ripslider

Soggy porridge is a good groundbait, the stones will give the fish something to root around, to maybe feel safer? Camoflauge?? Not sure about the condensed milk though lots of fish and lots of waters can't deal with it. Steve

Having just read Tony Miles article about braided lines in this months Coarse Fisherman, I'm going to totally abandon the briad idea. I know he is talking about briad when it is many yard long, and we're talking about only a few inches, but it's enough to put me off. Will go back to hunting for a different rig material. Steve

Go to a tackle shop that sells sea fishing kit. Invest the princly sum of £1.25 on a packet of 5 Lead Lifts ( breakaway's are OK ) and superglue them to the stem of the feeder where you link the line to it. Problem sorted. Give the rig a wee bit of a yank when you start to move it and your winning every time.

If I'm not too bad at maths, the pressure that 0.06mm line will exert on on a carps mouth is about 5.5 times what .035mm line will, assumng that there is a centimetre of linbe in the mouth. I'll give it a go for now, but I will drop it the instant I see any damage. I have been mostly eel fishing lately, and they do have pretty soft mouths, and really grate against the line, and I have seen no damage. I have not seen any on a carp either. Steve

Apologies for bmnping this thread. I few months ago, I posted that I was looking for "the perfect hooklength" which was totally bouyant and acted unlike anyother hooklength. I think I've found it! A few weeks ago, I got hold of some Berkeley SpiderWire, which is a micro-braid. This stuff is as fine as 1lb line ( 0.06mm) but has a breaking strain of 20lb. ( I measure it at about 19.5). I got it for Pike fishing, but on playing with it, it turns out that, at current temp's, it is virtually neutral in bouyancy. It sinks fractionally, but is as close as damn it to perfect. Over the last few weeks, I have been using it on one of my two rods. The pick up rate has been almost double that of my nylon hooklengths ( and I use really good nylon, Matchwinner is like cotton rather than nylon it's that limp ). I think it's a combination of the fineness of the line and the way it moves, or doesn't move the bait in the water. Anywho, am hugely impressed, and this will almost certainly be my hooklength of choice for the next couple of seasons so I can give it a good go. If you have any lying around, definately give it a go. Steve

I agree with adam, free lining is best. If not for you, then add a pole float. I use either a (Middy??) carp no.5 in 0.5 gram if I'm casting, or a 0.1 gram wire stemmed float of fishing close in. Either way, it's just there as an indicator. Generally best to strike when you see the line move rather than the float. For bait, something heavy that's castable. Breadpaste is good. a whole, or a half, green lipped mussel is also good. For paste, something a bit smaller than a golf ball is what you want. Slugs are also good. a big ( BIG!! ) bunch or worms is also awesome if you nip the tails off each one. Try and get ten on a size two hook. My friend is using monster halibut pellets and is doing well. Steve

Adam, I think that the "tackle tart" image may not be as bad as some think, what I do think is that carping is seen as difficult, so people read and emulate what they read and see.Then they show others etc. Therefore, there would seem to be a core group of angling writers and broadcasters that are driving everything towards a single direction. That mean's if they are saying "you need a damn sexy bite alarm be within the slightest whisker of catching a fish" then this attitude cascades downwards to most other carpers. Trivial example: Everyone that I see fishing uses fast actioned rods of probably 3lb test. This is, I guess, becuase everyone else uses them. And sometimes this is the right tool for the job, but those times are very few and far better. Far better to use a rod actually designed for carp fishing, a stepped up avon rod, which in every way far out performs a fast actioned broom handle for everything but 80 yard plus casts with a mimimum of 4oz of lead. The curves and compression sequences of what are now called Barbel rods where specifically designed to handle long casts with big weights, while being able to apply power at range without bumping on the strike, and ensuring safety at the net. What are described as carp rods today are simply settped up thames roach rods of 50 years ago. They still use the same maths and compression calc's as they did back then to design them, they just make all the dimensions slightly bigger. So why isn't everyone using these? Lot's of reasons, but I figure that one of the major ones is "that's the type of rod that everyone uses for carping". Those idea's have to come from somewhere. I guess that paperclip hangers fall into the same catorgory. For line, I know that the current thinking is for everything to be nailed to the deck but I'm pretty against that. I think of it this way. Fish live in water, which is a different world to ours, so I need to try and think what happens in their world rather than what makes sense in mine. What there is in the carp world, on the bottom at least, is lots of long floaty elements. This could be trailing pieces of weed, old line that drifts around, bits of old bag etc. Therefore I guess carp will probably accept another floaty thing. What a carp won't, I think, accept, is, if it finds a trove of 50 baits, the one bait that moves differently to all the others. If you had 50 bowls of baked beans in front of you, and one of the dollops of beans was purple, which would you eat? What I'm looking for is a line which makes the least impact on the movement, or lack of it, on the bait as possible. I want something that makes the bait act as close to normal as possible. This will never be totally ossible, but, if by choosing a different line I can spook even one in 10 less fish, I'm a happy boy. That's why I want something totally nuetrally bouyant. That way it should be acting as little on the bait as possible, but at the same time will move in the water, if a carp comes near it or touches it, as close to everything else it has encountered with safety as possible. Does this make any sence? It's 3:20 am, insomnia is KILLING me and I feel like I've rambled all over my reply without actually coming anywhere near your question. Steve

