salokcinnodrog

Only using a mainline braid as a hooklink material, although do be careful with some of Drennan's fine hooklink braids as they are very fine and abrasive for their breaking strain vs diameter, being Kevlar or Dyneema impregnated.

I'm the same, I've never had a problem with Kryston hooklink materials giving way on me, although I always check and double check my knots after I failed to do so after landing a fish and the knot gave way. I had a combi rig, Amnesia to Merlin, and after landing a 20 on it, I cast it out and the combi join knot way. It was my fault, I didn't check after playing a strong fighting fish and cast straight out. That means to me, after every fish, before every cast or on retrieve, check your mainline for damage in case you've fragged it, especially near the end tackle as run rings, lead clips stress, gravel and snags can take chunks and frag your line. The most common cause for a breakage is a badly tied or wrong knot for the material or even sliding the knot down without lubricating it.(Do NOT use a blood knot with braids!) My Kryston problem was that the coating on Jackal I found a bit weak and would split, ( coating only) when I did snug the Uni knot down properly even when it was salivated on. As for braids coated and uncoated, with the exception of Jackal (for me personally) look no further than Kryston; Merlin, Silkworm, Mantis, Snakebite or Snakeskin etc will not let you down

No Richard Gardner probably wouldn't recomend any other make, but I do know that years ago, DF was recommending brands other than his own for hooks (Mainline for hooks and hooklink materials) I'm the same, although I do prefer as much as possible the Gardner Muggas. Pop-ups get presented on Kamasan B175's, and I have recently been playing with Gardner Chods for surface fishing for chub and carp, and also considering them for pop-ups on a Multi-rig presentation, but since I have loads of pop-up rigs ready tied already, I don't seem to be in a hurry, especially since I rarely use a plain straight pop-up.

Strangely enough, I've been playing around with hooklink lengths over beds of particles with running leads recently, and shorter hooklinks definitely scored more than longer ones. Anything over 15centimetres was a no, seemingly blown and sussed, whereas less than that, I got a proper run. I didn't up to that point think that rig length played a major part with running leads, but that may only be over heavily particle that I need to go that short.

I wonder why such a simple question very rarely gets asked, something as important as this for fish care, and its taken a few years for this thread to get brought back to the top. I did Sticky this in old forum format, but since it has been brought back up, I hope it stays on top for a fair while

I always reckon it is harder to find and stalk a good chub than any size carp. They are so wary compared to other fish, the bigger ones usually living in the thickest jungle banked or most awkward swims. Poor Dave was in shorts and had trampled nettles down to land it from the bridge support wall. I honestly couldn't have managed without him to do it...

Well, I've not managed much time for carp fishing in the past few weeks, but I did actually manage a few chub last week on a couple of short sessions. Somehow on Tuesday I managed to wangle a day off, my course got cancelled, and rather than juggle the rota I took the day off and went to the local river for a couple of hours, and to lok at a local lake. Armed with just a bag of dog biscuits, rod, reel, and landing net I managed a 2lb chub from the river. However Friday was the better day as Big Dave is back in town, and together we wandered the river in the eveninglobbing dog biscuits in and both managed a take or two. Dave managed a 2lb fish from a new spot I was lucky enough to manage 2 chub, the biggest of which was 4lb and ounces and was hooked and played from a bridge across the river...

The line can cut through the plastic, so I would be changing that run ring for summat else

Crays, the bane of my life on Nazeing! I would do everything I could to avoid them, but put a bait anywhere near weed or gravel and the little gits would snaffle it. I ended up using my combi-rig, or a coated braid and as short a (soft) braid section as possible. If it had to be on gravel, then ditch braids totally or use coated braid all the way through. I actually had a series of cray indications, and then a proper run. When I got the carp in, I found a whittled down hookbait, that the mesh had been cut apart, and only half a pop-up and a small piece of bottom boilie on the hair wrapped in what was left of the mesh.

I seem to remember someone using a swivel inside the base of a pierced pop up on a D or even sliding up and down the shank of the hook, maybe almost as in the blowback style with swivel instead of rig ring?

No matter what we think, no rig is right for every water as some fish seem to be able to avoid getting hooked on our favourite rig, or sometimes the weed or bottom make up makes some ineffective. Sometimes the answer can be as simple as changing hook pattern, sometimes it is a case of going from say, a plain knotless knot to a line aligner. It can be a case of lengthening the hair or rig, or even changing hook link material. Only ever change one thing at a time, otherwise you don't know which change worked. Something else that most anglers don't think about, but can play as big a part, is get the fish feeding comfortably, otherwise a single bait may often be sussed on any rig.

