Missed hook ups

[Michael Radford]

Just Google KD rig Mike... its the future......

Just had a quick look at Korea is it only for pop up and only braid which I rarely use

 

[Jon Frisby]

Just had a quick look at Korea is it only for pop up and only braid which I rarely use

No

 

[Michael Radford]

Just Google KD rig Mike... its the future......

Just tied a korda krank size 8 to 10lb mono via kd method I see the extra aggressiveness but the mono tends to slip down the shank if not under tension would you superglue it I'm not a fan of braid. Do you see a day before seasons end that would be worth the 7o mile trip weather wise for a day time session I don't really know how quickly the middle reacts to bad weather.

 

[Mike Hodgkiss]

Well I googled it Jon , TBH my arthritic sausage roll like fingers couldn't cope with all that faffing about ! I will stick to cramming as many maggots as I can on a sharp size 8 continental boilie hook and hope for the best , interesting reading though , thanks for the heads up .

 

[Mark Harridence]

Just tied a korda krank size 8 to 10lb mono via kd method I see the extra aggressiveness but the mono tends to slip down the shank if not under tension would you superglue it I'm not a fan of braid. Do you see a day before seasons end that would be worth the 7o mile trip weather wise for a day time session I don't really know how quickly the middle reacts to bad weather.

Were you using Kranks on your previous rigs Michael? The curved shank of the Krank is already giving you an aggressive hook shape, even tied with a normal knotless knot. If you're not comfortable with the kd rig, you could always add a kicker/rig aligner to your normal knotless knot to improve the efficiency of it.

 

[Michael Radford]

Were you using Kranks on your previous rigs Michael? The curved shank of the Krank is already giving you an aggressive hook shape, even tied with a normal knotless knot. If you're not comfortable with the kd rig, you could always add a kicker/rig aligner to your normal knotless knot to improve the efficiency of it.

I have only just started using kranks this last 2 trips from a recommendation the rod in question had a standard hook with a kicker but the guts go out of them pretty quick.

 

[Stephen Scaysbrook]

If I were you I would just get back to the basic knotless knot.. Use a decent hook IE Drennan / Esp Cryogen / Korda and plenty of others. I use ESP Cryogen with an out turned eye buy many use inturned eyes. If you tie the knot correctly it shouldn't slip down the shank. Some do use a little dab of super glue but again I don't

In my opinion Barbel are easy to hook up because of the way they feed and there mouth. There are much harder parts about Barbel fishing but if your missing 6 hookups a session it sounds' like you've cracked most of them.

 

[Lee Young]

Hook to small

 

[Marco Tokarski]

i think chub could be the culprit here.

 

[Ian Grant]

May not have been different fish, Could’ve been one very wary Barbel snatching at the bait, try back leading if possible to avoid potential liners, if your hair is long try shortening it, and use a different meat, it doesn’t have to be luncheon hair rigged beefburger works well

 

[Ian Grant]

May not have been different fish, Could’ve been one very wary Barbel snatching at the bait, try back leading if possible to avoid potential liners, if your hair is long try shortening it, and use a different meat, it doesn’t have to be luncheon hair rigged beefburger works well

And on the hair

 

[John McGough]

Possibly chub.
More likely eels if they are about.
If a barbel picks up any half decent rigs the hook goes home.

 

[Jon Young]

Had a similar problem few years back. Decided to target a deep peg on the middle Severn that no one really fished for a month. First day had a couple but missed a couple of slamming bites that nearly had my rod away. Second day similar but missed more bites. Decided to shorten the hooklink to about a foot or so and a heavier lead and hooked every fish. I put my meat on the hook though instead of hair rigging. I always used about a 3 foot hook link before then and iv never gone back to that length other than the odd occasion when I’m not getting bites and and start messing about with longer rigs. This season on the lower Severn I ended up going down to about 10 inch hook links and that’s what brought pretty much all my fish

 

[Richard Isaacs]

I think the problem shouldnt exist and perhaps just go to a conventional bog standard rig that just works
Matching a hook size to a bait is very important because you don’t want the bait to impede the hooking properties by being to large.
A good rule of thumb is to start around 15mm (cube,round, whatever) with a size 10 and for every 5mm you increase the bait go up a size (in 2’s) so 20/8 25/6 etc

How far you drop the bait off the hook bend is a very good question because everyone likes this in different places. Me…. Short hairs. I like the bait to hang and just be making contact with the very bottom of the hook bend.

Just use a knotless knot. Don’t mess with it. The bottom of your knot should not go lower down the shank than where the point of the hook is level with if that makes sense.

You don’t need aggressive hooks or hook angles or hitting hard bolt rigs etc. if your getting liners, increase your hook length or pin line down behind the lead if it’s possible. Barbel fishing is simple as far as rigs are concerned and if you are dropping them frequently or failing to hook them after a screaming run, there is something catastrophically wrong and I doubt little tweaks will fix it.
Go with a hook of your choice, use a basic hair rig, running lead and well sized bait and that is a proven time after time after time barbel rig.

 

[Steve Sorrell]

Pretty heavy mix slow release standard feeder your comments are interesting. I think not living in a Barbel area and getting a trip in every few weeks you tend to stick to what's worked in the past specially when maybe only fishing for 6 bites. Regards different rigs on each rod for some reason I changed to feeder on each probably due to a slow day but I used to swear by lead on downstream rod infact almost all of my fish came on the lead rod, at one time I wouldn't put a hook on upstream feeder just casting every 10mins for a couple of hours then put a hook on with a lead, glad you mentioned it. My fishing buddy died this year and we used to bounce all this off each other.

Only fishing for 6 bites!!!???
That's 4 more that I've had on the Loddon this season

 

[Mike Hodgkiss]

Just re visited this thread . I am a complete Luddite when it comes to all this rig business and have never had a problem with hook ups with Barbel . TBH i reckon 90% of the time they hook themselves and I never use bolt rigs , just a sharp hook , a lead and thats it . Don't even bother with hair rigs , I uses those Stonfo bait mounting rubber things when using meat which in effect mimic a hair rig , rarely use pellets but if I do a bait band suffices , rest of the time its bait directly on to hook . All this said I note that several contributors have said in response that the problem with the failed hook ups was using too small a hook in proportion to the size of the bait . I can sort of see the logic behind that , but how does that thinking [ bigger bait = bigger hook ] work when using huge chunks of meat ? I have used, to good effect, massive chunks of meat [bigger than a match box] with a size 8 or 6 hook , never bigger , the chunk of meat dwarfs the hook size but have never had problems getting the barbel hooked ,either with the hook in the meat or the meat off the hook hair rig style . The logic of the big bait = big hook thinking would require huge hooks 1/0 2/0 size , or am I missing something ?

 

[Jon Frisby]

So many ways to skin a cat and they all work. My thoughts on it are, through experience when having a shoal of Barbel in front of me, getting taps, on the drop bites, pulls and even getting Barbel showing on the surface and still not getting bites etc.
When confronted with this is the challenge of finding the key, to hooking and then hooking every tap and pluck..how many videos have you seen with fish spitting the hook out etc and never registering a tap. Sometimes you have to think out of the box, even though the answer lies in your tackle box...

 

[Richard Gardiner-Smith]

Only fishing for 6 bites!!!???
That's 4 more that I've had on the Loddon this season

Not just me then! 14 sessions on one stretch of the Loddon, two bites, both small chub. I’d probably die of shock if I had 6 bites in a session on there, or a lot of the other places I fish to be honest.