Hackett’s Sliding Hair Rig

Phil Hackett’s Sliding Hair Rig

On the forum we have debated the merits of the sliding hair rig, so to aid those who have read that debate, here’s how I make mine, including some pictures of the finished and baited rig.

Phil Hackett’s Sliding Hair Rig with pellet bait mounted

You’ll need some Drennan micro braid of 5 lbs, some 1mm silicon micro tube or shrink tube. The smallest shrink tube I’ve come across is 1.5 mm. Some boilie dumbbell stops (see photo for type), hooklength braid, swivels and hooks. I’m using the Drennan Super Specialist No 4s. They’re cheap, reliable and quite sharp. Sod the £ 3.50 for 10 hooks by ESP; you lose too many on the Ribble to justify the cost of them.

Tie the hook on first as you would do for fishing a bait directly on the hook. My preferred hook knot is to whip eyed hooks up the shank with a standard whipping knot. The carp boys call it the Knotless Knot. I firmly believe this knot to be the best and strongest knot for connecting line to a hook. Want to debate this point guys?

Take about 1500 mm of micro braid and tie a four turn blood knot around the hook braid and tighten it down. Cut off the surplus leaving 10 mm as a pull cord. Take the dumbbell boilie stops and cut four dumbbells off, tie a double or triple overhand knot after the second dumbbell from the end, at a length of 30-35mm, and trim off the excess.

Take 10 mm of tubing and slide down over the knot and eye of the hook from the end where you’ll attach the swivel (can be a bit fiddly this). Attach the swivel and the rig is complete if you’re using silicon tubing. If it’s shrink tube, you need to dip the rig in boiling water for a few seconds to shrink it. Don’t attempt to use direct flame heat as it weakens the hook braid.

This type of hair cannot be used with Kryston Snakeskin or any hook length with a plastic coating as it stretches the coating to a point where it parts and exposes the multistrand underneath. It has no effect whatsoever on standard braid though.

To get the four dumbbells through a pellet or boilie you need to drill them out with a 2 mm drill. The dumbbells are 1.75 mm or near as damn it. A small prodding stick is also needed to push them all the way through. I use the pin drill and bit to do it.

The drill bits I use for drilling pellets is Black & Decker Bullet bits. Very good and sharp bits in my opinion.

Using the dumbbells this way really is a quick baiting method and you don’t keep losing them as with the small loop at the end of the hair method.