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THE WITHY POOL RIG
Jim Foster
Withy Pool is a venue steeped in history. Fished in the 1960s by the likes of Dick Walker, the pool has long since been a breeding ground for thinking anglers to experiment with their carp fishing. However, Withy has never been a prolific venue, holding little more than 20 carp 525x2310f altogether at any one time. A large proportion of these fish are 30lb plus though, with some being more than 40lb.
Today, after a flirtation with day ticket anglers, Withy is run as a syndicate. Most will struggle to catch more than one fish in a season. Some will blank all year. But for those who know their stuff, a few thirties and maybe a forty are on the cards.
Make no mistake
about it; Withy can be a hard venue. The carp it contains have loads of natural
food to go for, plus they're subjected to pressure from some of
It's one of the few venues I know where you really do need to get every part of the equation tight. And that includes rigs, so I'm going to take a look at a set-up that was devised in part by former Withy Pool owner Kevin Maddocks. It takes the old Withy Pool Rig and modifies it a bit, utilizing a long-shanked hook, a sliding ring and an acute bend between hook and hook link brought about by the clever use of clear shrink tubing.
The bend in the shrink tube is the thing that strikes you when you look at the rig for the first time. You think to yourself, 'that can't possibly work,' but I assure you it does! In fact, I've seen this rig in action on quite a few occasions and can vouch for its effectiveness. It's especially good with pop-ups, although Kevin Maddocks uses it with bottom baits (I'm thinking specifically here of the Carp Nuggets he's caught so well on in the last 18 months or so).
Even though it appears that the hook point is well obscured, the rig seems to suit the way carp feed and will catch them out time and again. I remember having a conversation with Steve Renyard, a man who should take most of the credit for the design of the original Withy Pool Rig, about a session he had on Withy when he used the Mark I version for the first time.
I think he had a number of takes in a single trip in a spot that had produced next to nothing for months. This success rate continued and Steve went on to catch most of Withy's residents in a very short period
Obviously, the rig wasn't the sole factor behind his success, but in his mind, the edge of being the first to use such a radically different rig helped him catch those fish.
So if you fancy trying this rig out, you'll need to get yourself some fly-tying thread and a fly vice. You'll also need some Fox Series 5 hooks, a fairly stiff fluorocarbon hook link like ESP Ghost, Korda IQ or Fox Illusion, some clear shrink tube, sliding rings and some bait floss.
Most carp hooked on the Mark II Withy Pool Rig are hooked securely in the middle of the bottom lip. This positioning of the hook leads me to believe that the carp clamp their mouths over the pop-up, with the bottom lip possibly being caught between the hook and the shrink tube. On ejection it's argued that the shrink tube acts like a spring that helps pull the hook down, quite forcibly, into the fish's bottom lip.
However it works (we'll never know for sure!), the fact is that it does. It has taken some waters apart in the last two years. So tie it up carefully and try it out. You too could find yourself upping your catch rate - but please remember that no rig is any good unless you're using a bait that the fish want to eat!
Got that? Good! Then let's get tying.
How To Tie The Withy Pool Rig
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This feature is taken from the Sept 2000 issue of Total Carp Magazine.
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