Hello folks. I've been doing a bit more experimenting with simple rigs, and seeing if I can get them to be any better. All the testing I did was at a "big fish" commercial and at an old lake that has an overhang where I can watch what happens. I looked at the following things: Paternoster length Hooklength rig material Other stuff For paternoster length, I couldn't see much difference in reaction in anything over a foot. This seems to be about the height that baits move up and down with tail wash from feeding carp, and when they are doing a "blow" sort of feeding. Also, if they are bottom feeding, they start with their heads down, but I noticed that they don't FULLY right themselves, they stay head down even when moving, until they go from feed mood to movement mood. This means that they never right themselves move than a foot upwards. I tried longer paternosters, up to 4 foot, but it dodn't seem to make a noticable difference. Hook length I looked at length, and again, more than 1 foot didn't make a huge difference. This does mean that there is two foot of virtually free movement for the fish to make, which gives a lot of indications at the rod. Some of the guys who watched me fishing, who were used to fishing tight lines and heavy leads were asking me to hit a lot of these movements, as they weren't used to it, and I tried it a few times, but I just got lots of misses. Best to sit on your hands I guess. I also looked at material. Becuase I don't really want to get into adding swivels, extra knots etc to an already full rig, I stuck with nylon, but I did have a thought about this. At the moment, a lot of fishing is done with Short, stiff rigs, so I automatically wanted to fish as far away from this as I can. While it does have it's uses, I wanted movement in the rigs, and for them to act as naturally as possible. Something that I noticed when last out after chub was that the line I used sank really quickly ( it was Maxima ). This made me wonder if, when the line is on the deck, it will be effecting the bait, which would move naterally when there were big fishh around. I went looking in my odds and sods drawer for a line that was as close to neuterally bouyant as I could find. I tested in my pond. The best that I found, that was a LOT better than maxima, and my current line ( Diawa Match Winner ) was a line called Cenitam ( with a cheesy picture of bob nudd on it ) that came on the cover of a magazine. < This line is AWESOME for pole fishing by the way >. However, it has no stretch and it's in 6.5lb, so not right for big fish. Now I'm looking for something similar, but struggling. I will let you know if I get anything. I also played about with bite detection. The first thing I noticed is that on three occasions in the last two months or so, I've noticed, when I touch leger, "tremble bites". You should read Richard Walker for mor details of these, but he said that he only ever found them with Barbel. I struck on all three occassions, and hooked two, and landed one carp. This is a bit screwy, but maybe it means that carp have a fourth, barbel-like way of feeding???? I also made a new indicator for when touch legering is too much effort. Basically, cut the middle out of a paperclip, and your left with the loop around the outside. This can be easily clipped onto the line and taken off again. A piece of line with some shot on it counters any wind. This is light enough to use with freelining, and seems to fit well with loose rigs. Also free! Something I saw in CarpOLOGY and Total Carp was pictures of guys with free running rigs, but with their indicators on the floor. This doesn't seem a huge lot of use to me. if the carp moves towards the bank at all, the bite won't register. My thinking is that indicators should be half way betwen rod and floor, but interested what others think. What do you guys do? I've also started tying the lead to the line with PVA tape once the rig is made. The lead is tied up, with the lead towards the rod and not the lead. This makes casting a bit easier in tangly places, and it gives me that fraction extra confidence that that there are no tangles. After it's been out for a few minutes, drawing 6" of line back means that everthing is free-floating. Tight lines Steve

Why sad? Steve

It's right at the bottom, below the foriegn forums, and above non-carp banter section. As adam say's, keep it simple, there is little to loose and a lot to gain. Steve