At Taverham Mills, a weedy lake I was playing around with the various versions of helicopter set-ups, and started losing fish, so I switched back to inlines with a braided hooklink, putting the whole lot in a pva bag, and stopped losing so many. I would lose an occasional one, but not so many. In weedless swims, the helicopter was not such a problem, but still fish would bounce off. At Barham B Pit, again, I tried the helicopter set-ups, with the leadcore and without, and again, especially in weedy swims, plenty of lost fish. Strangely enough, switch to a paternoster with a long (weak link) tail, and no problems, probably because I had lost the lead, or the inline, and was only playing the fish, not a ball of lead around the line. As for the Chase, (I've seen it ), the Back Lake, I don't think that the filamentous algae is a weed as such, and so doesn't have the same sort of effect bouncing as a weed like canadian, or lilies. Going back to the paternoster comment above, a method I do like using in weed, with a weak link, the bait can be pretty well presented or as best as possible, but saying that, I wouldn't fish mega thick weed where a bait wouldn't be presented or where no matter what, you would be trying to haul a fish through the stuff anyway. A fish has to be able to be landed safely, not in such a manner that the fish 'snags', or you lose them by trying to haul them through the thick Sh'tuff. Strangely enough, I've gone back to fishing a very weedy lake, and trying to fish clearer swims as in many, you would be trying to haul the carp through it, and that is just not fishing. As a result, I've gone back to fishing inlines, braided hooklinks, but I'm still looking for clearer spots to put the whole lot on, mounted in a PVA bag of bits

I used helicopters, silt rigs etc years ago, and some bumped fish was a normality with them. Whether it is is the bounce from the rod and playing action, or even sometimes from a hooked fish being hooked closer to the edge of the lips and causing hookpulls I am not sure. I'm sure that I am not the only person who noticed this as it was put into print my Tim Paisley. In weed this hookpull situation can be worse, the fish bounces the lead over lily stem, root, or the lead pulls back to the fish as it catches on whatever weed stem and the hook is bounced out. I also used this with the original leadcore flyline, as in fly fishing reel line, the vinyl coated, not the current braided stuff, and with that (not as nasty as the current stuff either, although I wouldn't use it now), and also as a naked, or with a leader it still happened. I think that the current, awfully named Chod rig still creates the same problem and too many anglers use it without considering the approach. Yes it can be a good set-up, but in the right situation, and on some waters, it simply doesn't work, or isn't the right set-up full stop, but gets used as first choice, because it is so easy. On top of that, I don't think that bite indication is so pronounced. A fish can move a long way either with slack or tight line with no indication at the rod end, although I do think that the 'quiver' approach, with the rod tip bent into a curve will actually work best as opposed to a slack line, but then again, is the hook properly in the lip then anyway, so back to possible hookpulls. Just my thoughts, and I do desperately try to avoid the set-up unless the silt is such that it is the only way to present a bait

I try NOT to draw conclusions from fishing, although we tend to do it so that we can have a definitive answer, which the fish then spit back in your face when they don't do as you expect them to. On Brackens, I would prefer to recast out the same old hookbait, but fish with a fresh stringer. I was convinced one day that the fish were in the corner I was fishing, but something was wrong. I reeled in, and changed rig for some reason i can't remember, and in the process went from my sliding ring presentation, to an off the shank KK, hair with line aligner. As I went to put on the old hookbait, it crumbled in my hands, so I put on a fresh one instead with a stringer. This was then cast back to the corner, possibly slightly closer to the overhanging branches, or even into the undercut bank. Within minutes I had hooked a decent looking 20. Whether I had gotten a new bait with added attraction to where the fish were avoiding my hookbait, or whether I had inadvertently gotten slightly further into the corner I will never know, maybe the rig was a better presentation but what conclusions we draw from this is up to you! It was Brian Skoyles who came up with what he termed the 4 Day Approach, a massive bed of bait, that on day 4(ish) of a session he would start to catch from, and I think Tim Paisley used that in a way to catch numbers of fish from Birch Grove, when other anglers had baited up and left, when he came down at the weekend his results were often better over old bait, where anglers had fished during the week. I'm not sure whether it is the 'washed out' that is the trick, the added bacteria and bugs that have broken the bait down making it easier to digest, or even the fact that it has been in the water for a number of days and is safe, but at some point in time, it is a useful method to remember.

