Casters on the Hook

[Justin Towns]

Was thinking of trying something a bit different and trying a hemp and caster approach. My thoughts are on bait presentation. Would I be better to:

A) Mount Caster directly on the hook?
B) Put a fake caster on a hair and superglue the real ones to it?
Or
C) use a fine wire hook on a hair and mount casters onto it leaving the usual gap to the bare hook?

Anyone who's tried the above tell me how effective they've found it?

 

[Howard Cooke]

Or, glue 2 casters together, side by side. Then lay the hair in the middle of them and then glue 1 or 2 on top. Lovely.

 

[Justin Towns]

Or, glue 2 casters together, side by side. Then lay the hair in the middle of them and then glue 1 or 2 on top. Lovely.

What size hook? Was thinking 14/16, sound right?

 

[Joe Winstanley]

I fish casters on a hair exactly as Howard has described.

When fishing casters I usually use a hook length of 4-6" of 12lb drennan sink braid tied to a longer length of mono (with the length depending on the conditions). If I'm using pellets or boilies I'm happy I use a standard hair rig, but for casters and maggots I prefer the hair to be lighter and suppler so I use 2lb mono or a very fine braid for the hair, sometimes tied directly onto the bend, but usually I have the hair whipped under a knotless knot which I trim down.

Hooks usually a size 12 Drennan Super Specialist, or sometimes a size 11 or 12 Super Specialist Barbel.

100% confident in the above rig - but that said the key with hemp and casters is to get the baiting right and accuracy absolutely spot-on. Once you get them really on it you can probably get away with murder regarding presentation.

 

[Howard Cooke]

What size hook? Was thinking 14/16, sound right?

Too small I think for barbel Justin and would generally use a 12.

 

[Howard Cooke]

I fish casters on a hair exactly as Howard has described.

When fishing casters I usually use a hook length of 4-6" of 12lb drennan sink braid tied to a longer length of mono (with the length depending on the conditions). If I'm using pellets or boilies I'm happy I use a standard hair rig, but for casters and maggots I prefer the hair to be lighter and suppler so I use 2lb mono or a very fine braid for the hair, sometimes tied directly onto the bend, but usually I have the hair whipped under a knotless knot which I trim down.

Hooks usually a size 12 Drennan Super Specialist, or sometimes a size 11 or 12 Super Specialist Barbel.

100% confident in the above rig - but that said the key with hemp and casters is to get the baiting right and accuracy absolutely spot-on. Once you get them really on it you can probably get away with murder regarding presentation.

I do sometimes take the same approach, using some fine mono tied to the shank. However, I have found no real difference when using a braid hook length and attaching the casters to the hair. If I use this approach its usually swims close to the bank and upstream of cover etc. and so I will use a back lead and a short hook length.

It is expensive though!

 

[David Maddison]

I tied a combi link up a while back with 3 fake buoyant casters on a 10 hook.
Tried it in the edge where i could see it and they wafted up off the bottom with loose feed and it looked spot on.
I did buy some imitation hemp to put on a similar combi link, but attached to a fine hair.

 

[Alex Gowney]

I use .75 bs line hair tied to a size 12 animal and thread a rubber caster on to this with a very fine needle. A bit fiddly but once you have the rubber caster threaded on to the fine mono it stays there for quite a while. Then simply super glue one or two real casters to the rubber one. Another advantage of a rubber caster is there's always a bait on if small fish are crushing the real casters

 

[Justin Towns]

Or, glue 2 casters together, side by side. Then lay the hair in the middle of them and then glue 1 or 2 on top. Lovely.

The idea of at least having a fake caster on the hook if the real ones were getting hammered was my way of thinking. I've had some great pointers here, thanks guys.

 

[Sam Lloyd]

size 18 super spade for hooking a single caster, size 16 for double caster.

 

[David Maddison]

Good hooks them Super Spades. I have landed some nice fish on 18's and strong mono. When using artificials though that are buoyant you can get away with a thicker wire hook.


Dave