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Thanks ...

Thanks everyone for your ideas.... Sorry got a but distracted by the Missus giving birth, I am being sent ou of the house twice next week and instructed to go to the lake and get out from under her feet so I will see if we have any more joy although I suspect I will be playing with a zig on at least one rod. Oh and the baby's fine

At the risk of being treated to the flaming torches and pitchfork routine, I do like Korda N-Trap .... Runs and hides behind the sofa ....

Lessthanphil : In fairness there are many bream in my water ( as I have moaned abut in the past a bit ) however as I tend to land most of them in the lake I am fairly confident that they can grab my hook as they do with frustrating regularity. Also the runs were full ones rather than the go stop go stop ones I tend to get with the bream

Unless you get lucky first time , vary the depth till you work out at what depth they are, I am told casting out of a cup helps to avoid dragging the bank out with you with longer zigs .... Try the search function on here there will be tons of posts around the subject

Ok thanks guys that's loads is ideas I will have a play ill let you know Ta to everyone, the bit about changing the hook pattern due to the softness of the mouth wouldn't have occurred to me in a thousand years so I'll give it a whirl

It's an interesting idea although I am not sure personally I would be happy idea of putting shot on the hook itself, as I would be worried that the shot would come loose in the fight and sucked in by the fish. I know that carp will eat also sorts of wierd and wonderful baits but I am not sure lumps of metal are the basis of a healthy diet I may be completely off the mark in my concern as I don't profess to be any sort of expert but I think I might stick to playing with hair length and rig length for now

And my mother said I was unique !!

Beanz : home made boilies of between 14-16mm I tend to catty a few others out and around after my first cast ( not fairbrass amounts usually 10-15 and then top up the area a couple of times during the session stick is mostly for smell ( powders and some very small pellets ). The above is obviously subject to change but this is my normal tactic if I am confident I have fish in front of me, as a rule I won't setup until I see tells and know I have fish there. Carpepecheur : that is a new one on me I have never heard of a breakaway boilie. It sounds very logical but wouldn't the removal of the weight of the bait make the hook easy to blow out ? Although I guess it wouldn't matter on a fixed lead as the lead would provide the weight ...... Or am I being daft ?

Stoogi, Ta for the quick reply, the one change at a time idea I learnt to my cost last year when I confused myself massively we live and learn.... I will have a play with my hair then ( as it were ).

Morning all, I had a very wet session on Monday, was an odd an ultimately successful day when I caught my new PB of 16lb 10 ( mirror ) on a chod rig. However, prior to this I had been " done " no less than 6 times during the course of the day on my more normal setup. I have been fishing my lake for a couple of years now and have found what seems to be the most effective rig ( for me at least ). However on Monday it let me down badly and ad a result I chucked the chod out, although this worked I am interested in fine tuning my more normal rig which usually works well. On each occasion my bait was picked up and I got a short run, I lifted into a fish briefly however it fell off after 1-4 seconds, it seems reasonable to assume that my hook hold could do with some improvement and I was hoping that someone may be able to give some pointers at what may help. My "normal" rig comprises :- Coated hook link approx 3-4 inches ( has shrunk over the last year as shorter seems to work better for me ). Last inch before hook striped away. Size 8 hook arma point barbless ( rule ) with a slightly beaked point tied normal knotless knot style with a short shrink tube over the eye to pull the hook round as an aligned ( about 5 mm in length ). My hair leaves about 5mm between the bend of the hook and the bait, I tend to use home made boilies of around 14-16mm. This then goes onto a running rig with a light inline pear lead. I am reasonably confident that there wasn't a tangle as I cast it out witha small pva stick on the hook link with the hook pulled into the bottom to keep it as god intended ( as it were ) I hope that's enough detail The lake is mostly clay bottomed wih a silty section, I was fishing on a raised section about 3 ft down a meter or so off an island..... Ideas on a post card and any help appreciated ... Ta for your attention... EDIT : PS before anyone says sharp hooks , I should have clarified this was not on the same rig ( I went through 4 as during the day but all basically the above design, but with new hooks etc ). Sorry this essay has been compile on a series of trains during the course of the day so forgot that bit

Fella , he means use a pva nugget wrapped ( or similar ) round the hook to prevent the point tangling ( lick and stick the nugget ) . The stick method he mentioned is a pva stick threaded through the hook link ( if you use quick links ) and the hook pushed ( carefully ) into the stick mix again preventing tangles if you don't use quick links and tie the mainline end of your hook link onto a swivel then you simply hook the stick onto the hook itself, or though I don't do this myself after having to go and eat humble pie with a mate on the other side of the lake after my stick came off mid cast and just missed him. Simples......

Good luck and yes diamond threader was what I meant .... I generally use plain old rig tubing so not sure if heating the tungsten will help ... I do know that if the bore of the tubing is wet you might as well forget it , As for the more general question about how to get freebies out I was thinking about this too it occurs that there is no reason that pva bagging wouldn't work aside from what I have previously mentioned , in order to combat this problem I guess you could deliberately poke a bit of pva foam into the swivel eye to stop anything else getting in there, once in the water this would dissolve theoretically leaving a blockage free eye ...... I think ;-/ Be a lot simpler to be accurate with your catapult though given the option I would have thought

I personally am not a big chod user , but , my understanding is that the bent section with the pop up on is free to swivel around the leader, as such putting it in a pva bag shouldn't affect the presentation as once it melts the pop ups bouyency should pull it up into the correct position, unless you pack the bag so tightly that you get boilie crumb or what ever gunning up the swivel eye.... I guess the best answer would be to try it in the margin first for the sake of your confidence, As for threading the tubing, cut the line at an angle and make sure it and everything else is dry and let gravity help you, failing that if the bore of the tubing is sufficient can you thread a needle in to give the line some end weight , failing that buy the stuff with the threading wire in it There is also a tool I think to help you , but I don't know it's name I'm afraid but I bet some one on here does

I have a pair of txi's never had any problem with rain apart from day one when I had the sensitivity up waaaay too high and rain drops were causing the rod to vibrate and setting off the sensor .. Since then I have learnt to turn them down and they still work great, only problem I have with them is my own stupidity , that is to say buying 2 the same colour which upsets my OCD as I have to set one to the "wrong " colour on the receiver. In reply to Frazerking I agree wholeheartedly, my solution for simplicity is too always use the reciever have the vol turned down to zero on the head units and then can silence both by flicking the receiver off prior to a little line arrangement.