Angling Lines blog

Michael wrote:

This is going to be my 1st adventure of France. I have been carp fishing a few years and know the basics that get me by in the UK. I was looking for advice mainly on essential fishing in France obviously a lot of the fish are much bigger than what i catch. Do I need braid if so where can i find info on braid never used it before and don’t know much about it? What’s the average rig everyone is using there and what size hooks etc etc, any advice you can give me for my 1st trip would be great.

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On many carp waters the fish are well aware of fishermen’s lines passing through the water. This can impact so much on fish that in some swims fish will not feed until the swim appears safe and clear of lines. They have associated lines with danger often from many years of angling pressure. But what can you do about it?

Seeing your line passing through water can really hit your confidence. If you can see it, the fish certainly can. Carp eyesight is not to be underestimated! How often have you observed fish heading for your swim, only to see your line and turn around? Heavy lines are often required in many situations, so trying to use ‘invisible’ like very fine ones or certain ones with less abrasion resistance makes things hard. There are a couple of new lines that claim to be invisible in water. The trouble is that even these can go along the lake bed and form a barrier of line across the water, where the bottom dips and rises, or where going over weed beds. continue reading…

Long range casting is something we all want to achieve. Modern carp gear is better and more efficient in this area than ever before, and relatively modest rods and reels are capable of huge distances. So for most anglers you don’t necessarily need the hugely expensive tackle to improve your distance. A fine tuning of your set up and a good technique will see the average casters putting in pretty good performances.
One of the main ways you can add distance to a cast is by dropping your line diameter down to the 30/100 or 28/100. Now line diameter is a far better indicator than breaking strain. Forget the stated strength; diameter is what you should be looking for on the label. Good lines for this include Shimano Catana, and P-Line.. These lines will typically be stated at 8-10lb but will normally break far above these weights.
When you reduce line strength to these diameters it is imperative you use a shock leader to avoid cracking off. There are several types of material you can use for leaders. continue reading…

Filling You Reel with Line:

One thing that we all need to do in angling is fill our reels with line.

Fixed spool reels have an inherent tendency to twist the line, eventually making casting impossible. This twisting is down to the clutches fitted on the reels and is compounded by the technique in carp fishing of letting the fish take line from the clutch when we get a run. Smaller baitrunner type reels are the worst culprits, and when I’ve been getting lots of action the line soon twists pretty badly.

Over they years I have used a number of Methods for spooling up but have never really settled on a single method. I’ve tried using a bankstick through the spool, placing the spool on the floor with a weight on the top… etc, etc.

Now replacing the line is a bit of a chore but I was shown a couple of things that have made it easier.

The first piece of kit I would recommend you invest in is a Berkley Line Stripper. In the past I’ve tried a number of things to enable me to remove the line quickly from three or four spools, but let’s face it, its a pain!!

I’ve tried cutting it off with a blade, pulling it off with my hands, but neither were satisfactory until I was shown the above tool. It will strip your reel in not time. I thoroughly recommend these items of tackle.

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