A Few Points About Hair Rigs.
Although how to tie hair rigs is dealt with on a separate page, this page deals with a few points that will help people who are new to this method of presentation. What some people take for granted, such as how long the hair should be, or how you but a bait on a hair rig, can need explaining to others. One of the great things about angling is that you have never finished learning, no matter how much experience you have.
The Length of the Hair.
The picture on the right shows boilie mounted on a hair rig. It gives a guide to how you want the bait to sit on the hair and how far you want the top of the bait from the bottom of the hook. The bait doesn't have to be a boilie, it can be luncheon meat, sweetcorn, peperami etc. The same rule applies.
As can be seen the top of the bait is quite close to the bottom of the hook bend, only a couple of mm or so. I have found this to be the best position of the bait for all round use. There may be occasions when a slightly longer hair will be better, but the setup shown is a good place to start.
Although how to tie hair rigs is dealt with on a separate page, this page deals with a few points that will help people who are new to this method of presentation. What some people take for granted, such as how long the hair should be, or how you but a bait on a hair rig, can need explaining to others. One of the great things about angling is that you have never finished learning, no matter how much experience you have.
Mounting the Bait on the Hair.
Mounting a hard bait on a boilie is very easy, you need a baiting needle and a boilie or hair stop. The animation below shows how it works.
Mounting a hard bait on a boilie is very easy, you need a baiting needle and a boilie or hair stop. The animation below shows how it works.
- The bait is pushed onto a baiting needle.
- The loop of the hair rig is then placed onto the hook or barb of the baiting needle and the rig pulled tight against the barb or loop.
- The bait is then pushed off the baiting needle onto the hair rig and the baiting needle released.
- A boilie or hair stop is then pushed onto the loop and the bait pushed down the hair to sit on this stop - thats it, job done.
The picture on the right shows the types of baiting needles available.
The top one has a small hook at the end. This is suitable for normal boilies, peperami, sweetcorn etc.
The baiting needle in the middle has a sharp point and a barb to hook the hair loop over, as shown in the animation above. This is suitable for all the baits named above, plus extra hard baits like pop-up boilies and tigernuts etc.
The baiting needle shown at the bottom of the picture has a larger hook than the one shown at the top. It is called a stringer needle and is used to mount boilies on pva string. It is also excellent for putting luncheon meat on pellet bands. For more info on this see the "Luncheon Meat - Hooking" page.
A Simple Setup.
The above diagram shows a very simple setup. having tied the hair rig, this is then tied to a swivel. The length of the rig is normally between 6 to 12 inches, if your not sure I find about 9 or 10 inches a good starting point.
The plastic bead between the swivel and the ledger is there to protect the reel line knot on the swivel, from the ledger eye bumping against it all the time. It also holds the swivel away from the ledger when casting, thus helping prevent tangles.
Note that the ledger is not locked in place with anything between itself and the reel side of the line. It is allowed to run freely. For the reason why see the animation at the bottom of the ledger page.
Full information on how to tie a hair rig, is given here on the "How to Tie a Hair Rig" page.