losing fish on the chod

[samcfc]

hi everyone

 

i fished my local lake for the day on Tuesday one on a chod on the line and the other on a bottom bait, after only health an hour i had run on the rod with the chod on it, the fish felt decent and after 2 minutes of playing it in it just dropped off. near the end of the session i hooked another fish on the chod that i believed was quite small but that dropped off aswell.

 

i dont know why i am losing them as im using a 1.5oz lead and a size 6 choddy with a 15mm pop up

 

any advice would be great

cheers, sam

[jamestaylor]

Are you fishing your lead straight onto your mainline? If so the lead is probably bouncing around directly in his face moving the hook more than a longer rig would. Maybe tie the lead on with some light mono (so it can break if the fish gets snagged) with about a foot or so up to a swivel and then have your rig above this so that when playing the fish the lead will be hanging below the fish or can break off all together!

[zammmo]

Only a personal thing and agreed it would not effect hooking but with a 15mm bait I would use a size 8 hook and ensure it was sticky sharp.

Also as light a lead as you can get away with, usually 1oz...

[joshlucas]

i think maybe the lead is hitting the bottom as the fish dive, reeleasing tension and causing the hook do drop out ( providing its barbless)

josh

[jules007]

is there really any need to use the chod? just asking

[stoogi]

is there really any need to use the chod? just asking

 

Of course there is. It's fashionable

[samcfc]

well the lake bottom has very thick silt and the chod presents really good on it,

i might try something form atomic tackle called the chodda droppa where the leads comes off on the take, but before i try that i will try a 1oz lead

 

thanks for all the replies

 

sam

[jules007]

try fishing with an inline lead and a really long rig, say about 18 inches the lead will pull into the silt but hook bait will sit on top if you use a nugget of foam on the hook

[rosstheangler]

Only a personal thing and agreed it would not effect hooking but with a 15mm bait I would use a size 8 hook and ensure it was sticky sharp.

Also as light a lead as you can get away with, usually 1oz...

 

Zamm, why so light? I use a 2.5 - 3oz for most of my chods and have never had an issue.

 

Is there some benefit to going that light?

[zammmo]

Only a personal thing and agreed it would not effect hooking but with a 15mm bait I would use a size 8 hook and ensure it was sticky sharp.

Also as light a lead as you can get away with, usually 1oz...

 

Zamm, why so light? I use a 2.5 - 3oz for most of my chods and have never had an issue.

 

Is there some benefit to going that light?

 

Not sure if there's any benifit, it's what I always use and I have never had an issue...

[jonezy]

I've always thought lead size is irrelevant when fishing in deep silt. Due to the fact that when it plugs in, it probably feels like it weighs a tonne anyway.

[jamestaylor]

the lighter the lead the less it will plunge into the silt!!

[zammmo]

the lighter the lead the less it will plunge into the silt!!

 

Doh you j u s t beat me to it

[jonezy]

Yeah I know, I don't even know why I wrote what I did.

[beanz]

the lighter the lead the less it will plunge into the silt!!

 

 

also a lighter lead will reduce the effect youve mention of the lead bouncing.... short hook lenghts and heavy leads can cause droped runs and mouth damage.

[emmcee]

when i find it necessary to use the chod i always make sure that the bottom bead(the one nearest the lead)is 12inches away from the lead.and i make sure that the bead cannot slip down.i have used leads from 1oz-3.5oz and never had a problem

[newmarket]

i`ve been under the impression that the chod rig is most effective with the bottom bead fished at the estimated depth of the "chod" ?

 

is this the general concencus of opinion fellas ?

 

if that is indeed the case , then i`m perplexed . if the best way to stop the lead bouncing the hookholds is to have the bottom bead a foot above the lead and the lake i fish is covered with an inch or two of silkweed all over the place , what is the best way forward ?

 

my last 24hr session last week saw my son and i hook into 20 or so fish but only 6 were landed , half a dozen of the lost fish actually saw the hook pull at the net.

 

luckily for my boy , one of the landed fish was a 25+ mirror but i initially blamed a dodgy batch of hooks .

 

after reading this thread i`m now having second thoughts ....

 

oh , and before anybody asks WHY it has to be the choddie then its simple .

 

bottom baits , balanced baits etc with various length hooklengths usually produce the odd bite or two . since trying the chod my buzzers dont stop wailing

[emmcee]

if your still confused then why dont you look on youtube or the like and type in jim shelley/chod and see how he ties it,mr shelley is not everyones cup of tea but when it comes to fishing the chod he is the chodfather.

[mattgroves]

I had this happen last weekend end, lost a fish on a chod, was close in too towards the end of the fight, I think the lead being so close was the reason...

 

So, I sliced a teardrop rig-ring onto the leadcore and then added around 6 inches of leadcore the other side, so the setup was:

 

lead - 6" of leadcore - ring - leadcore with chod/beads - mainline

 

This stopped the rig sliding all the way down to the lead.

 

i can't take credit for this idea, I remember seeing it somewhere (mag/dvd/here?) and that sprung to mind as I was sat thinking of a solution on the bank, it worked well as I had 2 more takes on that rig and landed both.

[zammmo]

I suppose we all have diffrent ways of looking at this, personaly speaking I start off with the rig about a foot from the lead.then during the fight the rig moves down to the lead, so much so that the korda sinker that I use ends up half way into the tail rubber.I think this stops the lead moving very much and so the fish is less likely to shed the hook.I am going to try fixing the bottom bead just to see if it makes a diffrence but I think having the lead swinging around will lose me more fish, we will see...

[salokcinnodrog]

Years ago when it was known as the Silt rig I discovered problems with dropping fish on that tyope of set-up, no matter what size lead I used.

 

I felt that the fish is pulling at an angle that is not natural to the mainline, i.e. the lead is at the end, and the fish pulling at approximately 90degrees instead of you pulling directly to the fish. With the Silt Rig I found I had to play fish very carefully and very "slowly", almost no pressure, let them do what they wanted, and if they needed any stick to keep them away from trouble then the hook would often pull, or even worse (naked mainline) the mainline would snap as the swivel wore the line through.

 

Since then as much as possible I avoid Helicopters of any sort, much preferring a more "standard" set-up.

 

As Jules mentions, do you have to use a helicopter style set-up? Unless the silt is really deep and you simply don't have any choice, then a pendant or inline lead with a longer hooklink is often far better.

[jemsue5]

Personally i hate heli rigs as the angle of pull against the lead is all wrong while playing the fish (IMHO) and i wont use this set up unless forced into it due to lake bed conditions. I find the hinged still link fished as a running lead is giving as good catches as the chod and i dont lose fish on it.