salokcinnodrog

In the pic I have used a braided mainline hair as crayfish will cut dental floss or light mono. The hair is just granny knotted to the hook eye, then shrink tube over the hooklink knot, eye and shank so the hair comes off opposite halfway between the point and barb, the best place I have found for decent hooking.

Quite a few of your King Prawn dishes were crayfish...

Using dental floss loop it through the hook eye to create the hair. With your hooklink material, a knotless knot down the shank holds the dental floss in place. Or tie the hair to the eye of the hook, and cover it with shrink tube to hold it to the hook shank.

I'm another one who prefers a supple hair. I think that stiff hairs can make the hookbait behave unnaturally. It is enough that we have a bait on a hair anyway, but on a stiff hair I think ejection or even not taking the bait in in the first place is increased. I also found stiffer hairs with stiff rigs increased hookpulls for me.

I Think homemade, done yourself line aligners close the gape less than tackle company manufactured ones which seem to have a greater kink or curve built in, especially if you use silicon tubing rather than shrink tube.

The Korda Heli-safes are most definitely NOT safe. You need the lead on a helicopter set-up to allow the rig to come off in the event of a crackoff. If the lead is ejected the fish can end up trailing rig and however much line as the line 'folds' on itself. It is the lead catching up, or dragging on the bottom, that allows the rig to come off the broken end. Personally like Smufter I nearly always use Run Rings. They can be fished as a running lead with a slack line, or as a bolt rig with a tight line. If you get a break-off the run ring is able to slide over the broken end. I don't like lead clips, they are too easy to use incorrectly. The original reason for a lead clip was so the lead could be removed at the end of a trip, instead they have become the 'lazy' fashion for lead ejection, in cases when it doesn't need to be, and also in cases the lead ejection does not work as intended. It only takes a bit of lakebed detritus to jam up the tail rubber, preventing the lead being ejected. A standard generic Korda type lead clip MUST be fixed to the hooklink swivel or quick clip so the lead clip cannot come off the swivel. As soon as it starts free, able to run up and down the line, the lead may become fixed onto the line. The tail rubber may be jammed with weed or silt, and it DOES happen. Going back to helicopter rigs, they do not give you best indication. A fish can move a long way with no movement at the buzzer and indicator end. By far the best for indication, from personal experience and experimentation, is a totally running lead.

Personally, running rigs I do not think rig length makes much difference, but they must be truly running, and fished with a slack line, with no 'bolt effect'. If you are using it for bolt effect the rig needs to be longer. The angle on the kicker is too severe, a simple line aligner, straight shrink tubing is enough. Places a short rig on bolt, will work are when you are fishing over massive amounts of particles/groundbait, and you need to provoke a run. Personally, I hate lead clips, I always use a run ring. I fish it slack line as a true running lead, or with a tight line, and with a tight line as a bolt rig as per Kevin Maddocks, (I think page 108) Carp Fever diagram.

Problem is that in many cases Eastern Europeans have taken jobs from UK citizens, which is why in many cases wages have stagnated, or even regressed in many industries since 2000. Building trades, hospitality industry, even factory work has been paid at minimal hourly wage. Employment laws have become towards employers favour, not the employee. Result of the demise of unions. In 1988, I was on an annual contract of £12,000, for a 40 hour week, which is just under £6 an hour. Since then we have only gone up to £8.21. For the same job as I do now, in 2000 I earnt £25,000. I am on around £6000 less per year now. Big employers, national companies as well as local have been taking on economic migrants, from whichever part of the EU. The NHS was actively recruiting doctors and nurses from Bulgaria, Spain, Italy and Greece, and further afield, because they could pay them less, and also because they did not want to pay the training cost bursary for UK doctors and nurses. I have personally lost jobs to economic migrants, I have seen UK citizens, including our youth's, struggle to find even factory jobs. We have farmers saying they cannot get workers to work for them, yet gangmasters have been bussing in economic migrants, taking summer jobs from local residents, including kids. My summer job as a kid was fruit and veg picking, and you got paid by how much you picked, not an hourly rate. The faster you worked, the quicker you got your minimum daily amount done, and got fishing. We'd be on the fruit farm or orchard by 6.30, and fishing or whatever by 1. That last paragraph, first sentence is painful, personally, because my son, because he could not find a job got involved in drug dealing. It paid more, and County Lines is a nasty business. Despite what he was involved in, I honestly think the importation and supply of drugs should not be a criminal offence, but a terrorist offence. It is killing our country. There are too many innocent victims, as well as guilty parties. Drive by shootings, stabbings. Innocent Mothers who have lost a son because he was stabbed in a scuffle, she did not even know he was part of a drugs gang. Open warfare between one side of a town to another, post code fights. Vulnerable people having their homes 'cuckoo'ed', dealers forcing them to deal drugs, or even moving into deal from the address.

