Any thoughts on hook lengths/

[Neuvy]

Today in sunny W. France I was fishing a largish pond on the Pescalis complex. I caught Carp to 15lbs and Bream to 7lbs, all on light float tackle in about two and a half feet of muddy 'Carpy' water. I've fished there quite a lot and I've had some great days there but I miss quite a lot of bites, occasionally foul hook fish and occasionally deep hook smallish Perch and Rudd due to the bites being timid and me hanging on in case it is something bigger.

For bait I use maggots, corn, pellets, bread and largish cubes of catfood in jelly. The larger Carp and Bream seem to like the big baits so I use an 11 or 10 barbless spade end tied to a foot long length of 5lb nylon and 7lbs main line. I fish over depth with the hook length on the bottom, I'm beginning to think that perhaps I should use a six inch hook length, fished on the bottom and then perhaps bites would be registered earlier and more positively but I chose the long hook length to provide as little resistance a possible before the first lead shot (small ones) are felt by the fish. The Bream are generally slow biters whereas the Carp are ferocious and seem unaffected by my presentation. When I mount the 'dead cat' pieces I use a baiting needle and pull the hook through the evil smelling, soggy cubes, this means that they have a better chance of staying on the hook when small fish attack them but the hook is hidden and maybe when I strike the hook has no chance to catch in a poissons mouth.

The long and short of it is, does anyone think that in shallow water like this a 1' long hook length on the bottom is overlong? I don't fix lead shot to the hook length for fear of compromising the already small dimensions of it, these French Carp are ferocious fighters! Maybe I could put a small shot on the hook length to aid the strike. Many of the missed bites I get are when the float suddenly disappears rapidly with no warning these are generally carp I think going by the Carp that I have hooked. The natural reaction is to strike quickly, on the occasions that I have let the fish run off with the bait the fish has let go and the float reappears, if I had struck I would have missed the bite, maybe they are small fish just holding the bait in their lips?

[Mark Wintle]

I don't think the hook link length is a problem. It's working as far as catching fish is concerned. You'll find that most of the fast bites that you miss are actually line bites. The way that carp feed in shallow water like this means that they'll often come onto the edge of the baited patch, work forward through it until they reach the other edge then scoot off to attack it again from the other side. It's easy for the carp to pick up the line with their fins hence the fast bites.

[Neuvy]

I don't think the hook link length is a problem. It's working as far as catching fish is concerned. You'll find that most of the fast bites that you miss are actually line bites. The way that carp feed in shallow water like this means that they'll often come onto the edge of the baited patch, work forward through it until they reach the other edge then scoot off to attack it again from the other side. It's easy for the carp to pick up the line with their fins hence the fast bites.

 

Thanks Mark, very informative, as I was fishing yesterday I was trying to detect what I thought were line bites, I didn't imagine thought that the violent takes could be line bites but what you say makes sense the Carp's fins are large and hard, they could easily pull the float under and they are aggressive fish when feeding. The sun has just come out so I'm off there again today, I'm going to use the same hook length but put less of it on the bottom, see if that helps avoid the little fish at least.