I find it best to have the bait just touching the bend of the hook. Just looking at the mouth of an F1 I tend to think they’re peckers rather than suckers like normal carp. Someone may prove me wrong but that’s my theory.

Not sure about on the bottom but for shallow I like it the same as for carp and find with it closer you will loose more fish. However I must add that the F1s I normally fish for are a pound to 2lb.

@diddly-squatt wrote:

I find it best to have the bait just touching the bend of the hook. Just looking at the mouth of an F1 I tend to think they’re peckers rather than suckers like normal carp. Someone may prove me wrong but that’s my theory.

funnily enough my wife used to be a sucker of pecker but since we got married that seems to have slowed down somewhat ~think

Hair rigging for carp. Banded pellet or expanders on the hook for F1s. Generally, unless the F1s are very big. You will normally miss to many bites and hook too many fish around the face with a hair rigged pellet when targeting F1s.

@TrueBlue wrote:

Hair rigging for carp. Banded pellet or expanders on the hook for F1s. Generally, unless the F1s are very big. You will normally miss to many bites and hook too many fish around the face with a hair rigged pellet when targeting F1s.

Do you consider 1 to 2lb big? As I greatly improved my results after changing to a hair rig for fishing 1ft deep and so did my mate and given a half decent draw I won most of the matches.

Nathan, F1s that are close to 2lb are very big F1s on most venues in my honest opinion but it depends on the venues i guess.

On most of the venues that i fish and know about. Banded pellet or using an expander on the hook is much better than hair rigging when fishing up or on the deck for F1s. I,ve not had many days when hair rigging has been better than banding a pellet or using an expander pellets as hook bait on F1 dominated venues but there is always the exception when hair rigging is better. Thats normally when big F1s have been the target.

Surely a band on a hair right next to the hook would be better than a band on the hook to save money on bands and reduce chance of band sliding down and reducing hook hold on fish!? Do you have the band on the bend or right up the shank? Either can be done with a hair and save money on bands! That said, I’ve tried that and always done better with a 4mm pellet, 4mm below the hook.

im with nathan here i lassoe 4mm pellets with a gap about the same as the pellet between hook and pellet(maybe slightly less but not touchign the hook) and combined with a very short line to the float (an inch if possible!)and a reasonably heavy float (5 or 6 number 10 bulk) every bite tends to see the elastic coming out. infact when your allowed to fish a line as short as this its rare you ever actually see your float go under as theres normally already one on. although again most venues i fish the F1s average over a lb. although i ve had matches catching 6-8 oz stockies and fished exactly the same

on the other hand i agree with trueblue when fishing on the deck, i ve never had much success with hair rigged pellets for F1s on the bottom and try to always fish soft pellets (either softened 4mm feed pellets or expanders)

i find to try to get the pellet as close to the hook as possible and use a small hook 20/22 so they suck the lot in use a bigger hook u tend to hook them at the side of the face

I use a lighter hook, B911 for F1s, Fox 2 for carp and I prefer a 16! Found I loose more with smaller.

On F1 venues unless the F1s are massive or your looking for very big bags of fish. 0.12 line should allow you to use a small light gage eyed hook for hair rigging without a problem.

There,s something not balanced with your set up Nathan if your losing to many F1s with a smaller hook than a 16. I lose almost nothing with 20s or even 22s when targeting F1s. Even big F1s.

Adam1 and Nathan, i understand the rig your using which is fished on a very short line to the float. In Nathan,s case, probably without the float, lol. It works well in perfect condition and i,ve used it myself. Its good in perfect conditions but what about if there is a strong gusty wind on the venue and/or your fishing long(14 meters+). Or/and the fish are mainly responding to slapping the rig? Do you not find that you need to use a longer line above the float to gain the right control? With 10+ inches of line above your float and sometimes 2ft+. Your not getting the full bolt rig effect which is a big part of the set up and why that works. That means that you have to lift in to many of your bites. I would expect that this often results in lots of missed bites while hair rigging.

Adam1, in the video of the Parkdean final a few years ago. You where missing quite a few bites from F1s. You had to fish a longer line than 1 inch above the float because of the rules and conditions. Plus, the fish where responding to slapping (Missed bites where not the reason why you never won that final by the way. You fished a blinder and deserved the £25,000 but thats another story). Im wondered if banding might have been better in that situation because its more direct and because of the way F1s feed. The pellet and hook have to be in the F1s mouth with banding or you dont get a bite! With hair rigging. F1s can and often do mouth the pellet, pick up or snatch at the pellet without taking the pellet and hook fully into there mouths. I believe its part of the reason why hooking around the face can be an issue and F1s do seem to fall off the hook easier than other fish in this situation. You agree about hooking expanders when fishing on the deck rather than hair rigging. I believe we agree because you see my argument about the way F1s feed! (F1s grab or pick up while carp suck everything in). So, banding or hooking pellets is more direct to the hook/float than hair rigging for F1s. Its not a problem when fishing on a very short line to the float because your only interested in those bites that do hook themselves because the F1s have taken everything, including the hook. The F1s hook themselves and you never need to attempt to hook bites that are unhookable! However, when long lining. You do have to lift the pole when the float goes under as the bolt rig effect is lost or dramatically reduced. So, it stands to reason that you will miss more bites when hair rigging in most situation unless the fish are being extremely fussy about the way the pellet is hooked. See my point? Its even more apparent that banding is often better when fishing with a very long line or when using the waggler.

