Simon KG

I get your point but shimano is just a word and a company. What's important is how good the bait is allowed to be and how it catches. They proberly order their production from another company's factory. Would be interesting to try them though.

An old school teacher of mine that is known to use "alternative" baits have caught carp in France on marinated carrots and also berries in sessions when nothing happened earlier.

Has anyone of you tried the Isolate? I can't find a single review of them online even though plenty of stores seem to sell them.

Looks like a good lead.

Thanks. Whats the name of the leads from Fox you are referring to? They don't seem to be named Cog like cordas.

I've used very similar hook links like that to my run rigs. But I haven't used tubing on the mainline. Just naked line to a run rig rubber bead with swivel inside. Good luck on your next session.

To me, confidence comes from results. As an example I've had a lot of confidence last year and the year before especially. I caught good and pretty much couldn't imagine to do better than I did. This year however has been blank galore and something completely different. When that happens, and it has before as well. You (or maybe I) need to change stuff. Doing the same thing all over again expecting different results is being an idiot, a smart dude once supposedly said. This year it was a friend of mine who actually got me to realize I was trapped into my once successful habit. After blanking 9 sessions in a row, stretching over 2 months, I changed rig, hooks, hookbait and the next session I landed 3 fish in 12 hours out of nowhere. If I had caught 1 I would have left it to circumstances but the change was so apparent it was ridiculous. What I´m saying is that changing stuff when things aren't working, is better than not doing so. How deep you want to take that is obviously personal but I personally don't like to keep things as it is, when I truly believe its not optimized even if it still "will work". I kind of feel now that this discussion went a bit out of control xD

The fishes I've had on real running rigs (not semi fixed or anything) have been complete screamers. And the indication is in my mind unbeatable. Pretty much any movement on the line will indicate, if you fish it slack. However it need to be a decent clear bottom so that the line can from the rod tip to the rig along the bottom without being obstructed by weed or big stones etc. I have used light pear shaped leads (1,5oz) and run rig rings. Normally to a FC D-Rig or "the german -style" rig.

I get your point, truly. But thinking everything known today is optimized in every way is untrue imo. Im sure people thought the same 15 years ago and todays end tackle has obviously devolped since. All to solve different kinds of problems, in different ways. In most situations, not much is needed to hook a carp. But big grass carp that I fish for with these leads have hard mouths and they require very sharp hooks and instant penetration to the bend, else they will throw the hook or bend it like it's a sewing needle. Thats why I really need the resistance from the lead to be able to achieve that without loosing the grip from the swivel beforehand. Im totally not sure this is the most effective way to fish in this lake but I have been fishing it for more than 12 years as a "home lake" and I´ve tried most there is imo, with pretty good success all in all. So far, tight baiting with particles and short hook links with sharpened hooks and somewhat heavy leads have been the most successful approach for me.

Don't worry I wasn't offended I just wanted to be clear that I'm aware of the balance of fish safety and effectiveness. It is not something that can be taken for granted I'm afraid. I think what happens is that the fish nails itself on the hook, loosen the lead up the line and then swim around in the weed a bit basically tether the line around weed and then the movement it makes won't register. And that's even if not fished that hard of a clutch.

The effect you describe with fish biting and not detecting is precisely what happens to me when the lead slides and the fish can move a bit of line around when the lead is left in the weed. Before this year I used cog to gain the same benefit as the inline theoretically gives. I've landed a lot of fish with it but it is a bit more prone to tangle plus it requires special bits which in it self is a bit annoying. The idea of switching to inline for me is to have the line closer to the bottom since I use short hook links and also to avoid loosing the lead. I'm obviously not trying to construct a death rig here. Think more of the difference between a weed style leadclip that drops anything and a normal lead clip that won't drop most of the times in normal usage.

Ideally I want the lead to stick to the swivel unless line cracks but that is likely hard to achieve. It's just too easy to remove it as it is at the moment.

Not if fished in or close to weed though (same with a real running rig) cause then the lead distancing from the fish becomes a big problem. I started fishing run rigs last year on clear gravel patches and I love that where it's possible. But since I fish for fishes with hard mouth I need as much instant bolting effect as possible and then the lead can't discharge on every take because then the weight of the lead won't be fully utilized as a resistance when the fish gets pricked by the hook. At the moment I have leads loosen from the swivel on failed takes and that means the rig won't fish as a fixed bolt rig afterwards. Not acceptable for me

Ok I think I will try and look up different inserts then. Ideally I don't want either the lead or the insert to loosen "too easily" from the swivel cause that makes it harder when near weed.

What is the reason you are losing the fish? Hook pulls? The fish get stuck in the weed and you can´t move it and it eventually gets lost? There is many kinds of weeds. Lillys, Pond weed etc is not that tough to handle imo but elodea canadensis can be brutal. If your fish bolt into a belt of that you're basically into a ton of weed and that will be hard to solve unless able to boat out. I would definitely recommend dropping the lead if there is a lot of weed where you fish. Also make sure you're indication is as good as can be because it is not uncommon to get 1 or 2 beeps on the sounder, making it sound like you have a bream on and in fact you have a carp on that instantly went into the weed but the line cant move so you don't get any further indications. Needless to say, the more time the carp get to weed up the harder it will be to land. So hit almost anything on the sounder. Last week I had a fish exactly like that. I had single beeps on all my 3 rods mid night, I was sure it was bats or crayfish and didn't mind as much. Half an hour later I checked my rods and noticed the bobbin was tight to one of the rods. Lifted it and it was obvious the line had gone into a lot of weed without noise. Fortunately I still landed what I thought was a bream, but actually was a carp.