What does a maggot clip do? Steve

Salok, I see what your saying, but I think that there are still times when it works. The Method springs to mind as a situation. I know that it's probably not tempted a huge number of monster carp, but many 100lb+ catches of carp none the less. At a specific time, in a specific place, it has a place. However, I totally agree that in 99% of cases it is not "better" and in fact, it is "worse", and the two don't nessecarily link to each other. Yes, I think that the paternoster rig will never become trendy becuase of the need to watch it carefully. And I think that if it did, we would be in a world of deep hooked carp and furious letters to carp talk saying how bad a rig it is in general. Adam, I haven't seen Episode III, but I'm guessing that the rig was not a long linked paternoster, it was to a striaght running lead or an in-line lead? If so, think back to what has been said about movement and bite detection. I think it comes down to this: A lead can can play two jobs in a rig. 1) Carry out a baited hook and make it sink in a specific place 2) Act as a point of resistance to cause a hooking. The ideal rig in all cases, for every fish, is to just have a hook and line. This means that they have maximum confidence in taking a bait and minimum resistance. For two, the ideal rig is a three pound weight attached to a 2" hooklength. (Actually, I've used three pound legers before... for char ) This rig is almost certain to hook every fish that takes a bait into it's mouth automatically. However, rig 2 will have a lot less fish actually take the bait. The idea behind the running paternoster is that we try to minimise to as great an extent as possible, theaction of the lead on the rig, and therefore make it as much like a free-lined rig as possible. Where as we have to pay attention to it, becuase the bait acts, we hope, a lot more naturally, the carp has no desire to reject the bait in the first place. We are simply using the lead to take the bait out to a specific place and reduce the effects of tow. We hope that everything else seems to be free lined. Sadly, there is no fishing for Steve over the weekend, due to very ill Ma's, but I will be putting in a few after work sessions, where I'll experiment and report back. If anyone else would like to experiment and come back to the thread with findings, that would be great as well. I plan to fish two rods in a single baited patch. First a running paternoster, second a short link/heavy lead. I will have the rigs maybe 20 foot apart over an even area of lake bed. Bait will be the same on both rigs, and I will feed the entire area with hemp, which should fall pretty evenly accross the area. Steve

I agree, which is why I use that rig for most of my carp fishing. But I don't just think it's becuase the carp "aren't expecting it", I think it would work just as well, in fact I know it does, with carp that haven't been hooked before. However, as I said, the rig, while being great at catching fish, isn't great for having a snooze next to. It does mean that there has to be a real strike every time that you have a fish on the line. If you just leave the bites to develop, in most cases the bait will simply be dropped. This is something that many in the carp world, I feel, will not trade off. It is also the reason I don't fish hugely long sessions. 36 hours is about as long as I can go and still concentrate on a float or bobbins. After that, I need to kip, so if I'm doing a long stint, I wind in and get my head down for a few hours, because I'm not going to wake up easily after that for a while. It's like I said on the distant days of the top of page two. There are times when the heavy, short linked shock/bolt rig is a better way of fishing. But I don't think there are a huge number of these times, times when it's BETTER than a flowing link. It works well for "tench" if they take the bait and then do the "move" part, but the flowing rig is good for that as well, along with all the other circumstances. Steve

Uni and grinner knots ( two variations on the same thing ) really are easy to tie when you get used to them. The grinner is the only knot that I've found I can tie in pitch black and still be able to tie it perfectly. I had HUGE troubles learning knots. The way I sorted it out was when my Grandad gave me a 14/0 Seamaster hook, and I learned using that and a piece of string. find a ring somewhere and practise with string, as it's much easier than mylon. Use thick string as well. When your ok with that, nylon becomes a lot more easy. Work deadlines mean I can't tonight, but I will get Missus Steve to take some pic's of me tying a grinner with a piece of string and I'll post them soon. Steve

