yonny

Old school. Big Game always was (and still is) a decent and reliable line but technology has moved on - there are better options out there nowadays imo.

"Boilies don't work on here".......... "They don't take floaters on here mate"............ I'm sure, like me, you've heard it all before Phil. Carp are carp - imo any method, done well, will catch fish on any carp water.

I always try not to plan anything prior to arrival - unless I'm pre-baiting. I find too much planning leads to a blinkered approach on my part and results in poor decision making. With no planning I can just turn up, find fish, and fish for them.

That's very true buddy but I've always found it's a mistake to try and predict where they'll go and set up there. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't - and I don't like leaving it to chance. I will ALWAYS set up where I see them, and move with them if they do the off.

Fish with what you're confident in Phil.

That's interesting as my percentages would be completely different. Rigs - 5% max - as long as it presents and resets it's good enough imo. Bait - more important - a good 10 or 20 %. The rest would all be location. Identifying (or creating) and fishing the spots the carp are prepared to feed on. Put me on fish and 99 times out of 100 I'm mega confident. If I'm not on fish then nothing will make me confident.

Absolutely mate. I love that buzz of walking a new venue. It's so exciting - wondering what awaits you in this next part of your journey. And the buzz of the first fish from a new venue is awesome - it gives you that confidence that you have the ability to succeed. I've only caught a few stockies from my latest venue but it's enough to get me buzzing my nuts off. There's a handful of 40 year old originals up to 50 odd lb in there and I know that my next bite could be the one!! The tactics are working, the bait is working..... confidence!

Spot on mate. I've been fishing for carp for more than 20 years now and I still learn stuff on every trip, especially from blanks (they tell you more than any red letter day will). Carp angling is a never ending journey imo, we will never know it all, but we can keep learning more and more about the fish and how they react in different environments, and that stands us in good stead to capitalise when they're in front of us. As the journey unfolds we choose to fish harder waters with more special fish as we put what we've learned into practice. As one door closes another opens and our angling evolves. Always learning, always challenging ourselves. It's brilliant because you can never complete it - there's always a newer, bigger challenge. It's impossible to get bored of.

Probably buddy. Brown is the best all-rounder for blending in imo.

That's it right there. Confidence comes from experience; knowing what you are doing in a given situation will catch them. That is a hallmark of inexperience imo. A confident and experienced angler will determine why the chosen method isn't working as intended and fix it. I have no time for doubt. I am not prepared to sit behind rods that I'm not 100% happy with. Of course we all blank, it is part of carp fishing, but as long as you learn from it you confidence levels can continue to elevate. If you know why you blanked then you know how to adapt for next time.

I'm currently using the rather funky combination of Hydro Tuff in 12 lb with a 20/30 ft leader of the SLS Specimon Tough in 18 lb. The water I'm fishing is really, really weedy and the fish do sometimes hang out a very long range. This set up allows me to get the distance and still deal with the weed. I would happily use the Hydro Tuff in 20 lb as a leader too.

@crusian I've used it in 20 for weed and 12 for casting, both perform really well. It's the green I use but thats because I didn't know you could get it in brown!

Completely up to you mate. It's cheaper to do them yourself but ready made are good if you've not done it before. That's an even broader question lol. Different hooklinks/lines tend to be better for different rigs. Get on YouTube buddy, loads of info on there👍

Agree. But regardless of how many wrongs make a right if they dare ban booze I'm kicking off lol.

OK...... Not OK..... What a load of tosh. You should really be putting 'imo' at the end of comments like that so guys can see it's opinion and not fact Nick. Almost all lead systems have a place for certain angling situations imo. I use a number of systems depending on what's in front of me. I reckon I use lead clips for more than half of my fishing. It's not because I'm lazy and it's not due to fashion. It's because they do the job I intend them to do.

If the main line snaps the rig can come off a heli so the lead is not considered fixed mate. No need for a heli safe. The heli safe does have a place imo - fished naked (no leader) is very weedy conditions. The safest set up is the one the gets the fish on the banks safely imo. That is a very broad question buddy but a simple answer would be Proper Job Pop Ups. They're the most buoyant standard pop up out there and are available in loads of recipes/flavours. I prefer a cork ball pop up but for standard pop ups Proper Jobs are the ones👍 FTM

Agree, I'm no smoker but I know that booze is 10 times more damaging than a bit of weed. Good post @Carpbell_ll.

Nah.... with a stiff rig the in-line will nose dive into anything but the hardest gravel which will kick the rig up rendering it useless. Stiff rigs and in-lines are not the one imo buddy.

That's backwards. It's a corrective action. You need preventive action. Stop the crime in the first place. Not lock people up after they've already done it. It's a real challenge for sure.

I agree. I disagree, too much of a sweeping statement for me that is. Rig length should be chosen to perform on a given substrate - to suit the rig and the angling situation. For every known angler that tells us one thing there is another known angler telling us something completely different. I wouldn't take any of it as gospel mate. I try to let the carp teach me what I need to know. A few hours watching the fish you're trying to catch will tell you more than any known angler can.

I only use fluoro for weed-free waters, it's never going to be as strong and durable as a decent braid. For St Ives I'd not go near it elmo.

I always found IQ and IQ2 to be ok.

You can use them in deeper lakes (depending how deep 'deeper' is). Tight lines - indication is bad enough when using back leads so you don't want to make it any worse. Not good for use in weed - very bad in fact. Whack them at the bottom of the shelf - to keep the lines pinned down as intended. 👍

That made me chuckle 😂

That's key here. If you really want to use a stiff rig you'll need to use a bigger hook imo. I'd also ditch the kicker. Both of these changes intended to open the gape which at the moment is far too small imo. I'd also lengthen the rig - this will mean it has greater flexibility to be taken but retain that stiff springy quality once in the fish's mouth.