hair-les-rig

hi folks,
fish my local canal a lot and have been having probs hitting the decent roach and bream.
so last time out i tried using a hair rig, i had a few decent bream but still missed a lot of bites.
i was fishing pole at 5 mtres and alternating between corn and pellet.
my question is.......... does it matter what size hook and line i use, and would i get away with 1.7 hook length with a 20 hook, or will the corn or pellet on the hair not balance the set up right, hope i made this understandable
cheers les

snaptackle

I would think the missed bites are from small fish.1.7 is ok as long as the elastic is not too heavy maybe a size 6 would be about right.
Fishing at 5 metres I wouldn't bother with a hair rig just bury a light size 16 hook inside your corn or pellet.( tubertini 808 or preston pr32 ) .
or try a caster with an 18 hook buried inside or a bit of chopped worm.