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The Poppenoster Rig

Don Corleone

Sunken float paternosters... Great idea in theory, often not so smart in practice. Whichever way you use them they're hard to fish right and easy to get wrong. Hold onto your rod pods - Don Corleone's had a brain wave.

Unwinding my float from the tangled mess of bomb link, bait and trace for the umpteenth time, I thought there's got to be a better way. All I wanted to do was suspend a bait three or four feet off the deck so the pike could see it. But however I set the rig up it tangled as I cast it or when it hit the water.

The float was the main problem. It lagged behind the lead on the cast and as it jockeyed with the bait for position the two almost invariably tangled. The risk's there whatever way you do it - I've tried it with the float on the main line, fixed to the top of the uptrace and on the top of the lead link like the Vic Bellars/Colin Dyson versions.

Then it came to me in a flash. Why not try a modified pop-up. A sort of poppernoster..? I'm sure I can't have been the first person to think this up but I've now refined it to the point where it works really well and you can fish it all day without a tangle.

Rigging it up's easy. You need a short hook trace - say around a foot - with a swivel at the end. This is attached to a two foot uptrace, with a Fox or Berkley snap link at the end and the trace connection sheathed in an inch or two of silicone tubing or a rubber rig sleeve.  Slip a smaller swivel onto the snaplink and tie a three foot length of eight pound nylon to this to make your lead link. Tie a couple of inches of power gum to the end of this with a shockleader knot as a casting shock absorber, then tie on an ounce or two ounce bomb.

When you attach your bait, tie a big bait popper to the bottom treble, by tying a loop of pole elastic to it and passing it through the gills with forceps. Simple or what..? Without the float, the rig generally casts without tangles. Better still, when it hits the water, the lead sinks straight down and the buoyancy of the bait popper keeps things in a straight line above it, meaning no tangles as it settles. If the bait does take couple of turns around the bomb link or up-trace, it usually straightens out as it sinks.  Whatever happens, you've now suspended the bait a fixed distance off the bottom. All you have to do is sink the line and tighten down until you can feel the lead dragging along the bottom, so ensure instant indication of a take.

If you're tight to the lead, the line will be at a flattish angle and the buoyancy of the bait trying to rise up until the lead link is vertical will help tension your drop-off indicator. If the fish moves away from you in any direction, it can travel a couple of feet before it feels the lead. It'll pull the line out of a clip and sound the bite alarm as soon as it touches the bait. If it comes towards you it'll move the lead and slacken the line, giving you a drop back. There's another little trick you can do with this rig which can sometimes induce a take. Pull six of eight inches of line towards you and let it go again - if the rig's properly set, the buoyancy of the bait will tighten it up again. Do this three or four times in quick succession and the bait will jiggle up and down on the spot, producing a different kind of twitching action.

You might be tempted to rig the bait head up on the trebles, instead of the usual head-down. Jiggling the bait will then produce an action not unlike an unsuspecting tiddler grubbing about on the bottom for a morsel of food. If you try this you have to sit on your rods and hit the slightest indication of a take straight away.  Hooks near the bait's head are prone to deep hooking, because the pike swallows the bait head first. You've got to hit them straight away, before they even turn it.  If the pike's turning the bait as you hit it, or it's big enough to wolf it down on the spot, your hooks have to turn through 180 degrees before they'll stick into anything and the bottom treble can sometimes catch around the gill rakers - which I'd rather avoid.