seleb

They're dead easy to tie mate. You tie a rig up with a standard knotless knot but don't put the hair loop on it just leave the tag end straight. When you've done your knotless knot all you do is grab the tag that would be the hair and thread a rig ring onto it , then pass it back through the eye of the hook towards the point and carefully light it with a flame, you can then blow it out and create a blob where it has melted by pressing on it with your lighter and there you go job done. Be careful when lighting the tag as the flame could burn the hook link and ruin it. I found that coated braids and thick nylons / Fluorocarbons work best. Good luck , Seleb.

I'm pretty sure that Courtz had a 27lb common out of there although i could be wrong.

There is another way that you could present a " choddie " on mainline without the need for tubing of any kind. If you thread a rubber float stop onto the line , then a rubber bead with a decent sized bore , then your rig , then another bead , another float stop and finally attach your lead. You don't have to put the putty on the mainline to counter balance the pop up. All you need to do is mould some putty around the swivel on the rig until it sinks, making sure that the swivel can still spin easily. In theory this could probably be better than lead core as you could balance the pop up instead of it being pinned to the lake bed by leadcore. If you use a heavy ( in weight ) mainline it should be fine and make sure that you give everything time to settle . If the situation is right maybe use a light backlead to pin things down further up the mainline above the rig. What ever you do don't put any putty above the float stop as it could stop the rig working safely. If you do want to use tubing , to stop it slipping up the line on the cast you can either heat shrink it onto the swivel on you lead or use some silicone fitted tightly over the tubing and you lead swivel as well. You can get Tungsten impregnated tubing so you won't have to put all that putty up it either. Good luck, Seleb.

On the free Korda DVD ( catalogue ) Danny shows you how to tie Hybrid properly. The knots need steaming as you tighten them down. It seems like a pain in the backside to me. Every time you tie a knot you have to get the kettle on .

As Nick has said if you use a heavy enough lead you can get away with fishing a slack / semi slack line at any distance due to the lead acting as a pivot point. In general when fishing with mono a slack line is more sensitive than a taught line as any movement will instantly move the indicator due to the line not having being tight and already stretched. Bear in mind though that after 50 or 60 yards even with a tight line your line will be on the bottom unless you're fishing a really deep lake.

So do you fish with a running set up when fishing leadcore ? As from what you've described in your test with the lead getting trapped on the leadcore when it gets kinked, even if the lead slides off it'll still be trailing the leadcore which means if it does get snagged up it will be tethered ? I fish a Helicopter when using leadcore which is why i commented on the lead pulling the bead off the leadcore if there was a breakage above it ,i just assumed you set it up the same as me.

Nick do you not think that the weight of the lead would pull the bead off ? I suppose the lead would have to be heavy enough but i would've thought that the standard 2.5oz that i assume most people use would be enough if the bead was set correctly ? It's not very often that i fish with a lead less than 3.5 ounces but i'll have to test just to make sure.

If you do decide to go for leadcore make sure that if you get snapped / cut off that the fish can rid itself of the leader. IMO the only way to fish it safely is when set up Helicopter style and to make sure that the top bead is loose enough for the rig to pull the bead off the end of the leader if the line parts , leaving the fish with only the rig and not the lead and leader.

Mate if you go into the catch reports section there's a sticky in there that tells you how to upload pictures. I'm curious though. You mention how the how the hair rig is now getting fished out due to the popularity of the rig. Why would you wan to put this new rig that you've come up with on a forum for everyone to see ? Your water sounds a lot like mine though. 40 ft deep on average. very deep margins , and Gin clear water. Although mine's a clay pit and not sand. It seems it's all that's around my way, must be very good clay round here . It'd been nice if it was gravel .

If I'm just fishing a Chod then I'll use bristle filament as you can put a nice curve into it so that it increases the hooking potential of the rig. The curve is there so if a fish comes at the pop up from the wrong direction the rig will spin round and in theory hook in the bottom lip. If you try it in the sink you'll see what i mean. If i was to fish a Stiff hinge rig then I'd use Amnesia for the boom as it'll kick the rig away from the leader and leave your hook section ( Chod rig ) hopefully untangled and ready to do it's stuff. If you used Amnesia for the Chod rig i expect you'll still catch fish but IMO the hook up rate of using a curved Bristle filament hook link would be better.

