{"id":8009,"date":"2012-04-07T03:25:06","date_gmt":"2012-04-07T02:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/?p=8009"},"modified":"2024-11-28T13:28:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T12:28:13","slug":"carp-rig-thoughts-why-i-favour-heavy-leads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/carp-rig-thoughts-why-i-favour-heavy-leads\/","title":{"rendered":"Carp Rig Thoughts – Why I Favour Heavy Leads"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Chas Cook, owner of Vaux<\/a><\/p>\n

In my opinion when carp fishing, the most important factor after the hook is the lead set-up. \u00a0I very much favour a heavy lead… & here are the reasons why;<\/p>\n

Many anglers sit behind their rods and their non-moving swingers unaware that carp are actually mouthing, and sometimes moving off with, the baited hook length… or are backing off testing for leads.\u00a0 Because light leads (1oz or 2oz) are normally being used, the carp feel only a slight resistance, giving them the ability to discard the baited hook length.\u00a0 This results in single beeps and twitchy little takes, which may in turn lead to a 20lb’er on the bank, but not the larger thirties or forties.<\/p>\n

Carp which are slightly pricked by the weight of the lead tend to stay on the spot, turning round and round looking for any available stick, rock or weed to wind the hook length, lead and mainline around to pull the hook out.<\/p>\n

Fishing light leads also means the lines are slack.\u00a0 Anglers who retrieve their gear to rebait can often find an horrendous \u2018birds\u2019 nest\u2019 of line, sometimes up to 2m-5m of line, wrapped around the hook length which occurs as a result of slack lines and carp making efforts to shed the hook.\u00a0 If the carp manage to snap the mainline, then they will drag this nest around with them.\u00a0 Anglers are puzzled and horrified to see this.<\/p>\n

In addition to light leads and slack lines, completely slack bait runners and swingers or bobbins that are hanging completely loose will lead anglers to disregard the slight rise of swingers and a single beep because they do not think it signifies a take.\u00a0 A series of occasional beeps on a slack bait runner and bobbins could mean that a carp has been lightly pricked and possibly been on for a very long time, especially if the angler continues to ignore the beeps, and this inevitably leads to a \u2018birds\u2019 nest\u2019 appearing with the fish when it is landed.\u00a0 If the carp sets the hook against an obstruction on the bottom, it can cause some of the worst mouth damage to fish to be seen.<\/p>\n

A concept which is not always appreciated by many anglers is that takes from the far bank can come backwards towards the angler, a “drop back”, which can result in their mainline snagging on any obstruction on the bottom. \u00a0Although this\u00a0may<\/em> set the hook, if it does and the mainline is snagged, the angler is often cut off.\u00a0 If the swingers are slack, the carp may move a considerable distance from the far bank and will, at some point, find some obstruction on the bottom on which to lose the hook.\u00a0 Invariably light bobbins or swingers do not pick up backdrops and heavier swingers just move the leads.\u00a0 I’ve also noticed that bite alarms that do not have a roller system within them are very poor at picking up backdrops.<\/p>\n

Carp love to hang mid-water under trees on far banks, so anglers tend to fish to them, heavily baiting the area and thus attracting more carp.\u00a0 Although anglers using light leads will drop their end tackle to the far bank, they are not actually fishing to it because when they wind down, the light leads are actually dragged off the bank.\u00a0 This may lead to the leads becoming trapped by obstructions on the bottom.<\/p>\n

Some anglers then attach heavy backleads to their mainline which increases the problem because, if the lead is not already snagged, it is dragged back even further. \u00a0If the backleads are sinking into silt it actually cancels out any movement at the swingers.<\/p>\n

Backleads are not usually used when snag fishing and snag fishing technically includes fishing to far banks, to islands and where the topography of the lake bottom is uneven with gravel bars, mussel beds, undulations as well as lily pads and other types of snags. \u00a0Consideration should always be given as to when or when not to backlead.\u00a0 Possibly 80% of the anglers I have asked why they are using backleads tell me that it is convenient as they are worried about a hooked carp passing through their lines.<\/p>\n

So in my opinion larger leads, tight lines and tight clutches should be used so as not to give line to the carp in order that it cannot make the snags and cut itself off. \u00a0However, once the lead has done its job and set the hook there’s no reason to keep it during the fight…<\/p>\n

& that’s why I designed my “Lead Drop” rigs… which you can read about here.<\/p>\n

Fishing Holiday<\/a> at Vaux<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Chas Cook, owner of Vaux In my opinion when carp fishing, the most important factor after the hook is the lead set-up. \u00a0I very much favour a heavy lead… & here are the reasons why; Many anglers sit behind their rods and their non-moving swingers unaware that carp are actually mouthing, and sometimes moving off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1074,942],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-controversial","category-carp-rigs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8009"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29037,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8009\/revisions\/29037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}