Quest Baits Blog

With all the rubbish weather we’ve had this winter carp fishing has had to take a back seat for me. It’s been a good opportunity to use that non-fishing time to maintain and look after your tackle and do all those jobs that might not otherwise get done. One of these is changing your mainline.

I have been using fluorocarbon for a few years now and this tends to be relatively expensive and also prone to line twist. To save a lot of money instead of simply throwing away the line that’s been sitting on the reels I just reverse them.

The simplest way I find to do this requires two bank sticks and an open space, like a playing field. Tie the end of the line to one stick, walk away paying out line and then at about ‘half way’ put another stick in the ground. Loop the line round the second stick and walk back to the original one. When you get to the end of the line, cut it off, retie the original line from the other end and reel in. This has the added advantage of removing some of the line twist on the way back in.

A couple more points that help; continue reading…

Steve Vaughan asked;

Could you recomend a good strong easy to tie shock leader knot for attatching a 45lb braid shock leader to 12lb mono mainline.

When using braided leaders I use a reverse of my combi-rig  knot 

Instead of making the initial loop with the nylon as illustrated in the video clip make the loop with the 45lb braided leader and form the knot with the 12lb nylon.

Best fishes,

Shaun

Ian Hillier asks;

“Hi my question is what is the best knot to tie a fused flurocarbon leader to a
flurocarbon main line and is it safe to do so?”

Hi Ian

I’ve been using fluorocarbon mainlines and leaders for several years and really rate them highly. I prefer fishing slack lines and feel confident with the presentation you get with the line and leader pinned to the lake bed.

I would personally always use a palomar knot with flourocarbon. Strangulation knots weaken the line and are a waste of time. I use the palomar knot for tying hooks, swivels and yes, leaders to flourocarbon mainline.

It doesn’t matter what type of leader material – leadcore, safe zone, fluorocarbon - providing there is a solid loop in the end. This knot is so easy to tie and has never let me down in literally decades of using it.

Elie

When winter pays a visit to the lake I’m fishing, the water almost overnight becomes as clear as glass making me pay some thought to the line on my spools. 

When choosing line I soon came to realise you have to have a good look around as there are so many to choose from.   

I’ve been using Xline for some time now and I wanted a change so I decided to look at red mist line from TF Gear. 

After a fair amount of research on the product and discovering that red is the first tone to disappear in the colour spectrum, making red mist almost invisible in water, I was more interested in giving it a chance and ordered my sample.  

When it turned up I was very impressed, a nice smooth silky feel to the line and a good knot hold I soon poured hot water into a bucket and dropped the spool of line in there for 10 minutes, getting rid of any memory in the line.  

 Red may not be the first of choices for a ‘serious’ carp angler and definitely goes against the norm but slowly it is tempting more and more of us into giving it a chance and why not? 

After being convinced to put my waders on and half freeze to death, during a recent winter session, and stand in the lake for that prize picture I was intrigued as to what kind of temperature the water itself was.

This gave me the idea of pinching the ray temp gun out of my husband’s kitchen.  It has a built in laser and has proven to be extremely accurate in the lake each time I go fishing and more importantly each time I have landed a fish.

This is beginning to help me build up a good picture of the year to come and hopefully in time to come help determine the ideal water temperature.

I’m sure each lake has its own characteristics and differing reactions to differing water temperatures but never the less spending short periods of time researching a water could pay off greatly in the long run.  

Best wishes, Samantha

By Jamie Simpson

How often should you change your line and what causes the deterioration in it’s stated breaking strain?

I changed my main line prior to my recent trip to France and have already stripped it back off to be replaced.

Replaced after just one week may seem excessive to some people but if you think about it thats 7 days solid angling, fishing near overhanging trees with some underwater debris. Not to mention a few Carp played on it and in hot sunny conditions.

I use Berkeley Big Game for most of my general fishing and at around £10 for 1700 odd meters, it’s not exactly expensive. A useful tip is to have backing line on your spool and only replace around 250 meters. The reason for 250 meters is that it is well past my maximum casting distance and if I have to strip back a few yards near the hooklink then I have a bit to play with. This also applies to if I have a crack off for some reason. continue reading…

Roger Mills asked ;

Hi Shaun, I have booked a few days at Olivemead lake in May with my Grandchildren.  There are a few 30s in the lake & I understand the minimum line allowed is 15lb, The largest line I have ever used is 12lb. Has anyone any advice on the best 15lb line to use? I perfer not to use braid.  Regards Roger

Hi Roger,
I would guess that you will have a lot of different answers to this one, as it comes down to personal choice and what you have confidence in.

For many years I have used the Gold Label Tackle Pro Gold line (not the pro-clear). This is a line which is underated strength wise, by this I mean that although it states a breaking strain of 12lb it actually breaks at about 18lb even when knotted.

I have found that this line has excellent abrasion resistance and knot strength having landed carp to 49lb 14oz and catfish to 64lb 8oz on the 12lb b.s. (it really is tough as ‘old boots’). I also like the low visibilty weed green colour, which has it states is not very visible in the water.If you must use the 15lb then i would not hesitate in buying the nearest breaking strain in the pro gold.

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