The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Mike Wilson wrote: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

Sheringham wrote of using floating crust in Elements of Angling, first published in 1908. Not under the rod tip. He preferred a greased line letting his bait drift out with the wind. John Martin too wrote a few years earlier of using crust (though subsurface for roach) and noted how it was a bait that is rarely if ever mentioned in other angling books.

It's almost certainly my favourite method for carp.

By the time the method in the O.P. trickled down to me, it involved the rod being on fairly tall rests, with a foil bobbin on a long drop, so you could tell nudges from the real bite. I can no longer remember if I read it in Walker, Guttfield or Gibbinson (the tree likeliest candidates), but it certainly works.
However, because you are busy being well back and out of sight, it is important that you can be sure there are no waterfowl or rats about!

farliesbirthday wrote:As I understand it, a Zig rig - actually named after a bloke called Zig! - is basically speaking any rig where a floating bait is popped up more than a few inches - say more than four or five inches off to bottom to one inch off the top, and anything inbetween. Walker - it could be argued - used a kind of "pre-Zig-Zig-Rig" at Dagenham, when he "popped up" crust to catch a twenty and high double, in 1952. But I think he did that, primarily, to cope with dense bottom weed.

DW stated that he had invented the method he referred to as 'margin fishing' in 1952. It was in fact mentioned in 1863 in Cornwall Simeon's Stray Notes on Fishing and Natural History.

What we call the zig rig was mentioned in detail in The Fishing Gazette in 1893.

PS - Also Richard Brooks in his book The Art of Angling (1743) describes the use of floating crust as a bait for carp.

Snape wrote:I recall Dick Walker devising a night time margin fishing technique with floating crust thrown into the margin and a piece with a hook in it being lowered in under the rod tip so no line touched the water.
Presumably it is fished with a centrepin reel on the the ratchet so the fish can run with the bait but it won't drift off.
Does this work? Has anyone tried it?

Yes, it works superbly well given the right set of circumstances. I prefer fishing from behind cover since the fish are so close. For me the method has worked best when the water is about 3' – 4' deep close in.

Snape wrote:I recall Dick Walker devising a night time margin fishing technique with floating crust thrown into the margin and a piece with a hook in it being lowered in under the rod tip so no line touched the water.
Presumably it is fished with a centrepin reel on the the ratchet so the fish can run with the bait but it won't drift off.
Does this work? Has anyone tried it?

I used this method some years ago after spotting a carp slurping in the margins, under the cover of trees. Whilst keeping cover in stalking mode, I simply lowered the hooked bread about a foot from the fishes mouth and within a few seconds I was playing said fish on 5' of line. I think this method is more of a sight and slurp method. One holds the rod and strikes when one sees and hears the bait being slurped!!

The method described is a classic stalking method, be it employed at day or night, and I fear this is one of those methods that many folk have re-invented for themselves without ever knowing who first wrote it down or who Walker was!!! History, now and then, repeatedly credits those that could write!! As with most coarse fishing methods, it was probably some clever illiterate poacher that first used this method, and has since been copied and written about by country gentlemen that could write and had lots of time on their hands to do so!!!

Vole wrote:By the time the method in the O.P. trickled down to me, it involved the rod being on fairly tall rests, with a foil bobbin on a long drop, so you could tell nudges from the real bite. I can no longer remember if I read it in Walker, Guttfield or Gibbinson (the tree likeliest candidates), but it certainly works.
However, because you are busy being well back and out of sight, it is important that you can be sure there are no waterfowl or rats about!

Jack Hilton described margin crust method using foil on a long drop in Quest For Carp.

Have used the method in the summer at my local pond. Always a very positive take but you must sit well back from the bank and be ultra quiet!! Not one for the bivvy and radio gang!!

Snape wrote:I recall Dick Walker devising a night time margin fishing technique with floating crust thrown into the margin and a piece with a hook in it being lowered in under the rod tip so no line touched the water.
Presumably it is fished with a centrepin reel on the the ratchet so the fish can run with the bait but it won't drift off.
Does this work? Has anyone tried it?

I actually had a dabble with this method yesterday, Snape - and caught one! Very exciting!

Gary Bills wrote:

Snape wrote:I recall Dick Walker devising a night time margin fishing technique with floating crust thrown into the margin and a piece with a hook in it being lowered in under the rod tip so no line touched the water.
Presumably it is fished with a centrepin reel on the the ratchet so the fish can run with the bait but it won't drift off.
Does this work? Has anyone tried it?

I actually had a dabble with this method yesterday, Snape - and caught one! Very exciting!

Well done Gary.

Some of my best surface fishing has been by using this method although normally in a roving approach. I have had numerous fish just an inch or two from the bank like this, especially when a downwind scum has formed against a bank... very exciting indeed. When the fish are very shy and a little way from the rod tip I often try to hang my line over a fallen reed stem if possible so the line does not touch the surface and slacken the line to the rod top..once again the take is very exciting as the line straightens.