carpingod150

Don't worry, we've all done it Although I hope you haven't just ruined some poor sod's day floater fishing, 'coz his link is sinking

Surely fluoro isn't the best for surface fishing, as it sinks? I've found Ultima Flo-Cast to be brilliant for floater hooklengths

There's no specific length, about a foot will do, then you tighten down to your lead until the bait is just resting on the water

Oy! That took me a good ten minutes The fish is even smiling

I hope you can make sense of my child-like scrawlings. Basically, you thread your hooklength on first, then a sliding float, Drennan Dumpy slider works OK, then tie a lead onto that. A couple of feet above the float tie a stop knot, so the hooklength will be on the other side to the lead and float. Cast out, then put your rod in a high rod rest and tighten up until all of your hooklength is off the water, and the bait is just touching the water. Welcome by the way

Nope, you don't have to use anything Some people like to put silicone tubing on the hook and thread the hair through that, to get the hair coming off the hook at a specific point. Have a look through the stick on rig tying that Salockinnodrog put up, that should point you in the right direction Edit ; You beat me to it Nick

Pah! Silt, not a problem. Now weed, that's a headbanger! Good to hear you caught matey, always nice when a plan comes to fruition

It doesn't sit well at all for such a company with Korda's stature to continually have serious QA problems with their gear.Lead clips,hooks,hooklengths and PVA have all failed anglers but still they continue to turn out substandard gear. Don't hear problems to that extent about ESP,Kryston,Rig Marole etc or even smaller end tackle producers.......personally I wouldn't touch any of their gear Except ESP hooks Now I'd like to see Kryston making a hook, have 100% confidence in all their stuff

Most places sell them mate, try a search for diamond hook sharpener on Google. I found an old knife sharpening stone in my kitchen draw that seems to do the trick with hooks

Note - A rig with just shrink tubing on it is not a proper line aligner, the hooklink has to be passing through the shrink tubing, through a hole in it created by the baiting needle. It's easier to do than explain..

Where have you read this?? teflon coating was designed to give a non flash finish not to stop the hook from going blunt Or, perhaps it could be for both!

Looks OK, you could achieve that with the Gardner float though, just thread a lead on beforehand

Brian, think you need some sleep mate! :lol: I think he was meaning to use it Beachcaster style, anchored to the bottom so it doesn't move. Although I could be wrong

Yeah but you dont use leadcore right to the hook do you :D:D Cheers for quick reply's by the way. <>Chris You wouldn't use tubing right to the hook

I reckon that'd work with Briad better mate, giving a combi-link style effect And you'd need to get the tubing exactly the same colour as the lakebed for it not to look conspicuos. It has been done with leadcore before though

Ah yeah, cheers Brian, dodn't think of that Thinking about it, you probably wouldn't even need the sealant.

The controller float? I reckon, with a polystyrene ball, some silicon sealant, a piece of flexible wire and some rig putty you could do it Here you go...

It'll work with a pop-up too mate, just as well

I believe he sharpened a variety of hooks, both coated and un-coated. He also said that, almost all of the time after every fish the hook needed to be changed. However, if you were fishing on a one fish a year water this would obviously be worth it, to hook the fish of a lifetime. If he does not catch, and brings in the hook after a days fishing, he 'touches up' the hook, with the file to restore it to sharpness. You say about the point being brittle, surely if the hook is sharper it will penetrate further, meaning that the point will have less pressure on it, due to the hook being in further.

Just been reading some old mags (Carpology - go on, tell me it's awful ) and I was reading the article(s) from Jason Hayward regarding hook sharpening. He uses a Vallorbe needle file, in cut 4 to achieve a very, very sharp looking hook. There's a close up pic of the hooks he has sharpened compared to a normal hook, and it's astounding! Do you think this is worth doing? I've just ordered a file myself, it seems like a huge edge to me

Doesn't Seleb fish this place? I'm probably wrong though.

Is it? When you cast out, do you think that your hooklink is in a perfectly straight line from your lead to the bait and in the same direction as your mainline to the rod tip? Depending on how your lead landed on the bottom and what it landed on, it could fall anywhere, even towards you Dont you ever do any bath tests to check these things Sam? Feeling the lead down can stop the problem of the hooklink tangling on the retrieve (with a coated or mono hooklink that is) but when using a braided hooklink you my find that the baited hook lands directly over your lead or just a few inches from it..... even when using long hooklinks. And then you have to take into account of how many times the carp have mouthed the bait and moved the hooklink..... without you knowing nothing about it on your alarm or indicator You are completely right actually, I didn't take these things into account. As for the bath tests, no, but I do have an old fish tank that I do use for this purpose, but it doesn't really give you an accurate picture of a cast.

How could it be tangling on the retrieve? Depending on your lead-set-up, this is almost impossible, if you think about the physics of it. With a lead-clip it would be nigh-on impossible, the lead would be coming in first, followed by rig and bait, kept in that order by the drag on the water. That is, if you wind in consistently, and do not stop halfway through.

I only ever use supple hairs anyway, I'f I'm using mono or fluoro I whip on a cotton hair

I prefer it to be quite long, so the fish has some room to 'blow' the bait back without the whole rig being efected. THats with bottom baits anyway, with pop-ups I find the fish tend to 'snatch' at the bait, so obviously a shorter hair would be better