A mate and I always say that the best days for fishing is Wednesday and Thursday. The fish have eaten up the weekend bait, are starting to run out of food, and are on the hunt for anything available. Go Friday, and you have to compete with the weekend anglers for swims, not nice for those wanting a quiet life

Liam, Not necessarily bad angling as the swim I would fish on Brackens gave me a couple of options. The sunken car across to the far bank was a spot that would produce fish, so in the 2 days it took to get a take from a 30, I had already had 3 other decent fish, a 20 and 2 other fairly big doubles. The actual spot that the 30 came from was in the margins, alongside some rushes, part of the feature of car corner, and those rushes provided plenty of other food, that the 30 was able to get to fairly easily, so it didn't have to travel at all far to get to natural food. I was pretty consistent on Brackens, catching a number of fish (don't need to boast about size), and the bigger ones would often be the only fish caught from a particular spot, numbers of carp could come from other spots if that makes sense. Weather wise, numbers of fish came in stormy conditions, in dry hot weather you would catch very little, but in those stormy conditions, you did not necessarily catch the biggest fish. One of the big 30's was nearly always caught from a particular area of the lake, one of 2 swims that could reach the area (easily), occasionally from a 3rd, but if that happened, the chances are that the angler who caught it, was fishing over towards the Boards swim from Suicide, which could only be done if Boards was empty. Sam's fish was nearly always caught at the other end of the lake. When I caught my 28 from the river, the carp were avoiding particular spots, but it took a bait that had been cast in previously that morning (a very short session that, 2 1/2hours). The only new bait that went in was handful of pellets over the recast rod, onto a spot that was rarely if ever fished. What I think is that the washed out bait syndrome works only in certain circumstances: When not enough bait has gone in for the fish to be confident eating it. My bait on Brackens, strictly speaking I couldn't pre-bait it. The rules stipulate that bait may only be put in via stringer or PVA bag, and some bailiffs would jump on you from a great height if you were caught catty'ing baits out so pre-baiting before a session was difficult. Effectively, the only pre-baiting was the bait that I could put in during a session, where washed out baits may have been a definite advantage. This weekend syndrome that Androoooo mentions is something I think about. At the weekend, or more particularly Friday, every angler and his dog arrives, fires in his bait, sits over his large baited patch, and wonders why on Sunday he has blanked. The carp have the chance to pick and choose what they eat, or have hidden themselves away in the corner where no-one can get to them. Come Sunday night when most anglers pack up the fish come out and then start to eat what has gone in over the weekend. Still eating Monday or even Tuesday the weekend bait, gives the impression that they are only eating washed out baits, but by this time, that is the only bait left in as not many or every water has anglers bait going in midweek.

Won't shout, but I'll try to explain: Braid can be damaging and cutting as the line is under tension. In fact many braids are often the same material as leadcore, but the lead is wrapped in a sheath. As braid is thinner, and often made incorporating Kevlar (capital K due to tradename I think), it will cut the fish, unless covered with tubing, or fitted with a 'safer'(*) leader. In fact many fisheries stipulate this. Braid can catch and cut as the fish swims. These mainline braids are NOT the same as hooklink braids, but even some hooklink braids in finer (breaking) strains can cut, which is often why we use breaking strains often heavier than our mainline. Mono filament, tends to slide over the fish. I have not seen a line cut from mono, although it is possible that a scale may be dislodged, I imagine on a scaley mirror. Mono does not dig in. You don't often use tubing when you are floater fishing, fishing zigs, and in my case often at all. Tubing was christened ANTI-TANGLE tubing, and was used to prevent tangles between hooklink and mainline *'Safer' Leader being a relative term

I'm not sure I agree, as I have seen fresh baits left in (heavily fished) areas, and fresh baits eaten in areas where the carp don't think they are being fished for. At Taverham, I spent a lot of time on the water over 10 years, and you could see the fish leave baits in those heavily fished spots, until they had been in the water for a couple of days, at which point they would start clearing them up. The same with the local river, carp would leave sweetcorn on a particular spot until it had started to go grey, they would swim past it, pause, and then only after a couple of days would they come in to eat it. A couple of mates and I spent a fair amount of time there walking the whole stretch, and there is no way, as the carp could swim the whole stretch in the time we walked it (and did almost every day in summer), that we wouldn't see them, so observation was pretty easy. Strangely enough, we didn't see the bream and the tench there, but we knew that they were about as they were often the first fish into particular spots when we fished. The carp would also avoid particular features, one being a gravel bank that rose up from the river bed. On the occasions I have left hookbaits in the water for a few days, it is often the bigger fish from a water that take it. That is I have spotted larger fish in the spot, and watched them 'control' the area, making smaller fish avoid the spot or area, and then take the hookbait after a couple of days, when my apparent danger is nil (not many anglers leave a bait out for so long without recasting). I'm sure I am not the only person who has noticed this as Ken Townley wrote about it, and it is a tactic that Albert Romp employed in the past.

