cal35

did you keep them soaked in some flavouring? i keep all mine in some potent pineapple flavouring that probably masks any human flavour that may be on it. i know you use alot of maize kev, so wat wud be the difference that a carp could notice between a peice of plastic bait that looked and smelt the same as a normal peice of maize over a bed of maize?

it will! it may be inert to us- but can we smell and taste water that the plastic has been sitting in aswell as a carp can?

a long shank nailer is a cross breed between a kurv shank and a long shank. they have a long shank that is curved, they can cause alot of damage if used wrongly- expecially on rigs like the 360 rig.

right- this is sad i know ! i tied up a little bag and the rig that i normally use- then put a bit of corn on like i normally do and then put it into a bowl of water, this is what happened: how good does that look? the hook was hidden and the bait just stuck up over the little pile of quick dissolve pellets!

as you may or may not know, i did a tuition session recently and this was the way that i was told to put single fake corn on the hair ! i will go and try it out in a minute- you made me think about it !

i fish my fake corn on a simple knotless knot, with a small kurv shank hook ! if you put a bit of neutral bouyancy corn through from top to bottom then put that on the hair balances the hook really nicely !

i have loads of confidence in the pink alien baits fake sweetcorn, even as singles! little bag of pellets, size 10 hook and a bit of fake corn mounted throught the top to bottom and have had about 20 takes on it during 2 sessions- landing my first, second and thrid 20's!

I've never lost any tackle using a commercial brand of marker braid straight through. Adding a leader is more likely to cause losses as you'll then have a weak point i.e. the knot! thats what i do- 30lb whiplash braid straight through and never had a problem with it ! i used to have 20lb braid with a leader and the knot kept catching and snapping the whole set-up off !

ever compared a size 10 korda kurvshank and a size 10 gardner mugga? they are supposedly the same hook but there is a massive difference in sizes!

i havent had a problem with the size 10 kurv shanks that i am using atm. you could try ordering over the internet to save you having to get the tackle shop, and you would have a better choice on the internet as well!

i have used it twice recently firstly with a little PVA bag covering the hook and then cast this into the the weed on the lake, got 1 run but unfortunately lost the fish. the second time i had turned up to the lake at night and didnt know where it was clear, i actually found i had cast it into thick weed but actually landed a load of bream from the week. i used it with a short rig so the fish doesnt have ages before it hits the bead. hope this helps!

i also jsut found this thread as well; http://www.carp.com/carp-forum/viewtopic.php?t=35998&highlight=braid if you use the search facility it can come up with lots of good threads that are really helpful !

i am by no means an expert on the chod rig ! it is basically a length of leadcore with the lead tied to the end of leader say with a quick change clip or a small length of 3lb line. then you slide a bead onto the leader which a swivel would be able to pass over with a bit of pressure. then slide on the hooklength swivel which should have a bigger eye to slide over the leadcore and the beads. then slide on another bead. set the beads so they sink into the depth of the silt, say if the silt was 2 feet deep you would have the top bead 1.5 feet up and the 2nd 2.5 ft up so they hold the hooklength up in silt and make sure it doesnt sink! http://www.carp.com/carp-forum/viewtopic.php?t=36456 that should help as well

the best rig would probably be a relatively long (8-10 inches) made of supple matterial like soft braid. a lead-clip set up probably be best as this should help to keep the rig out of the silt and the lead plugging improves the bolt-rig effect! make sure you attach some sort of PVA to keep the hookpoint from catching on things in the silt. another rig would be the chod-rig which is designed to be fished in silt! hope this helps!

i always use eyed hooks as i cant tie the hooks for spade hooks ! also i dont trust the knots for them as they seem to come undone on things i use with them on them, like pretied pole rigs etc.