Mark87

I have a friend who fished the Leeds and Liverpool canal, he does quite well on those small hookable pellets you get in a tub, float fished over micro pellets. Could be worth a try.

I use the rig at the bottom of this page: http://www.gofishing.co.uk/Angling-Times/S...ream-in-rivers/ Only the bead runs on the loop, so the feeder can slide right up the line in case of a snap off. I like the fact that it is easy to tie, tangle proof, and I can change the hook length really easily.

I'm going drop-shotting on the River Thames. Hopefully there's a big Perch with my name on it. As you said, June 16th falls on a saturday this year, so I expect to see plenty of people out on the bank.

I have a couple of Okuma Octanas and, for the price, I can't fault them.

You might have seen it already, but there's a good instructional video here: Youtube Video -> Looks like another one of those lures I just NEED to have.

According to the savage gear ecatalogue: Soft 4Play 9.5cm #1 - 2/0 - 3/0 Soft 4Play 13cm #4/0 - 5/0 - 6/0 Soft 4Play 18cm # 6/0 - 7/0 I hope this helps.

Must give drop shotting another go, I had given up on the method after 2 1/2" shads were doing the business. I only used the DS rig earlier on in the year though, maybe the cooler weather makes all the difference.

I could use a few of these posters, as I caught a couple of polish fisher people with 5 dead pike on my local River Thames. I doubt it would do any good though, these people are fully aware that what they are doing is wrong

I'm sure I will be sat on a river bank somewhere, watching a pike float gently bobbing in the current. I can't quite bring myself to pike fish throughout the summer months though. Not for reasons of fish welfare or poor conditions, as I have recently witnessed some very large pike being caught out of my local weir pool on hot summer days, with no ill effects to the pike. I just like to enjoy each aspect of our sport as the seasons change. Now, I think my pike tackle need to be meticulously cleaned and arranged. again....

Thank you for all the suggestions. One thing I have noticed about this braid it the fact that it is flat in profile. I was previously using power pro, which has more of a round profile and did not have any problems. Would a braid with a flat profile be more prone to twisting? I purchased the fox rage braid with my new Okuma reel, only because it was much cheaper than power pro. Maybe I shouldn't have been so cheap and just gone for the PP in the first place.

Most of my Angling this year has been lure fishing on the River Thames, using both drop shotting an small shad tactics, with perch as my target. These methods have been proving quite successful, although I am having some serious braid twist issues, which I am hoping you kind folks could help me out with The problem starts after about half an hour of casting, leaving the first 6 feet of my line is very badly twisted. This line then ends up wrapping around the tip of my rod and I have to de-tackle, run the line through my fingers to untwist it and start again. A have tried to adding more swivels to my traces/fluorocarbon dropshot leaders, though this doesn't appear to help. The braid I am using is "Fox Rage Soft Steel". If anyone has any experience with this braid or has any suggestions on reducing line twist, I would be very grateful to from you. Mark

Take a look at Ultima's range of products. I have been using their power match and power silk, both seem to have consitant diameter and breaking strain.

Just go back from a quick 2 hour session this evening on the Thames. Tackle wise, I opted to use a small 3 inch berkley minnow fished dropshot style on 15lb fluorocarbon. Within the first hour I had already hooked and lost 2 pike. The first one spat the lure back out at me and fluorocarbon was badly frayed, so I changed it. The second pike bit straight throught the line, I didnt even feel the take, everything just went slack. I changed over to a wire trace and had 3 perch to finish off, just as the light was starting to fade. I think I will always use wire now as my perch to pike ratio isnt looking to good lol. None of the fish were very big, but I could have sworn they we 2 pounders judging by the fight they gave on light lure tackle Anyone else been catching on the drop shot?

Perch are my primary target, I was only using the wire as I have a fear of leaving a pike with a hook stuck in its gob. Originally I crushed the barbs on the hooks I had, in case I had a bite off, but this only lead to me loosing 90% of the perch I hooked. I'm still catching with the wire, although I fear it may be putting the perch off. I really haven't tested it for long enough to say whether it's effected my catch rate. knottable wire sounds like the answer, let us know how you get on.

I find the easiest way to use a drop shot rig with wire is to set up your wire and crimp sleeve as normal, but pass a length of mono through the back of the eye of the hook and into the crimp. You may need a larger crimp than normal to accommodate the extra piece of line, but this doesnt seem to effect the strength of the connection. I hope this helps