey by using the method you mention. It's no secret that the Nutsey fish love feeding off the top but sometimes they won't take with lines going across the surface. He adopted a rig which fished straight up off a lead and just touched the surface. Needless to say he achieved his goal by landing that fifty pounder!!!

So perhaps when they are being a bit shy it may well be worth trying the floating bait straight off the lead trick, it could just make the difference.

The Sweetcorn Kid wrote:Spot on FB. The Zig is used to suspend a bouyant bait at a level you think the fish are cruising, using two rods a varying depths you can chop and change the depths until you find success. This can indeed be anywhere in water layers but from half depth up to a few inches blow the surface seems to be the most popular and successful.

And yes, Walker did use a variation, cementing the fact that there is nothing new in fishing. With Walker devising a rig to suspend a bait above the weed and bottom debris, you could even call it a variation of the Chod rig (Don't go there, I'll not lower the tone of this forum explaining what a Chod rig is!).

Take a look at the diagram in 'Confessions' showing a midwater presentation to overcome soft mud or weed. It's a chod rig in every respect.

A zig rig is certainly no different to Walker's use of suspended crust to overcome silkweed. In fact, if you look through all the presentations devised by the CCC, most modern 'rigs' are represented in one form or another; the only difference being the way the bait is mounted to the hook (or not).

Margin fishing with floating crust does not demand a centrepin; it does make it easier but the drag from the check can cause a fish to drop the bait. A small multiplier is probably the best reel for this, as the spool can be set to run free and adjusted minutely to overcome drift, but a fixed spool is quite suitable, either with open bale arm or a baitrunner/loose clutch (see comments on Altex on another thread).

MGs wrote:SB

I came across a similar problem at about the same time. I went the other way and used a small bomb to anchor the crust (only 2' of water) The fish still approached it as there was no line on the surface.

Its a fine dividing line between a Zig and an anchored crust or a 'popped-up' bait but a zig is usually employed to cover the areas between top and bottom as SK says and especially in deeper water say over a rods length which makes casting difficult with a fixed lead set up...

From a traditionalist point of view I have no problem presenting a bait at mid-water ( hatching nymphs and free swimming bugs etc rising through the water column must appeal to fish other than trout ) But the Zig is often used with eh hum, forgive me... 'hi-viz' pop ups to provoke fish to take them more out of curiosity than anything and thats not my cup of tea at all..

Agreed, most Zig fishing is, indeed, done with Hi-Viz sweeties. Although one of the best Zig anglers in the country swears by pieces of black foam. Black and yellow foam can be mixed and matched to imitate a Bumblebee, and with success, but tell me when a bumblebee ever swims mid water!!

There is, as SB is angling towards, a much greater sense of achievement when you can imitate something natural and fool a fish into thinking it is real. I guess that’s why Fly Fishing has such an appeal to a lot of anglers.

Funny enough, SK - Otto Overbeck of Croxby fame believed that bumblebees were one of the finest baits for carp, and he would pay a lad to catch bees for him...we couldn't go down that route today though, obviously, for conservation reasons...

silverbirch wrote: Its a fine dividing line between a Zig and an anchored crust or a 'popped-up' bait but a zig is usually employed to cover the areas between top and bottom as SK says and especially in deeper water say over a rods length which makes casting difficult with a fixed lead set up...

I always fished my anchored surface bait on a running bomb (allowing for plenty of movement). It can be fished at 20-30 yards with a depth of 3 feet

Snape

I'm not sure that Dick was the first to use floating crust as Flt.-Lt. Burton wrote about this and it was reproduced in BB's "Confessions" [1950].
This however was some 5 years after Leslie B Thompson recorded in his diary 26th May 1945* whilst fishing a 'Still Pool on the Charles' [ USA River] that ' The floating bread crust works'.
As they say there is little that is new in fishing.

[* published in 'Fishing in New England']

Mike

I think it's fair to say that Walker "only" invented the margin crust technique: the matchbox piece of crust immediately below the rod tip, with no line at all on the water. He developed this technique with Pete Thomas and Bearton Pond, Hitchin, - landing many doubles to 16lb 4oz. Venables, in describing the technque in his Mr Crabtree cartoon strip, credited the method to Walker. There seems to be little doubt on this point.

I have probably caught just as many carp margin fishing than conventional bottom fishing.

The only problem with margin fishing is finding a water to do it effectively which doesn't have innumerable fish scaring activities or other anglers walking up and down. The best fun I had margin fishing was in South Africa when I was given sole permission to fish a nice little 3 acre lake with about 30 carp in it up to 30 lbs or so.

I never did catch the biggest.

Flt Lt Burton spent a good deal of time in SA by the way. He may have learned surface fishing there.