Adam. I don't use hair rigs a great deal for carp. I don't see that they are a bad thing in any way, but again, I keep things simple until I have to. Pike, for example, I ALWAYS hair rig for. I think in order to work out hair rig lengths, we need to take a hair rig apart. Imagine a single bait on the bottom, a free offering. I use them rarely myself, so I may get the mechanic's slightly wrong, but I'll say a Boilie. A carp comes along, and, either via "tench", "pike" or "rudd" method, it takes it into it's mouth. It has no hands to hold a fork, so it must use suction to bring it past it's lips. Once there however, it will use it's tounge to move the bait from the front to the back of it's mouth. In all modes of feeding, it will regually pick up detritus of the bottom, like twigs, sticks, stones etc. It's tounge will move these to one place in it's mouth while moving the feed back. Once it has the bait at the back of it's mouth, if will chew with it's teeth ( please don't make me spell the proper word...) and swallow. It will them blow out any of the "bits" that it has accumulated. How lets look at a bait on a hair. Bait is picked up and is sucked in to the front of the mouth. The tounge then passed the bait backwards, while manovouring the rubbish. Carp have pretty large mouths. Measuring my own mouth just now, and making a guess about a twenty pound fish by scaling down, I would estimate about 2 1/2 inches. Also, having timed how long it took me to move a boiled sweet around my mouth, and then assuming it would be the slower for a carp becuase have have relatively smaller tounges compared to mouth size, I would say that it could take from 1.5 - 2 seconds to move a big bait this distance. So what happens. Bait is moved in, and pulls the hook with it. if we assume the fish hasn't ever seen a hook, it is likely that it will take the bait all the way to the back teeth. As it does so, it moves. The angler strikes, and fish is landed. A fish that has been hooked a few times is also takes in the bait. This time, it does so slightly slower, and knows to eject a hook. Bait comes in and moves backwards. The fish senses the hook with it's tounge ( I'm going to assume a carp's lips, like mine, probably aren't sensitive enough to detect the difference between a hook and a stick ), and blows to eject. As it blows, the hook is in front of the bait. The ejection will also cause a panic movement by the fish, a turn. The eject willbring the hook into a "hooking" position, and the turn will, if we use a short rig, cause a hooking. If the fish has been cuaght maybe twenty times, I'm going to guess it is even more careful. If it feels a hook like object, it will eject even quicker. So, for "fresh" carp, I would say the hair doesn't help, for "not fresh" carp, I would say a short hair, for maximum hooking, and for spooky carp, I would say that a long hair for any chance of hooking at all. However, I think there are a few tempering factors. The fish goes back to rule 3), which is that rig is the least important bit. A spooky carp, I would argue, is less likely to put a bait that is on a short stiff link in it's mouth than one that is looking at a bait on a long flowing link. With the line aligner, I guess it will, to some degree, help hook more fish than a knotless knot rig would, but a line aligner presents the bait oddly, is covered with plastic etc, so I would make a guess that the number of fish that take a bait that is on a line aligner would be less than on a different rig, but the number of "un-assisted" hook up's of those fish that did would be greater. Which rig is best? If we look at the line aligner, D-rig, knotless knot etc, in fact anywhere where the hair comes from the sproat of the hook, and imagine the mechanics, This is what I believe is happening. The bait is pulled in. At that moment, when the bait is moving the hook, the hair will take the straightest path to it's point of attachment on the hook.This will have the effect of moving the hook sideways on to the carp's mouth. I believe that this will increase the likelihood of it detecting the hook and eject. If the hair was tied to the BEND of the hook, it would pull the hook stright in, giving the smallest profile to the carp. I think that this would decrease the likelyhood of an eject for tat crucial 1 second or so. Hmm.. a re-read shows that this is nonsense. I have drawn a picture. Badly Drawn Picture My own method is that I use big baits which obscure the hook totally. Big lumps of bread or a ball of worms or three mussels. The the lips and tounge can't sense the bait then I hope that I can get a hooking. I haven't wriiten about the effects of line of hooking, and that's purely becuase I can't do anything about it. A hook has an eye at the top that I have to tie line to. I can't get around that one. I think a rig sits in between one of two extremes. The first is total confidence. a free-lined rig. The second is a totally self hooking rig. Rig One above for example. Most rigs trade off some of one trait to gain more of another. I believe, and to myself at least have proven through my own testing, that a total confidence rig leads to more potential takes, and so more actual fish on the bank. Others will disagree, but I'm happy with that statement. However, the way I fish means that I can't ever sleep next to the rods becuase I have to strike at every bite. That's something that I'm happy to do, but it doesn't suit others, so there needs to be a degree of Self hooking ability worked into the rigs. Again, it's back to the three rules of location, bait, and rig. The perfect hair rig is of no use at all if there are no fish to catch, or the bait moves, or doesn't move, in such a way that the fish won't take it into their mouths. Also, I fear that we could get caught up in the "forgetting 95% of angling" thing. Hair rig's aren't REALLY needed, Chris yates broke the record with no hair, which Hutchinson and Co where battering redmire with boilies and and hair-rigs. He put a bait in front of a fish. Steve