daleg2008

Is there a fish friendly leadcore about? by this i mean it doesen't leave abrasion marks on the carp? unless i use a long hooklink this should stop the carp coming into contact with the core?

Yeah thats it good job i cant buy it anymore! not that good then lol

yeah thats it they sometimes just swim around a tight line without spooking. by making it so obvious it might just work!? i have seen a carp spook after picking up a stick whilst feeding, that was with no rig in the water. make what you will out of that. i cant say for sure if they can tell the difference between the two, but i think they will be cagey of anything they accidently pick up off the bottom whilst feeding. ill try and get down to a lake soon thats not a runs water, but not hard. ill report back with results asap.

Well all what i can say is thanks to Nick and Steve for some of the best fishing information i have heard, since being shown how to tie the knotless knot that is anyway One thing i have thought about since reading this thread is, everyone seems obsessed with pinning your end tackle down, but how about letting your hooklink looping up off the bottom? acting more natural so to speak or popping your tubing up vertically or the lake bed? might be treated with less caution.

It depends what water you want to target! the majority of them you will be able to catch on the set up your using now. just put more time into locating the carp, you can't catch what isn't there.

Sounds to me like nothing needs to be changed When you encounter a problem with your rigs that you cannot fix yourself then post a thread and im sure someone will help you out.

you don't need to do that mate. i personally believe the safest set up is a running rig. now for the rig just start off with a 6inch knotless knot hair rig and work your way up. once you understand more about rig mechanics and the way the carp feed in your desired lake, you can then make adjustments accordingly. just pop your lead on the line, followed by tubing of your desired length and then a tulip bead of some sort to fit the tubing into. then all what you need to do is tie your mainline directly to the hooklink swivel.

i use a slip knot for the pop up and then tie it to the ring with a couple of overhand knots. never had one come off yet(Touch wood)

Those 9 months have served me well on another note josh, i use the raptors in either a size 5 or 6 on running rigs with a max lead size of 2.5oz. i also use a clutch system on shimano super ultegras and never had a hook pull yet. oh i also use solar line clips, much better indication and it sets the hook when your late on the rods.

ask a couple of mates to bike with you, or even better a adult family member.

Mr grumpy pants

dj That was my point, you are worrying about perch eating the maggots but yet haven't tried it. i thought the same thing with roach and perch where i am. put maggots where the carp are and they wont resist All carp are predictable so you will get them in the end, only a matter of time. just dont have a breakdown in the process! i would much prefer it that way, compared to trying to haul through around hundred carp before getting your target fish. good luck mate

Another thing people panic about is the maggots burying themselves in the silt. i say even better keeps them out of view of little eyes. the carp know they are there, gets them rooting about i know this because you can see the black leaves and debris flying about in the water. still no target fish though looks like i will be waiting a bit longer for one though, my mate had the larger black common out today at 23lb in a spot i was baiting up little [censored]

If they have been caught before then they are catchable. back in my youth when i used a 6ft fibre glass rod me and a mate fished this acre pool in the middle of a village. similar to the featureless lake you mention. we baited up a margin spot with sunken bread, maggots, worms and spam. for ages we waited untill the right time to pounce, doing it under the radar of the ducks was hard though. untill the magical time came we both attacked it with free lined sunken bread, my mate got the biggest at 12lb and i caught a 8lber. back in the day that was huge lol. yes the lake was regurlaly fished and no the carp had not be caught till then. we went back a week later to try and catch the other 3, but they were gone. apparently were netted and sold to a lake. i am using maggots in a roach infested lake now, maggots are the most underused carp bait mainly because people panic like you stated.

Also have you tried baiting one spot regurlaly?

I think carp like that aren't clued up so to speak. its not like pressured carp where you need to perfect your rig to get a bite. did you say they ate your boilies? i think it comes down to them not being fished for so much. it may sound weird, but i think pressured lakes are easier to catch out of than one you are on now, where the carp havent came into contact with many hooks. mainly because man made baits have become a dietry need for pressured carp and eventually will take one. on the lake you are fishing they are thriving so well they dont really need to eat your bait. i reckon a natural is the way to go on a nice long hooklink laying across the choddy weed. i would actually love to fish somewhere like that though.

Do you have any pics of that? i don't quite understand how you can tie the d seperate? as its the knotless know that holds in place isn't it? Im a bit slow on these things though Dale

One of the main reasons why i don't use pop ups that often is because i cant find one that matches my boilies. i cant just fish singles so i scatter boilies in the area just to lure them in and hope their curiosity towards the pop up kicks in. as thats all what a pop up is a curiosity bait. i caught all my fish from my last session on a critical balanced bait on a kd style hair. all this talk about balancing your bait is everywhere atm though, but i still think as the weather warms up all the good weather anglers come down and just launch in a bolt rig and a ready made simple knotless knot rig yeah it will catch eventually, but i think just being different can put that extra fish on the bank. interesting thought though dj and a good thread too!

I can honestly say i am scared of using long hairs mainly because i have had a bad experience with using it. i used one about 3 inches on a simple knotless knot braid rig. i caught a carp on it but the hook was way back in its mouth just in front of his teeth. he had ate half of the boilie before it penetrated, to me this is not where a carp should be hooked. yes it may be that it might never happen again, but once is enough for me not to use it again. another thing if the theory of the hook trailing behind the bait into the carps mouth is true then i just think its giving them longer to suss you out. thats why im looking into using a rig that nails them as soon as they mouth the rig. i have seen some of the korda dvds, but havent had the pleasure of watching carp feed on my bait yet.

Frank you say you use braid for a d rig, but how do you stop it slipping out of the eye? as with mono and fluoro you can blob the end. i am probably missing the obvious again though. another thing im curios about that some of you guys might be able to shed some light on, is when you use a longer hair how do you know that its not going to fall in the same place? by this i mean the hook and bait landing next to each other. which then would lead it to the same situation as using a short hair wouldnt it? if this happens then the carp will still suck the hook and bait in at the same so was a long hair then needed? i hope it kinda makes sense, im not really good at explaining what i mean lol.

yeah that only clicked in after i asked. so now i know how to get enough backing on my reel im away.

Awesome mate! when you put it like that it sounds so simple. i now feel a bit of a mug Thaks for the help. do you use fluoro?

yeah i have shimano super ultegra in the larger spool version. they come with 3 spools so i have 2 spare.

im not to sure, i will have a look in the morning.

bit of a newbish question, but how would you tie a fluoro carbon leader set up properly? since not using leaders i see them as all dangerous! i have no idea why, but i just think its because the mainline is always going to snap first, or do i buy spool of x-line and fish straight through? im not rich so i only want to use 300 meters on each of my 2 reels. someone told me to white tape on the spool as backing, but how do you know when you are off 300 meters of filling the spool? in other words how can i spool both with 300 meters accuretly? thanks dale