I've been mostly clearing up after Eastern Europeans regularly on the reservoir and the park lake. Beer cans, barbeques, toilet roll and excrement. The toilet roll and excrement I leave to the council or rangers. Fish scales found next to barbeques. On the park lake I have been onto the council so often by email they arranged a meeting with me at the lake to discuss the issue. I was able to point out the problems to them at the meeting, it was so bad, so they have put on extra patrols, at all times of the day, not just office hours. At the reservoir I have been litter picking beer cans, and my mate Big Dave had a right go at a load of Romanians who were leaving rubbish while fishing.

I used to lose a number of fish on size 8's with hookpulls being a fairly common occurence at any point during the fight. At Ardleigh when you lost a fish it was not amusing, especially when you had had it on for a while and never saw it, after landing a 24 the same night that did not fight nearly as hard or as deep as whatever I lost. Quite literally from that point on I went up in hook size to a size 6 minimum. I regularly use size 4 and 2's for chub fishing. A large slug or half a slice of bread easily fits on that big a hook, and even that size hook gets lost in a chubs mouth. The Rod Hutchinson joke about tying the tin of luncheon meat to the hook through the key is about right. I have used a quarter of a tin piece of meat on a size 2, and couldn't get through past 3lb chub, even though I could see bigger in the swim.

Purchased around 2001. They really are around 18years old.

Average 3 years on a set of Duracell batteries for me with Delkims. In fact it is the dongle batteries that are my main bugbear, 3months if I am lucky!

Bigger hooks give better hookholds, but I would not be using massive hooks for fish to only just going double figures. I tend to use size 4's myself, but, most of the fish I catch on my big fish waters are 20lb+. For fish only just maybe making 15-20lb tops I would be happy to use 8's or even 10's. My baits are also relevant: Double 20mm boilie on a size 4, an 18mm pop-up or a snowman of the two. The bigger hook also sits better on the Ronnie rig with a very buoyant pop-up.

Just ask a rabbit...😖😆😉

Not noticed any difference in times the leds stay lit for on my original Delkims. (Would be the ST version in current parlance I think). They are paired with Att Dongles and receiver and I use Solar Titanium indicators with them. Can fish them mega tight with the arm screwed right tight, or with slack lines if I loosen them off. Biggest problem with mine is they don't go off often enough...😖😁

Jobs going well, thanks. Finding fish is tough on Alton, can't be too obvious of where I'm fishing, so long walks and minimum of gear for trips, but it is still two carries to the swim as I need plenty of bait and dog food for Sky. Last trip I 'forgot' my spare unhooking mat and chair. Sky sometimes sleeps on the mat rather than the ground, and the chair is just a pain to carry, even inside the mat, so I have been sitting on bucket or across the bedchair.

Very few of the fisheries I am interested in have toilets nearby, well unless I am fishing near the cafe at Alton, which is rare, too obvious and open. Nazeing I did often walk up to the public toilets at Dobbs Weir. Even Sky tries to bury her own, in the undergrowth, she will not go on the path (or pavement) unless desperate. She has more decency than many Eastern Europeans! Talking of things forgotten, toilet roll or baby wipes is one I make sure I never forget. Baby wipes can also be used to help wash up after cooking, so are always in the rucksack. I also keep a bag with toilet roll in the car. Oh yes, I did manage to forget my rucksack once. Of course that houses clothes, cooking equipment, rig bins and scales.

Its normally a bucket hidden in an out of the way place, then buried. The baby wipes go in my bin bag, which is put into the bin at the venue. If I can't bury it is bagged and binned. It is a pet hate of mine seeing excrement and bog roll on the bank, and Eastern Europeans have been leaving that mess around. You can tell if you have been Eastern Europeaned! I have been contacting my local council about the mess left on a park lake, which consists of toilet roll. Not a nice place to walk round.

Yonny and I may disagree on some things in fishing, our fishing is different, however when it comes to hooks we agree. Test your knots, make sure that they are tight, but don't bend the hook. You can feel the 'flex', before they bend, that is to the maximum it will go. Some hook patterns will not bend, they snap first. If a hook has bent, replace it. That is from your testing or from as occasionally happens, hitting and catching a snag. As I said earlier, get a pattern you trust; test them before you even think of tying a rig you fish with. Check your hookpoint, make sure it is sharp. Again this is where Yonny and I have different views, I use hooks straight from the pack, he prefers to give them a rub up to sharpen them to extreme point. Whichever you prefer, check it every cast. Some waters blunt hooks overnight, the point just dulls and is not as sharp as when it was cast in. If you turn a point over, don't straighten it, change the hook. Keep things as simple as possible. Most rigs are fashion, catching more anglers than fish. On most waters you do not need to complicate the issue. Get the fish to feed comfortably around your hookbait and they are more likely (in most cases) to get hooked. If you drop fish, or don't get runs when you think you should check and change one thing at a time. Hair length, rig length, even how much you feed; Increasing the amount of food may be the answer instead of changing the rig. Instead of feeding just boilies, add particles, groundbait or both to see if the fish will stop picking individual items. Maybe if boilie fishing, instead of just a single bait or stringer put in a hundred boilies or so. One kilo of groundbait is the same as one kilo of boilies, around 250 boilies I guess, but is concentrated on one spot. The boilies spread out. A kilo of hemp or pigeon conditioner is more a carpet than a kilo of boilies. Lots of thoughts to think about, some running through my head in no fixed order, so this is slightly disjointed, sorry.

