Now then, i am new to dedicated carp fishing but have been fishing for 40years, this afternoon i was going to go to my local tackle shop to purchase some ESP leadcore leaders but after reading these horror stories i changed my mind.
Apart from the net my only reference to carp rigs is the "Fox Guide To Modern Carp Fishing" in which many of the set ups use leadcore leaders giving the impression of them being the "Bees Knees"
Many of the rigs in this book also look over complicated, in all my years of fishing simplicity has always been a key to my bait presentation.
My first ever big carp, a near twenty common and a low double mirror were caught a few weeks ago on a simple small inline fox method feeder, tied to 8lb Sensor mainline with a 10 inch 6lb Preston hooklink, simple effective and IMO reasonably safe.
Another thing, i cant get my head around this practice of using hooklinks of higher breaking strain then the mainline, this means on a snap off it will always be the mainline.
This is not the case in all my other forms of fishing, so i can only presume that this a desirable trait in modern carp rigs and fishing.
Ian.
Ian.