neilscatchin

When your lead initially goes into the weed there is a very faint tap as the lead penetrates the top of it.This is very,very difficult to pick up but with time and practice you can feel it. When you start to pull back and feel resistance,stop and move the rod tip forward.If the lead sinks again then the lead was not on the bottom as the only way it can lift is with a point of leverage i.e. the weed. If you pull the lead up and down the weed the you can measure roughly the length of it from the donk at the bottom to the tap at the top. Hence you can set your chod rig at near enough the correct depth.

Colour variations between inner braid and outer core mainly etc.Hybrid has a fluorocarbon coating where as Snakebite has a brown/gold outer coating I think.Super Mantis is nearly identical to Snakebite apart from it's diameter in that it's a lot thinner. I use Camo skin as well,the only difference between Camo and Heavy skin is that the inner braid in Heavy skin is white as opposed to the green braid which matches the coating on the Camo skin. There's numereous differences in coated braids and a lot is down to personal preference but they nearly all perform the same. Dave,all decent coated braids come with rig/use suggestions inside with diagrams.

Does what a needle and thread does.Another con ;)

Neither I'm afraid I use either a Berkley Snide or TFG leader mostly.

Personally I mainly use longshanks for bottom baits and short shanks for pop-ups,there's no hard or fast rules for which to use,try experimenting with each to find which offers the best mechanics on each individual rig.I'm not too fussy with eyes except with ESP bristle when I use an outturned eye hook such as a ESP stiff rigger as this produces a perfect "claw" hooking angle. Otherwise I use Gardner Incizors short/longshanks,Muggas,Korda wide gapes and longshanks,you won't go wrong with them and any angle you want can be achieved with shrink tubing.

That's it but the variation I use the beads are mounted sidewards onto shrink tubing which is tight to the leadcore instead of using float stops.One of the best rigs for fishing in weed,I'll be fishing one of these on 1 rod at least come end of the month ;)

Yes I am aware of that.Don't know why I put the grinner in there,was the early hours and probably thinking about knots and shoelace knots.Anyway thank you for pointing out the error of my ways. I still believe the palomar is superior to the grinner and I never go below 8lb Double Strength so it's irrelevant for me on mono.I use the palomar on the swivel end of my braided hooklinks and have never had one slip/break yet.

Yes one way of catching fish is to use a hook and line. The main advantage of the knotless knot and the hair rig is that it leaves the hook free to do its job - to hook fish almost unimpeded by bait unlike side-hooking in my opinion. The hair rig started life as just that, a hair, or a very slim line that connected hook to bait, with the idea of presenting a bait that behaved naturally, ie, not directly connected to the stiffer hooklink.Now Fluorocarbon is used with the knotless knot does this defeat the object of using a hair?? The fine, supple hair enables the hookbait to behave like a free offering but only for the travel of the hair and then it'll act like an anchored bait when the weight of the hook, hooklink etc comes into play. Does this 5-10mm travel really make all the difference??? But they're are minor modifications that I feel can be applied to the basic hook and line principle that will increase the hooking potential and mechanics once the carp has mouthed the bait. The Knotless knot revolutionised the way anglers present their bait over and above a grinner or blood knot attached to a hook with or without a hair, whether attached separately or not. The knotless knots benefits are two fold 1)The strain on the knot is non-strangle giving a better line break 2) The angle of which the line exits the eye back towards the rod. This by far increases a turning action when sucked into a carp’s mouth thus increasing the anti-eject motion. With the Line Aligner, the line-lay coming back from the hook is exaggerated even further and rigidly set if constructed correctly thus increasing even more the anti-eject mechanism, giving turning a far greater speed when engaged. Exactly the hooks only actuates the angle that the hair/mainline is kicked out at from the shank or eye of the hook. In my opinion if we look at the real developments in end tackle which have been made over the last twenty years, we find that most of them are designed to fool wary fish (i.e., hair rigs, braided lines, double strength lines). If we can use a bait that does not alert the carp to a significant danger, then the need for complicated rigs disappears.The likelihood of a particular carp being caught is dependent upon how hungry it is and how aware it is that there might be a bad experience linked to the food. If this is the case, then alternative baits are most advantageous when the carp are not really inclined to feed as opposed to complicated rigs.

Use a palomar knot,there's only one loop.If was sheer fluke that you landed a perch on that knot but a carp generally tends to fight harder than a perch of the same size.The knot you're suggesting will leave carp with a hook embedded in it's mouth,please look after the fish and fish responsibly. Here's a diagram: http://www.fish4fun.com/palomarknot.htm If you need any further help,please pm me and I'll do my best to help.

As Beanz says those three are probably the best three knots to know as the blood knots,Grinners etc are strangulation knots and only yield about two thirds line strength.

I think that maybe your average angler sometimes does him self a disservice by using the latest all dancing,all singing rig cos it was splattered over the pages of this month's mags. Whilst the old warriors of Horton/Wraysbury for example have seen everything under the sun they're still as suseptable as the fish in a local pond if the bait is presented in a manner in which it behaves naturally and doesn't arouse suspicion. As long as your rig mechanics are sound and more importantly YOU as an angler have confidence that if your hookbait is sucked in by a feeding fish,your hook will find a strong hold,then it doesn't matter what you use. :)