Years ago for me it was making needles and monkey climbers, an adaption on my original Gardner pod to take my monkey climber bar, and spods. The baiting pole or even permanent marker sticks shouldn't be a problem while there is such thing as plastic conduit.

Personally I think for most fishing a simple knotless knot with a line aligner of silicon or shrink tubing and a decent hair is the best presentation going. I rarely worry about Chod rigs, and I definitely DO NOT use them anywhere near weed; they can give delayed or even no indication, something I have personally experienced, leading to lost fish, which when fishing for fish over 30lb is not something I care to be doing. Bomb on the end of the line set-ups, commonly known as helicopter or chod rigs most definitely can lead to fish making it away to snags with just one or two bleeps, over 30metres away from where they picked the bait up when fishing at 100metres. A knotless knot is simple to tie, and I pull mine tight with they finger hole on my forceps, putting the hook on it and pulling the hooklink tight. I use that rig for bottom baits, and snowman baits. If I want to have a proper hair with a snowman bait, I put a bottom bait on the hair, and tie a pop-up to the end of the loop. It sounds more complicated than it is. I do sometimes tie the hook on, and have a sliding ring on the shank, with movement limited by a hook stop. To this sliding ring I tie a hair with whatever bait I want, double bottom baits, snowman or even a pop-up. If I fish a pop-up specifically, I normally go to a D-rig with a ring on the D to tie my pop-up to. Hooklink material: in weed I normally use braid, fished inline with a 'zipp' shaped lead. I rarely get fish caught up in the weed, it slides over the lead. I do NOT use lead clips at all. I've fished for big fish, over 30lb, and all my 20's and 30's have come on fairly simple rigs. More anglers are caught by rig fashion than fish! My personal best fish (a river carp, over 28lb, NOT my largest fish), was caught on two 18mm boilies on the hair, on a braid line aligned knotless knot rig. My largest fish over 30lb (and other 30's) were caught on that sliding ring on the hookshank. I was tying the hair length to suit snowman baits. I am sure that there are pictures of my rigs around the forum, definitely in rig section😉 Rig fashion is dictated by tackle companies and media to convince you to spend money. As for hooks, I found Korda awful. They would not hold their point, were blunt from the pack, and the Kamakura (?) was an attempt to change this. I have pictures of me lifting a size 6 on the ball of my finger or thumb with a 3oz lead attached, lifted off the desk, it did not penetrate. A mate and I fish together, I borrowed one of his rigs, tied exactly the same as mine. I was getting bleeps, but no runs. I put my tied rig on the spot, within minutes a hooked fish.The hook he had tied with was a Korda Kurv, mine was a Gardner Mugga. I do not think it a coincidence that a rig cast to exactly the same spot with a brand I knew (and trust) caught me fish. I only trust a few brands as being sharp enough out the pack; Gamakatsu, Gardner, Solar 101's, Kamasan B175's or the ESP. ESP Cryogens are supposedly even better than the older T-4 and G4 patterns I used.

Get a decent brand of hook. I have landed 10 fish on ESP hooks when I used them years ago, although I check the hook before every cast. Also, a run and 'lost' take does not always signify a dropped fish. It could be a fish trailing line that gives you a run, which as you pick up is nowhere near hooked, just lead or line running over your line. It could be a hookpull; maybe the fish weren't feeding strong enough to be properly hooked. Possibly your rig (and/or hair) was too short. Change one thing at a time. From what you have said, fish were not feeding (or comfortably) where you were fishing.

Vitalin is a dog food, but this dog food is basically the perfect groundbait. In its own right it makes excellent groundbait to fish the Method. It is perfect to ball up and throw in. You can pour prepared particles into it, mix it together well, so the Vitalin only just takes on a bit of juice, leave for 30 minutes or so, then make particle/groundbait balls to throw or catapult in. You may have to play around until you get it right, but you will soon find out how much Vitalin to add to particles. It does cloud up, and breaks down on the bottom from a ball to form a carpet.

You really don't need to add anything to particles, they work after soaking and boiling au natural. Adding things in is a current fashion. I can honestly say chilli hemp has caught me no more than standard hemp, soaked and boiled pigeon conditioner catches no less than pigeon conditioner soaked with salt! If I add anything to particles, it is usually at the 'groundbaiting' stage, as I mix Vitalin in to ball it or spod it in. With the Vitalin I add molasses, maybe a bit of condensed milk. Particles work with ANY bait, be it birdfood or fishmeal or any other base mix type. They even work as a hookbait in their own right. Stick some particles in a wrap of stocking or tights, tie it off and attach to hair. One thing I will say, sometimes fish will get pre-occupied on particles, and avoid boilies, I have seen it happen.

It has limitations. You can only prepare small seeds in this manner, pigeon conditioner, chicken corn feed. If it contains any seeds larger than hemp it must be boiled as well. The other thing is that just soaking these small particles is not as attractive to the fish as soaking and boiling.