If you really feel the need to fish this style of rig why not try the stiff hinge rig. It's a lot safer as the actual stiff section that replicates the long curved shank of the hook associated with the 360 actually straightens when a fish is hooked therefore leaving you directly in contact with a normal stiff rig style hook, which is a lot safer IMO. Although i wouldn't use it in weedy conditions or if the bottom isn't smooth as it'll probably sit up dodgy off the bottom.

Yes I've fished there a couple of times. It's a runs water, the average size is about 13lb , whenever we've been we normally have a couple of fish about 16 -17lb, they have a lot of matches on there too. The bloke who runs it isn't exactly a ray of sunshine and the rats can be a pain. There's loads of 'em. If you leave any bait out it'll be gone in the morning. The rats will have it or the sheep. The bottom lake is a puddle and is rammed full of little pasties. There's also a stretch of river which is supposed to hold some good bream and pike. I went one summer and it was like a holiday camp! Caravans and campers around the lake with music pumping out 'til late. We still caught though. It should be OK this time of year . The bailiff is only interested in the cash he doesn't seem to care what else goes on as long as he gets the dough. There could be the odd twenty in there but i couldn't say for sure. If you want to put a bend in you rod and have a social it's ideal . Oh and the main lake is about 1.5 acres. Its not that wide just long. Good luck.

Yes mate you do clip the lead on. I make my own leadcore leaders up and splice a quicklink on mine. You'll save yourself a lot of cash in the long run if you learn to splice your own.

One that i found to be a good match to a clean clay bottom was Mantis Gold. When i bought it, i looked at it and thought what a load of rubbish, that's not going to blend in but it seems to go alright. There's quite a few different brands although i can only comment on what i use, Mantis and the Sufix silt but i should think that'd look out of place. Maybe some kind of clear mono or fluorocarbon. ESP Bristle filament or any other stiff mono might be ok if there are any nuisance species such as crays or poisson chat which i've heard can ruin your presentation in no time at all. I'm sure you'll get loads of varying opinions on what is good and what's not. Have a good holiday anyway.

You've got Seeswood pool ( about 17 acres ) in Nuneaton it's near Arbury hall, not too sure on the stock but i think the biggest in there is around 27lb. Then there's the Little pit in Hinckley which is close to Nuneaton, there's probably 6 twenties in there, the biggest being around the 24lb mark and all the other fish are mid to high doubles. It's not very big though, anymore than 4 people on at the weekends and it's stitched up. Not sure what's out Cov' way but if you do a search on "Willesley" (about 20 acres )which is not too far from Nuneaton you'll get loads of hits. This place seems to be getting really busy though as it's a day ticket water with a good head of twenties. It's done a thirty in the past but i think it's always a scraper. Seleb.

ESP Stiff riggers or Drennan continental boilie hooks are pretty decent for D rigs. If you're going to use a fluoro' or thick mono you might want to use a "bigish" hook. Maybe a 6 in the Drennan or a 4 in the ESP. Personally i don't like fluoro' links much, i prefer bristle filament,. I've been using the Fox stuff but have just switched to ESP (both in 15lb) and it seems much more workable. Hope that is some use to you. Seleb.

Hi london Geeza, i thought the whole point of haveing a hair was so that the bait could be sucked to the back of the carps throat where the pharyngael teeth are, with the hook catching in the bottom lip. It also lets your bait behave more naturally as it has more freedom from the hook, so long as the hair is soft enough. I too use a longish hair, not quite as long as yours mine are about 1.5 - 3 incheslong and i have no problems with hook holds what so ever. It seems that all the magazines you read everyone is using rigs with the bait as tight to the hook as possible, obviously these rigs work but you never see rigs with long hairs anymore. If you look through some old editions of carpworld quite a lot of the rigs were like this. Seleb.