Ben Ward Mastering the Mag-Aligner..

Many anglers have a different interpretation of the mag-aligner. It’s a rig that was originally designed to fish in conjunction with maggots and caster as your free feed or in PVA bags. This particular rig can be absolutely deadly when fished in the right situation and has produced several big fish for many anglers.

It has helped me land many big bream, several over 14lb and a 15lb + fish.  This rig can produce a variety of species such as bream, tench and also carp.It is a very simple rig to create. I use super specialist hooks in size 8 along with fox illusion soft XS in 10lb (0.28). You may think that this material will not be the best to use however I feel it is supple enough and a low enough diameter to do the job. Since I started using homemade fluorocarbon leaders and hook links, I have noticed my catch rates have increase. This is the main body of the rig; I will tie the fluorocarbon material to the eye of the hook using the blood knot. Then tie a simple figure of eight loop knot on the other end. The next part is to thread on the Enterprise mag-aligner grub. This is where it can become slightly more complex as you need to put this grub on correctly to give it the ‘aligner’. You must put the baiting need down the side rather than straight through the middle, starting just before the end of the maggot and then pushing the baiting need through just before it gets to the other end of the maggot. Once on the baiting needle, put it onto the hook link by threading it on the loop you have created on the other end of the rig. Slide it up the link and onto the hook. The next thing is to get two enterprise buoyant maggots and put them onto the shank of the hook. Gently nick the maggots on the fatter end and slide them round to the top of the shank, ensuring they are not pointing away from each other at a sharp angle. This is then your rig completed
A huge edge and would put you at an advantage is to glug your rig in a flavouring. If you are going for bream, glug them in a fishier glug i.e. Crab and if you’re going for tench a sweeter smelling glug is more appropriate i.e. Pineapple or Sweet corn. It is always worth keeping some unflavoured baits in the box.

I will make up several mag aligner rigs at home and only put the mag aligner grub on, I will not put the 2 popup maggots on until I am at the lake as I will leave the pop up maggots in a glug until I am ready to use them. This is my personal preference where as some anglers will prefer the above method of glugging the whole rig.