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it's been said many times by various anglers... and then there are the cries of the faithfull to the stuff, shouting down the arguments against it... "it's safe if you know what you are doing" is a famous argument for it..... but who is to say who knows what they are doing, it only takes the line to hit a mussel shell or gravel bar and the potential is there for a snagged fish... I stopped using it years ago, in part because of all the horror stories around it, but mainly because most waters round my neck o' the woods have banned it. Here's my take... it doesn't lie flat on the deck, it bridges dips and depressions on the lake bottom, looks blatant, can snag or tether fish if you get cut off... I can see no upside to it.... other than abrasion resistance and there is no guarantee that any abrading of your end game is going to be on the leadcore section... (I did hear tales of folks using 6' plus of the stuff a few years ago.... ) That said.... if it's that dangerous why have Korda and other companies persisted with it's sales, and I heard t'other day that Korda have brought out short pre spliced lengths in packs of 6 for use with solid bags... TBH I can see a use for a short leader for that application, but leadcore....???? (why not just use tubing?) If you take the arguments against leadcore a stage further are not ANY leaders that safe...? given the way in which it can tangle or tether... Surely the safest rig has to be a freeline with a hook and bait and nothing else, and even that can tangle and tether (admittedly in very extraordinary circumstances) so where do you go from there... ? I'd love a system where I can make up solid bags on a ready made leader and just slip a loop over it and cast it out... but if it's going to be that dangerous I'll pass on it

All i do is make a little solid bag with my hooklink and leave the lead out of the bag. That way you can just quick tie on your new rig with the bag already on it. A lot of videos and instructions on the packs tell you to put the lead in but i dont bother and its caught me fish

Hi Richard.... the setup your describing is geared around speed , so lends itself to the match side of carp fishing . If speed isn't an important factor just go for inline & short rig straight through . Also I personally think loop to loop for any leader will definitely be the weakest point & 99 times out 100 the loop on the mono will give. Leaders when used especially longer lengths should be joined with the appropriate knot . Your always get different views on leaders so don't let that bother you ,but unless you really need one then it's safer not to use one . Big fan of tubing personally.

Hi Everyone, it looks like my original post has triggered quite a debate! Let me first explain where I am coming from. I've only been carp fishing for around a year or so now and all of my fishing has been done using a lead clip and safety is something which has been and always is front of my mind when carp fishing. I now want to try using Solid PVA Bags. Having done my research it appears using a lead clip with a solid PVA bag is not really the best route to go down so I've spent a bit of time looking into the inline lead setup. I purchased a few Fox inline leads and quickly realised that these leads alone are really not safe straight off the shelf. There is a hard plastic insert which fits inside the lead and gives the swivel something to sit inside of. The problem is, it fits in so tightly that there is no way that lead is coming free from the plastic insert should it need to! I've taken out the plastic insert and instead used a soft tail rubber which you'd normally place over a lead clip. As this is softer with it being rubber it releases with minimal force and would slide up the line / leader to should it be required, it also fits into the lead almost perfectly. Maybe I am wrong, but that is my take on inline leads, maybe other brands except Fox are different with regards to the plastic sleeve insert? Having done the above research I then started to look into how to attach this to my mainline. A lot of people suggested using a leader and alot of the online videos also suggest this for the ease of having several tied up ready to go and simply looping them on and off. It's at this point that as a beginner I'm starting to get confused. Mentioning the word leadcore seems to have sparked a varying reaction but as a newcomer it's difficult to know what or who to believe. I've purchased some leadcore and started to make up some very short lengths similar to the korda pre tied ones, they are also very short. I am slightly confused how a very short length of leadcore can so easily get snagged up, I've always been told to concentrate of ensuring the lead can easily detach from the rig which I'm confident I am doing with this setup. Problem is I'm now doubting leadcore because of the comments in this thread. What can I use if I don't use leadcore? Is it a case of having to tie them up with your mainline directly through the inline lead? Is a piece of 15lb trailing mono any safer? It's really hard to know which way to turn and even more so as a relative newcomer to carp fishing.

It would almost be worth getting ripped off for comedy value alone if you ordered some from a tackle shop and it arrived packaged in the same thing lol.....

Maize is our UK term, corn is USA term, both refer to maize I think you will find. Unfortunately we tend to stick in the US term instead of the actual name we understand.

these are what you want bud, just check out the price Vs the carp tax ones http://www.defendapack.com/packaging_protection_and_void_fill i just wait for the postie to bring me free ones every week