ADTV Match Masterclass - Mugging Carp On The WAGGLER Explained

If you are unsure as to what mugging is, it's basically sight fishing. Instead of feeding an area and waiting for fish to arrive, you're actively searching for visible carp and presenting a hookbait directly in front of them. In the summer months when you can see lots of carp on the surface this can be an incredibly rewarding and effective technique. 

The aim is to land your bait just ahead of a cruising fish so it mistakes it for a free offering and grabs at it before it has time to think. While it's easier and stealthier to do on the pole thanks to the pinpoint accuracy, a waggler rod enables you to present a bait to a fish in a much larger area. Your success will depend on the accuracy of your casting so it's well worth putting in some practice. 

When carp are sitting just inches below the surface, they are really easy to spook so it's important to make as little disturbance as possible when you cast. Rather than using a standard pellet waggler, this setup uses a float that I made by cutting down a conventional 5g foam waggler to roughly a third of its original size. The smaller float creates a much quieter splash, making it ideal for spooky fish holding high in the water. I also colour it black because I find that also spooks the fish less than the original pale colour.

The float is attached using two AAA shot and a little silicone float adapter, before finishing with an 8-inch hooklength and a size 12 hook. It's an incredibly simple rig, but it's designed for one purpose: landing as quietly as possible right in front of cruising carp.

The Mugging Waggler is a very repetitive technique. If the fish you've targeted loses interest or swims away, don't leave the rig sitting there for long. Reel in after ten seconds and make another cast at another fish. It is an active style of fishing, and constantly presenting your bait to fresh targets is the most effective way to get bites. You will also find that as your casting improves as the session goes on, it takes a while to get used to how the waggler casts. 

Polarised glasses are also essential. Being able to clearly spot cruising carp makes all the difference, and carrying lenses for different light conditions can dramatically improve visibility throughout the day.

After a while the fish started to become more wary of the plop caused by my homemade waggler so I decided to swap over to my other mugging setup. The only real differences are the float itself, this time I use an unmodified three-gram foam pellet waggler and I also increase the depth from eight inches to around two feet.

Instead of trying to land the float right beside the fish, you stop the float around two feet short and allow the hookbait to flick beyond it. This creates valuable separation between the float and the pellet, meaning the fish only sees the slowly falling hookbait rather than the splash of the float itself. That’s often enough, and within a few casts of this new rig I caught the biggest carp of the session so far. 

Hookbait choice is fairly flexible, but slower-sinking baits generally work the best. Slow-sinking pellets like the new Dynamite Muggerz are ideal when fishing with the homemade mugging waggler because it gives cruising carp more time to intercept the bait before it sinks out of sight. 

When using the more conventional pellet waggler style, a slightly smaller 6-8mm pellet often works better, creating less disturbance on the cast while still providing a natural-looking presentation. Maggots, meat, wafters, bread and other hookbaits will also catch fish, but the important factor is matching your bait choice to the way you're presenting the rig.

Mugging carp on the waggler is a really exciting way to fish during the summer months. Starting with a quiet homemade mugging waggler gives you the best chances when fish are feeding confidently just below the surface. If they begin reacting negatively to the splash or you think they might prefer to feed a little deeper, switching to a conventional pellet waggler with more separation between the float and hookbait can quickly restore your catch rate.

Mastering the casting takes practice, but once your accuracy improves, mugging on the waggler becomes a deadly tactic for targeting cruising carp that other anglers simply can't reach.