Carp Fishing Forum

Steve	Continuing the theme of tackle development, what about some of the smaller items? Nylon line has certainly improved over the years, but it’s not fundamentally different from 50 years ago. On the other hand we now have new materials such as the modern braids. How important do you think these are?
Nick	Braids have no real place in carp fishing. Don’t lift your eyebrows, John!
Peter	No, I wouldn’t say that.
Nick	When it says on the spool "high abrasion resistance" that’s only in comparison to other braids. I could show you some pictures of braid damage to carp, and Brian will back me up on this. I don’t care what anyone says.
Brian	It can cut a carp’s mouth like cheesewire.
Nick	Yes, but that goes back to the old braided hooklengths.
Brian	But people still use them.
John	Braid is braid. Are you talking about Spectra/Dyneema braids or are you talking about the Kryston HPEE type braids?
Nick	There’s a difference between braids as hooklengths and braids as mainlines. I use braid as a reel line for lure fishing all the time. But within carp fishing there’s very little use for them.
John	I don’t use them, but I wouldn’t say there’s no place for them in carp fishing.
Nick	OK for marker floats……..
Jim	I disagree entirely.
Nick	I knew you would! I’ve read the book as well (laughter).
Brian	Multistrand is far less damaging to the fish.
Steve	I know Jim has done a lot of field testing of braids.
Jim	Yes, I have, but the field tests are still going on so I won’t talk about those for the minute. But the hook length braids I think are tremendous products. I don’t agree that they’re any more damaging than mono is. We can only gauge it from our own personal experiences. There’s a lot of anecdotal experience, a lot of anecdotes shall we say, but I’ve caught innumerable carp on braid, and if I were cheesewiring their mouths believe me I wouldn’t use it! It’s as simple as that, and I’m not!
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Brian	Have you tried Spiderwire?
Jim	No, I’ve never used Spiderwire. I’ve use HPEE and I’ve used Dyneema as in Snakebite, the core that is of Snakebite. I mean low diameter line, whether it be braid or mono, has the potential to cause damage when it’s under tension. Of course it does. But I don’t agree that braid is more inherently damaging than mono in that regard. I really do not.
Brian	I can’t really agree with that. When braid became fashionable, on one of the waters I fish, initially an angler was using a fine braid, one of the high strength ones. He was doing very well and everyone went onto braid. Not the high strength ones, but stuff like, well you name it, Hutchinson for example – that was the main one in use. Now, within weeks of that we had carp with split mouths. In fairness to Jim, we did have some carp with split mouths prior to that, but it certainly increased, and sadly it’s continued to do so. Prior to that perhaps 20% of the fish had damaged mouths, now it’s more like 50%.
Nick	I wasn’t referring to braids as hooklengths, but rather as mainlines.
John	That’s very different.
Jim	Yes, entirely different.
Nick	If you look at here at Wingham, we’ve had one angler on here who uses braided mainlines.
John	Did.
Nick	Apart from the inordinate number of times his line broke, if you look through these pictures in the Catch Book, every fish he caught has got scales lifted on them, abrasions on the sides…
John	Danny Fairbrass, in his slide shows, he talks quite a lot about braids. In one he told how he was up a tree at Horseshoe watching a guy playing a fish on braid, a braided mainline, and with no tubing so the line was right the way through the lead. As the fish was turning he could see the scales actually being ripped off. Perhaps ripped off is a bit too strong, but as soon as he saw that he decided to always use a long length of tubing over the braid, which he feels solves the problem. I reckon that’s significant, and it’s one the things that put me off a little from using the Quicksilver leaders. But I think with braided hooklinks. I don’t think they cause any more damage than anything else, quite frankly.
Jim	I think what caused a lot of mouth damage was that we had a fashion that coincided with braid, for up-eyed hooks. The "hair" was tied as a continuation of the hooklink, and the up-eyed hook made this all nice and neat. But the up-eyed hook, by its nature, tends to catch on the side of the mouth, where a carp has the most delicate tissue. If that happens continually, you’ve got ripping, erosion and so on. The best place to hook them is in the lower lip.
John	Do you also think, Jim, that the damage to the fish’s mouth also coincided with the time that much heavier leads started to be used. Longer casting came in without shock leaders, and the number of crack-offs was enormous. I’m convinced that a lot of fish went around picking up those baits, and they actually ripped themselves free. I’ve actually seen them do it snags. One thing people always say is that quite often when a fish is hooked and lost it goes and rests up in snags. I’m sure that in lots of cases where they were actually trailing hook links they’d get tangled up and eventually, when they’d sorted themselves out and got over the stress, they’d literally rip themselves free. I’m sure more mouth damage was done in this way, and of course it did also coincide with probably, larger, stronger hooks.
Nick	This damage also occurred though on smaller waters as well as large ones, where crack-offs weren’t the norm.
John	Well, you take Sutton. Sutton’s a small water. There was a spate of braid being used there, but not for long. Most of the mouths of the Sutton fish, there’s no problem with them.
Peter	Have you ever come across barbel with mouth damage?
John	I’ve come across chub, lots of chub with mouth damage.
Peter	I use braid for chub and barbel all the time. I must say I’ve never had any problems whatsoever.
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Steve	As mainline or hooklengths?
Peter	All the way through.
John	The scaling is different though. Take the big scales on mirrors for example.
Jim	I don’t find it difficult to believe that braid running all the away along a fish can strip scales. But I find it difficult to believe the same thing wouldn’t happen with mono. I mean, I’ve cut myself on mono, when I’m testing a knot or something as easily as I have with braid.
Nick	The braid tends to be finer.
Peter	I remember knocking a few scales off fish years ago when using mono. Using braid for carp, which I no longer do, I never had any problems with it.
Nick	I’ve always been apprehensive having seen the pictures in this book for instance….
Peter	But you’ve got no proof that braid was to blame.
Nick	He was the only angler on here who’s ever used braid. In his pictures, the fish have all got scales knocked off.
John	To me, of more concern when using braid, is that when you knot it, you’ve lost a third of its breaking strain. There’s no impact strength in the stuff – a sudden jerk will snap it. Also if it does snap, it doesn’t rot. It just stays the same forever.
Nick	Good, I’m glad you’re concerned ‘cos it was you who was raising your eyebrows earlier!
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John	That was because I thought you were referring to braid hooklinks, which I can’t see the problem with.
Nick	With hooklinks, if you use a set-up similar to Jim’s line aligners, in all probability you’ll have a piece of tube round the side of the fish’s mouth, and no damage can be caused.
Jim	I think with 9 out of 10 carp, it’s academic what the hooklink consists of as it’s outside the mouth anyway.
Nick	Yeah, modern rigs dictate that you do hook the fish in the bottom lip. Brian catches most of his fish float fishing, and he’s had horrible things happen with braid. You just won’t use them will you Brian?
Brian	No. Most of the fishing I do is very, very close range. Quite apart from the possible mouth damage, at such close range braid’s lack of stretch and impact resistance results in too many lost fish.
Steve	Well, it seems that everyone’s agreed that they wouldn’t use braid all the way through for carp fishing but opinions seem divided on hooklengths.
In the next instalment of the Carp Forum, our panel of experts starts off on the subject of hooks.

On The Bank

Interview conducted by Steve Burke