boots_n_braces

oh has no one told you? if your going to be famous you have to use other peoples ideas and claim them as your own i must admit i was a bit worried wrapping the hair round the shank but its been brilliant so far had 8 tench out on it today everyone well and truly nailed on sz10 raptors with no other tubing or shrink tube!

salokcinnodrog- once more your a genious i didnt think of using superstiff to create the "sliding hooklink" effect! now i feel like a tool lol unfortunately its normally the simplest tricks that are missed! As i said in another post i now use a reverse combi rig with stiff mono for the first inch ish coming away from the hook, it acts exactly the same shrink tube but is muuuch less conspicuous and lighter aswell. Another beautifully simple tip i saw in a tony miles article the other month was to tie the hair a bit to long and then wrap it once or twice around the shank and pva it in place so it doesnt tangle on the cast. as soon as you put the slightest pulling force on the bait the hook flips and digs in every single time! takes some confidence to get used to but im on my 3rd week of using it this weekend and it looks promising!

Like you say nothing beats experimentation, try a pva stop knot under the lead when you cast out to hold it about 4 inches away from the swivel you get much better indication on drop backs you sound like your heading the right way for that 30! Gap- where abouts in mk do you fish mate? havent seen you round lol

salokcinnodrog- you always give me food for thought lol I do use shorter hooklinks for particles mainly because i rarely fish them as singles so in my experinence the fish isnt going to move far straight away like if u had a yard or to between each bait so i dont like giving them to much slack to play with. in terms of hair length ive never had any problems with bite offs on long hairs as its only the bait that goes right to the back rather than the hook and hklink. TBH the water im on atm is the first time its really bein my choice how i fish as on other busier waters i just do the opposite of everyone else and it works beautifully theoretically a 4ft braid hklink should let the carp get away with it every time but use it on a water everyone else is using 8" stiff links on and it works wonders! At the minute im using short mono hooklinks and short curled up braid hooklinks on the bed of particles (braid is outfishing mono 7to1 atm!!!) with all the rigs being straight hair rigs. The third rod is fished roaming with a few boilies round it on long braid hooklinks with either mini withy pool rig or mini anchor rig which to my mind makes up for the long hooklink (so far no signs of them getting away with it and all the runs are full blooded but who knows) i once caught a 2lb roach on 3" hair!! greedy git had shoved a 14mm boilie in and couldnt spit it back out i got it all the way to the net with the hook hanging out!

interestingly on the water im on atm ive noticed i need a longer hair with particle hook bait than with boilies (i think its down to the larger surface area the suction force has to act on with the boilies so it flys up a bit faster and easier pound for pound) and because the boilies are larger and 'use' more of the hair i can use the same hair length for all my baits (up until now i was using adjustable hairs- but id never buy anything korda lol) Actually now i read its not even that interesting lol but a little food for thought

About 10 but most of them are the same it just saves me hassle during the night. I either use braid or nylon, and i only have 2 hook patterns i use, bait wise im using the same thing for most of the season so hairs are pre whipped on from dacron. the only changes i ever make are length and if i think im getting done i put a bristle filament anchor bar across the hook and super glue and angle into the first half inch of the line (much neater and far less intrusive than shrinktube

What sort of tackle have you got access to? whats your carpong experience like? with heavyish rods you could get close to the area with a pva bag of prawns or bread etc or have a look at getting a groundbait sling for a spod rod and get a bit closer with a big bed of bait. I wouldnt expect the action to last long though id expect theyl soon learn bait coming down is safe baiot on the bottom is dangerous and it sounds like they dont need your bait as a food source

Evening all, I dont use leaders at all unless im fishing over really snaggy ground. imho a thin line off the bottom is better than a fat leader on it. i just go mainline straight through nowdays and if i feel like its not sitting right i backlead or rub heavy metal putty up and downt he line before i cast out. As for leadcore helping concealment LMAO have you ever seen leadcore ont he bottom fromt he fishes view? its awful! Dont believe any of this crap about so and so's leader following the contours of the lake etc ive played with many and absoloutely none of them do. The very best on the flatest of gravel bottoms will be off the bottom at the sight of a slightly larger pebble. IMHO mainline straight through is the way forward and you get the advantage of loosing another knot from the line which can only be a blessing. I think people are to worried about fish 'feeling' line and if they started fishing with more reasonable breaking strains it wouldnt be such a problem. You only have to look at the success people have with multistrand hooklinks to see this. in the water they sit horribbly off the bottom with all the fibres bouncing around but it doesnt bother the carp in the slightest because its light enough for them not to notice.

diamond eye pole elasice threader does in in a few minutes. The only easy way ive ever found of doing it

The stones in the top arent going to much for the balance of the bag though i bet it spins like a bi*** on the cast!