I use 2 ft of line between float and tip! You never said where you put the band, bend or up shank?

A little tip when banding… I stick the hook through the band then slide it to the position I want it on the hook. You’ll be amazed how many fish you can catch on the same band. Done a good few matches on the same band and caught plenty of fish. If you’ve got half decent finger nails you can put a pellet on in a second.

Several ways to band a pellet, Nathan. Back of the hook is best in my opinion. Simply banding a pellet then sliding the hook point under the band and up the side of the shank of the hook is the simplest way. Its simple and works well. At about 99p for 100 bands. Loosing the odd band is not expensive. I know of many anglers who band 50 pellets the night before a match to save time on the bank and they win lots of matches. Its also possible to fix the band to the hook so it never moves. That involves creating two loops in the band that sit on the shank of the hook with a loop in the band for adding the pellet. Tricky to set the band up but it works well and keeps the pellet where i want it. You could also go half and half if you want by adding a band to a very small hair loop so the pellet sits on the back of the hook. Its not so much how you band the pellet thats critical but the reason why you do it. Its the way F1s feed that is the reason why banding is normally better than hair rigging. (unless you can create that bolt rig effect but how often do we get perfect conditions?). When targeting Carp. Its a completely different story. I would then use a hair rig set up almost every time for up in the water work and with hard pellet fished up in the water or on the deck!

You use 2ft of line above the float. So, you miss lots of bites from F1s and as you have already stated. You loose lots of F1s unless you use a 16 hook or bigger, Nathan!

Very interesting thread.

Like Nathan and Adam I also use a hair rigged band with the pellet just hanging below the bend of the hook. I find it quicker and easier than fiddling about trying to put both a band and pellet onto the hook shank and it also prevens the pellet rotating or moving on the hook shank if you miss a bite or bump a fish.

Hook wise I use Gamakatsu GP107’s in a size 12, (it’s more like a 16), or a Maver MT4 size 16.

I’ll admit I have hooked a few F1’s just outside the mouth, however I have also hooked carp in the same manner so I don’t worry about it, however one thought is if the pellet was banded directly on the hook would I have hooked these fish in the first place because at the moment we are assuming that the fish has had the pellet in its mouth when in fact it may have simply nosing the bait or surrounding bait.

With reference to missed bites because of the way F1’s feed and compete for the bait especially up in the water and against island shelves I think it is part and parcel of F1 fishing.

If it’s hard, especially early in the season I prefer expanders hooked directly but once it warms up and fish start to feed aggresively, competing for the bait, a band comes into its own.

Although some anglers seem to prefer a hair rig and others prefer banding directly onto the hook shank my advice would be to use what you are confident in as confidence plays a large part in how we fish.

If you start swapping and changing without seeing an discernable change to your catch rate you can spend more time trying to work things out than you do fishing which can result in less fish in the net.

One thing I have noticed with carp is that sometimes when the weather starts to cool down especially as autumn approaches the fish start to feed differently. As the colour starts to drop out, you often get days when there is lots of activity in your peg especially fizzing and indications but with a distinct lack of proper bites. When it has been like this I have found that banding the pellet directly onto the hook can make a big difference in your catch rate however this is the only time I’ve found banding directly onto the hook more effective than a hair.

@TrueBlue wrote:

Several ways to band a pellet, Nathan. Back of the hook is best in my opinion. Simply banding a pellet then sliding the hook point under the band and up the side of the shank of the hook is the simplest way. Its simple and works well. At about 99p for 100 bands. Loosing the odd band is not expensive. I know of many anglers who band 50 pellets the night before a match to save time on the bank and they win lots of matches. Its also possible to fix the band to the hook so it never moves. That involves creating two loops in the band that sit on the shank of the hook with a loop in the band for adding the pellet. Tricky to set the band up but it works well and keeps the pellet where i want it. You could also go half and half if you want by adding a band to a very small hair loop so the pellet sits on the back of the hook. Its not so much how you band the pellet thats critical but the reason why you do it. Its the way F1s feed that is the reason why banding is normally better than hair rigging. (unless you can create that bolt rig effect but how often do we get perfect conditions?). When targeting Carp. Its a completely different story. I would then use a hair rig set up almost every time for up in the water work and with hard pellet fished up in the water or on the deck!

You use 2ft of line above the float. So, you miss lots of bites from F1s and as you have already stated. You loose lots of F1s unless you use a 16 hook or bigger, Nathan!

I must be doing something right as I win most matches when I fish for F1s up in the water!

Good post as normal Dave and sort of sums it up nicely.

Nathan, im sure you do well on the venues including the odd F1 venue that you fish. At the end of the day. Dave is correct. Confidence is a massive thing and none of us ever fish the same as the next angler. You only need to look at Giles hook in the loop rig. Designed originally for catching F1s up in the water!