shakey

Courtz, i've heard good things about the Rig Marole hydrolink. I've been thinking about try the green verison out next season, it's just i've been using Mantis for a long time and i'm thinking "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

I favour Super mantis. I have tried a few of the others and felt they weren't as good for various reasons.

Steve, if you're going for a Kryston braid then I would suggest that you go for silkworm. Merlin is green in colour and more suited to weeder situations IMO. Silkworm, is greyish with black flecks and can easily be "coloured" with a black marker pen to match the silty bottom. Also, from memory, silkworm is slightly thinner in diameter.

"Kryston also have the cure for Tangles in long braided Hooklinks: Superstiff " True, but when using 2'6" hook lengths, it isn't going to take long to use a tub of that up

Steve, as ToniB has pointed out, I would also be worried about fishing braided hook lengths over 2 ft long. I would be paraniod about it tangling on the cast. I also think you might be better off with a mono hook length. If you're worried about the colour, you could always run a black permenant marker pen down the mono and colour it black like the silt ?? If you really do want to fishing braided hooklengths that long then the ones from Kryston Nick has mention are very good. I've caught fish in Merlin and Silkworm

As Nick pointed out, the original hair rigs came off the curved part rather than the shank. Whether or not it is more efficent than having the hair of the shank, I wouldn't know. But why not give it a go ? I would give it a whirl myself (especially if I as fishing a pressurised water that might give me an edge), but fishing where I do, it isn't really the place to be experimenting

Agreed, although you may want to run a black marker pen over the leadcore inner before you wrap it in place if the lead is shiny. Some leadcore inners have a shiny finish some are dull, it just depends on what sort you have in your box.

I've never had any problems with the figure of 8 knot when I have used it. Saying that I havent' fished it in a water where "hook & hold" tactics were required, but in the open water fishing I have used it, it was fine. This was with mantis, not stealth skin, but I doubt it would make a difference.

Dawia Infinity HT Line ? It's not a true flurocarbon, but a mono that is coated. I've been using since the beginning of last season and have found it very good. The water I fish is as clear as tap water and I am paranoid about fishing spooking off the main line. Backleads and flying backleads are out of the question as the mussels are a problem, and this line seems a decent comprimise.

With the expection of the Clearwater material, I have all of those hook length materials in my tackle box. Between those materials you can cover pretty much all rig situations. I do really rate the hook length materials by Kryston, and I am always sceptical when I first use materials by other companies. I have had far too many "great" "wonderful" "the best hooklength ever" materials that quite frankly have be tripe and have hit the inside of my dustbin after the first time I have used them

When I last used vitalin (which was 5/6 years ago now) I mixed in a mixture of parti-blend and different sized trout pellets. Tangerine sized balls were then fired into the area where I wanted the bait. I then fished a 15mm hooker trout pellet over the top of the area. What I also did was to use the Korda funnel web PVA and make golf ball sized round bags using the vitalin mixture. This was then hooked onto the rig and cast out with the hook bait. I worked very successfully, as it was slightly different to those using vitalin and method feeders.

My advise on fishing any of these types of holiday type venues is not to go mad with the bait for a few days. Often or not there will have been people fishing the week before you arrive, and some people tend to chuck in their bait before they leave so they don't have to cart it all home. Also, don't be afraid to ask. The people who own the place won't want you to blank as you won't go back, so don't be afraid to ask them for advice. Send them a few polite e-mails before you go and try and build up a picture before you get out there. Finally, show the fish some respect. The fish will often be fished for 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week for 8 months of the year. If you go out there thinking that it will be easy, it can easily bite you in the bum. So take a decent bait with some decent rigs and apply yourself

I use Supermantis in brown, but it is similar to what you have said about the Stealth skin, that it appears more golden brown than a choclate/dark brown. Have you thought about getting the pens/crayons that you can buy and colouring the rig material to the brown that you want

I use the Stick-up putty by Armalead. If found this to be slightly heavier than the stuff from Kryston. What I also do is take a small length of lead stripped from leadcore and wrap it around the spot where I want the putty to be on the rig. I then wrap the putty around the twisted leadcore so that it holds the putty in place. It also means you have to use less putty as the weight of the lead will also help to counter the pop up I must admit that I have never used split shot to counter balance a pop up. I have always worried about squeezing the shot onto the rig material and damaging it, particularly when using braided hook lengths. But again this is a confidence thing, I would much prefer a big lump of putty than worrying that the rig may break because I squeezed the shot on too tightly.

Loads of braided hook length material out there. My personal favourites are Krystons Merlin and Silkworm. I prefer to fish one over clean gravel the other in more weeder conditions. As Pezza mentioned a combi link material such as stripteaze is a good starting point if you want to combine a florocarb with a braid. I personally use Supermantis for 90% of my fishing, but I always have a spool of Merlin & Silkworm in my rucksack incase I think I need to make a change