RIG SAFETY
Along with fish handling, rig safety is one of the things I take very seriously here at The Graviers...
Developments in anglers rigs, and in the rig components used have advanced enormously in recent years, but unfortunately not all of these developments can be described as safe, and fish friendly
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Most Carp anglers of today actually want to fish safely, and understand the importance of safe rigs and the effect they have on our fishing, and the fish welfare on any chosen water they fish.
It does not take a genius to work out that if on your chosen water everyone was to fish "death rigs", with fixed leads and damaging hook patterns, that not only would the stock of fish deteriorate rapidly and eventually all die off, but in the few years it would take for this to happen, we would be spending our time catching mutilated fish with ripped mouths and lips missing!...and that's something that becomes a reality as soon as un safe rigs are used!
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One bad rig is all it takes to injure or kill a Carp....don't rely for one minute on the fish ejecting the rig themselves with out injury. Such terms as "it will shed the hook" or "it will dump it in the weed" roll off the tongue fairly easily when a fish is lost with a rig in it....But the reality is they will actually rip it out of their face on the first weed bed, or snag they can find, causing all levels of injury from rips in the mouth to huge chunks of flesh removed.
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Just because we buy all of our rig components from a known and respected tackle company, does not mean that all the components of the rig will work in harmony together.
For example...a simple upgrade in line size could see our usual protective rig tubing become a real problem as the diameter of it's bore will no longer slide freely on the larger diameter line!.
Or a new lead clip, straight out of the packet could have a bit too much resistance for shedding the lead unless it has been loosened up a bit first....or what about an accumulation of tubing, back leads and rig putty used to pin the line down, actually stopping a running lead from running!
Just by simply "stretching" a lead clip out before you use it will enable a much easier ejection of the lead.
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Here at The Graviers I "rig check" everyone before they start their fishing....now, no doubt some people don't like the idea of all that, but it's only done to eliminate the little errors that can happen, the over looking of small details such as the examples mentioned above, which if not eliminated can cause what is believed to be a safe rig, to become a dangerous one.
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Every angling situation is different, certain rigs could be safe for some applications, but could become dangerous in others....
There is usually a solution to every problem, but this will always comes down to the anglers responsability....and it's just a case of taking the time to evaluate the situation we intend to fish in, and checking that our rigs work as they are supposed to, before fishing with them...it's as easy as that.
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