There’s no doubt that the chod rig has now firmly established its place in the armoury of the modern day carp angler. A cast anywhere, fish anywhere rig, it gives carp anglers the ability to present a bait over any type of bottom.
For anyone who doesn’t know, chod is the term given to leaf matter and debris on the bottom so, as you can imagine, the autumn months, when the leaves are falling from the trees, are the worst time of year for this!
The chod isn’t only an autumn rig though; it can be used to great effect on any water where weed or deep silt can cause potential problems with presenting a bait.
It isn’t complicated either. It’s based around a short, stiff section of fluorocarbon fished above your lead, helicopter style, baited with a pop-up. The hook length has the ability to slide up and down your mainline or leader and, thanks to the pop-up, settle above any debris on the bottom.
Now, there are a few different varieties of chod rig but the two worth concentrating on are the standard chod, normally fished in conjunction with leadcore, and the ‘naked chod’, fished directly onto your mainline. Both work on a similar principle but can be used to great effect in different situations.
The standard chod rig is perfect for any fishing situation where the weed, silt or chod isn’t too bad. For example, if the lake you’re fishing is 6ft-8ft deep with weed growth of 2ft, your 3ft length of leadcore/leader would still present perfectly. Your bait could run up and down the 3ft length of leadcore and fish comfortably above any weed or debris.
The naked chod is perfect for those slightly more difficult situations where the weed, silt or chod is very bad. For example, if the lake you’re fishing is 6ft-12ft deep with weed growth of 4ft-6ft, your 3ft length of leadcore/leader would be completely immersed in weed. By using the naked chod and no leadcore, your bait could run up as far as it needed to and fish comfortably above this.
If you are using either chod rig it’s essential that you use a good quality pop-up on the hair. You need it to be super buoyant and you also need to balance it (use a small piece of putty on your hook link swivel) to ensure it sinks as slowly as possible.
As you can imagine, you cast your chod rig out, your lead sinks to the depths and your hooklength flies back up your line/leader. Once the lead has hit the bottom, your baited rig then slowly sinks until it encounters the first piece of weed or chod, where it’ll then settle and start fishing. I like to use relatively slack lines whilst chod fishing, allowing the line to follow the contours of the bottom. I think this is key, as you need your baited rig to settle as naturally as possible.
There are a few scenarios when the chod rig perhaps isn’t as effective as a standard lead clip on inline rigs and this would be in a scenario where you’re fishing over a clean or hard bottom. This is because it doesn’t offer the same hooking potential of the other rigs, as your hook link can run up and down you mono/leader you don’t necessarily have that ‘bolt’ effect. You’ll also find that on clean areas, especially over gravel, that there like this because the fish have been feeding hard, close to the bottom on them. In this case a neatly presented bottom bait would be better.
Overall the chod rig is an essential weapon to have in your carp angling armoury, especially at this time of year, so why not get out there and give it a go!
