jemsue5

You rate them then Jez? I wasn't sure wether they were just another gimmick. Do you think youve picked extra fish up with them? I'm certain i have what i will say is once in they dont come out as easily so less hook pulls. You do end up scraping a few until you get used to the method of sharpening them but once mastered you will never use another hook out of the packet.

I now sharpen every hook i use with the jag file and stones, the difference is amazing NO HOOK IS SHARP out of the packet you may think they are but they aint

15" will be fine for the float or lead.

way to short for float fishing at that length they will probably be designed for method feeder rigs.

Ouch

Now this is only my personal opinion but the heli rig is by far the easiest for a beginer to make a balls up of more so if they go down the leadcore route. I really cant see past a running rog for 99.5% of my fishing.

Thats the one

With those hooks i would use a coated braid or attach the hooks to fluoro using a palomar knot and a softer material for the hair. Fox make a small widget of some sort for attaching hairs so these might be worth sorting out if you want to perservere with fluoro for hooklinks. One word of warning fluoro doesn't like loop knots such as figure 8 etc. The Best loop knot if you must use one is the rapala knot/improved loop knot which can be found on Krystons site i think.

Use a hook with an out turned eye such as a choddy and a knotless knot should be fine. The other option is to use the flouro in a combi link with a braid or to attach it with a palomar knot to any hook you want and to use a separate material for the hair. As for the comment that you need a fluoro hooklink or the fluoro mainline is a waste thats totally off the mark. I use fluoro as my mainline because it sinks like a brick and is great for slacklining, that has nothing to do with the hooklength material at all which in my case varies dependant on what bait, hook rig i'm using at the time.

If the coating cracks you are adding an extra hinge point to the rig negating the stiffness of the coated braid at that point. Now on some rigs that might be an advantage but on others you want the hooklink to remain stiffish and not to have that hinge point.

Korda N-trap doesn't crack at all when tying a figure 8 loop.

Pull the rig out straight with a couple of rig pullers etc and then hold over the steam from a kettle for a few seconds. This should straigten them out, just store on a rig board afterwards.

No reason why you cant use 2", i tend to use 4" in bags and have done ok when using them.

Personally i hate heli rigs as the angle of pull against the lead is all wrong while playing the fish (IMHO) and i wont use this set up unless forced into it due to lake bed conditions. I find the hinged still link fished as a running lead is giving as good catches as the chod and i dont lose fish on it.

Because carp dont have hands to shift the beads off them

None

Tie a bit of pva behind them before the cast.

Dan, have a look here http://www.carp.com/carp-forum/viewtopic.php?t=49425

Excellent result i cant wait until Aug 6th

I use a 2 swan shot drennan clear loafer fished over depth with the shot about 4" from the hook. Just wind down until the float cocks and wait for it to pop up and lay flat and then slide away before striking. Lots of movement while the fish are in the area mooching about so you will get lots of indications that why i always wait for the float to slide off before striking as you dont want to spook them by striking early.

I find a stick of dynamite works when all else fails

As for the korda DVDs what they showed to me is the fact that a simple running rig had the best results. As for Steve Reynard yes a good angler who likes to tinker with rigs but i'm still to be convinced that rigs make that big a difference to his results, i feel that its more down to his overall ability as an angler. I totally dispute that the KD rig works as you say i've seen it fail dismally on waters just as much as other rigs have, its not the be all and end all that some seem to think. Will have to agree to disagree on this one.

You say that the KD rig has caught you carp that a perhaps a basic rig wouldn't of FACT. Now the way you say perhaps means that you cant be 100% certain, we can never be 100% certain that a simple rig wont work. I've fished waters where my results have been far better than others who use what i feel are rigs that are way over the top. For most of us its a confidence thing and for that reason alone i can understand people using different rigs etc. To me they suck it in they spit it out and sometimes we get lucky. That may be a very simplistic view but i know that what i do works for me and i'm happy with my results.

Rigs are one of the last things i worry about when fishing. I worry more that i've got the bait in the right spot. A simple knotless knot is all i use for 99% of the time and it does me fine thankyou.

Ebay have some double barreled crimps but i've just used the singles.