A couple of people found this website yesterday by typing in “Crap rig” into the search engine…
It is an obviously a misspelling, but it got me thinking. Is there such a thing as a crap rig? Depending where you live, you may or may not understand the meaning of crap…
It is a slang word, used to describe feces. If we say something is crap then we mean useless or technically inferior.
So, what is a crap rig?
So, is there such a thing as a crap rig? A crap rig would be one that doesn’t work I suppose. It might be one that hasn’t been tied properly and it is likely that the knot will break or slip.
If you have not noticed that the point of your hook is broken, or if the hook has been bent out of shape on an underwater snag then I guess that this would qualify as crap.
If you have created a bolt rig where the lead weight is fully attached to the hook link, and the hook link is of a greater breaking strain than the mainline, this means that a carp and end up with the lead stuck in the event of a mainline break.
This lead could get caught in an underwater snag and result in the carp being tethered and unable to feed. This would be the worst type of crap rig…
On another level though, maybe there is no such thing…
Other than technical or safety defects, perhaps there is no such thing as a crap rig…
Carp feed differently at different times, the bottom of the different parts of the lake or river will be of a different texture and shape… Often, carp get very adept at rejecting “anti reject rigs”.
Remember that a rig that seems great on the bank side will behave differently underwater because of the viscosity of the water, as well as the other factors mentioned.
Carp are very good at moving things around in their mouth and rejecting them. This is how they sift natural food from the silt then reject stones and other things that would be painful to swallow.
Carp also feed differently at different times, sometimes they might have their faces burrowing into the silt, sometimes they might move a few inches at a time between upending themselves to feed. Sometimes they might move a few meters between food inspections. You see carp to not have hands, so all analysis and inspection is done with their mouth.
So, what might be seen as a crap rig might work very well. If the hook seems to face the wrong way, or the hair seems to be running the wrong way down the shank of the hook, you might have just found that extra edge that you need.