Sorry, you get the same easily copied pics I use on a couple of threads:

I've let this ride, and not said anything about the topic, although I had thoughts, but was trying to marshal them into some sort of order so I could say what I think. Washed out baits may work on a couple of levels; The bait has been in the water for a couple of days, so it is safe to eat and not a pressure point that the carp feel they are eating freshly put in bait. If the pressure is so high that they don't eat baits that haven't been in the water a couple of day, then older 'washed out' baits may be the ones that are safe. It may also be that they would eat fresh baits if the amount of bait going in was enough so that they felt safe, whereas, they are leaving the new baits as they simply aren't safe. It may also be that fresh baits could possibly be overloaded with flavours, and at introduction levels are so high that they repel! I used to feel that on many high pressure weekend syndrome lakes, the fish do leave the baits introduced on Friday until Sunday at the earliest, and those that catch are those that are using washed out baits, small stringers, or even single hookbaits, different from those fishing over the large amount of spodded baits. If you prebait with enough bait that the carp are comfortable eating it, then I don't think that washed out baits are an advantage, and for my weekend trips, I do try to be different from the 'norm'. However, I do also think that fresh baits can be a danger to fish, and so I often use an older hookbait. I may start the trip with a hookbait, and use that same hookbait for a couple of days if it doesn't get pulled off the hair (fish or deterioration, which can be reduced by meshing hookbait ). I also bait up with fresh baits as my freebies. The hookbait is 'safe', the freebies are fresh and dangerous, the hookbait catches 'em. Also it can be worth leaving a bait in place for a couple of days, again, you have to have confidence that it will stay on the hook/hair. A few years ago, this washed out bait thing, I watched the carp ignoring sweetcorn that was fresh, until it had started to go a bit grey after a couple of days. The tench and the bream would eat it fresh (until a few were caught on it), and then they would avoid the area for a few days, (tench especially), but for the carp to take sweetcorn, it had to have been introduced a couple of days previously. My main belief is simply that baits get left over a weekend, due to weekend syndrome, and a washed out bait may be better, but if fishing normally (midweek), pre-bait as much as possible, and you shouldn't need a washed out bait, except at the weekend when the pressure is usually highest

Mainline braids often have additional 'ingredients' like Kevlar added to make them more tougher, and can actually be more abrasive or cutting along the fishes flanks than a softer hooklink braid, although there are a couple of hooklink braids that I avoid as they are so darn 'sharp'. For hooklinks I would only ever use a specific hooklink braid, and I haven't come away from the Kryston stable for them for years; If it ain't broke don't fix it, and Kryston has not let me down. They may be more expensive than other manufacturers, but when a spool of Merlin lasts 4 or 5 years (and I do tie a lot of rigs), and can be used neat or as part of a combi-rig, then I stick to what I know works. The only Kryston coated braid I don't feel comfortable with, is actually Jackal. I found, (me personally), that I was breaking the coating when I tied my knots, and so they would go a bit limp as the coating was damaged. As for coated braids, they are stiffer until you strip them, which can improve resistance to abrasion, cutting and rubbing against snags etc, and possibly for the carp. When it comes to braids, we use higher breaking strains than the mainline, simply because some are so thin that if used in lower strains and diameters, would cut the fishes mouth, so using the finest may not always be best.

Sounds like a good water. A method I know works with worms on the hook is the float and lift method. Slightly overdepth it will work for perch, tench and carp. I can remember one gentlemen on here used to fish like this a lot stalking his carp, fished with a centre pin he really had a few good fish. Obviously don't fish a pin unless you're used to it, but you do have really good control. As for hooklinks, I normally use 'stuff' as well. I keep a spool or 2 in the tackle bag and some spare Drennan Super Specialists just for it.

Also, you don't have to use shrink tubing, a small silicon tubing will work the same, and can also be used to slide down the shank and hold the hair in place. As a rule of thumb, if I do have a hair down the hookshank, then I tend to have it leave the shank around halfway between the point and the end of the barb. It may be worth having a hunt for the pic I put up about hair and hook separation from the eye, the shank and the bend.

I must admit that I have often have a flappy hair, being as it is attached to a rig ring that slides freely up and down the hook shank Like Tim says, I play with hair length dependant on where I hook my fish, and hookpulls. Edge of mouth, or hookpull, lengthen it. Deep in mouth then shorten it. Right in centre of bottom lip, perfect length. (the reason for attaching the hair to sliding ring, it means I can play with hair length without cutting rigs apart) I buy my shrink tubing from Maplins usually, the smallest, can't remember what size as I've lost the packet. I don't care that it has tiny printing on the side as I'm sure the carp can't read what it says when its shrunk down. I prefer Gardner Muggas as my hooks, but Drennan Super Specialists, and many other hooks, can at times be improved with shrink tubing, even hooks with incurved or inturned eyes, as occasionally you still miss some takes with a knotless knot.

It has been replaced a few times, out of my own pocket, It is my first choice of mainline, I don't even think of buying any other now, although I do still replace it at least once or twice a year. Habit that I can't have any line on my reels for more than a year