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Your Hair

H

Howard Cooke

Senior Member
Chaps, when fishing pellet and gluing to the hair, do you generally just glue to the hair from your hooklink material (braid say and without a loop tied) or do you tie a separate piece of thin mono to the shank/bend of the hook and glue the pellets to that? Does it actually make a difference to the quality of the presentation/hooking ability (particularly where you tie the mono to the bend of the hook)? Cheers.
 
i just tie an hair rig without as normal but without a loop mate and just glue them on to the strand mate!
 
Very Silver nowdays Howard!!!!.

I tie a loop with powerprobraid the same hooklink material. It gives me an opportunity to glue pellets (normal) or use drilled / meat without rig change. It's soft enough to not affect any presentation aspects.



Graham
 
Graham Elliott said:
Very Silver nowdays Howard!!!!.

I tie a loop with powerprobraid the same hooklink material. It gives me an opportunity to glue pellets (normal) or use drilled / meat without rig change. It's soft enough to not affect any presentation aspects.



Graham
Click to expand...

At least you have some G...

Loop or no loop, it doesn't really matter, just rub the edges your going to glue on a rag or trousers etc, bang some glue on one face, trap the hair between the second pellet and hold for 10 seconds.... Job done!

Steve
 
Steve Williams said:
At least you have some G...

Loop or no loop, it doesn't really matter, just rub the edges your going to glue on a rag or trousers etc, bang some glue on one face, trap the hair between the second pellet and hold for 10 seconds.... Job done!

Steve
Click to expand...

It's a good tip, and thanks, forever faffing about with needles and stops I am.
 
Thanks guys. It seems that you are gluing to a hair from the hooklink material (which certainly makes life easier). Graham- is the power pro (which I use as mainline) a non sinking braid and if so do you just use putty to pin it down or are you less concerned about that aspect? I tend to use sinking braid and so I worry that as a hair, its greater density means it doesn't act like a thin mono or floating/soft braid when a fish is rummaging about near the bait.
 
Howard. Been using powerpro as a hooklink for about 10 years.

I also use it as a mainline on non rocky rivers. Its minimum stretch turns more taps into full bites.

On snaggy rivers such as Wye / middle Severn I use GT80 in 10 or 12lb. But still use powerpro as the hooklink. IMO most rock cut offs occur a couple of feet above the weight.

I would consider it a neutral bouyancy line but never find the need to pin it down or back lead. Then again. I never have a hooklink more than 12" unless I specifically want to fish a fair way under overhangs. (then again I usually try and bring them out) I don't want my bait to faff about but be in line to where my feed is originating (and still doing so with hard pressed in feed)

I superglue for the last 10 years as per my folically challenged pal above :D but wanted to answer as to why I use a hair loop as well. Gives greater bait flexibility and doesn't seem to affect bites. I tend to put a drop on both sides of the elips and press for 11 seconds.:p

Graham
 
Graham- awesome advice that could transform my barbel fishing. It's obviously difficult to have hard and fast rules because rivers are different, conditions change and so on, but I have been obsessing too much I suspect on long hooklinks/backleads etc/ sinking and pinned down line. All of which can make the rig you cast out look like some kind of engineering experiment. I really like the sound of the approach you have outlined. So many thanks. Howard
 
Howard

"but I have been obsessing too much I suspect on long hooklinks/backleads etc/ sinking and pinned down line. All of which can make the rig you cast out look like some kind of engineering experiment. "

You wouldn't be the first........or the last.;)


Graham.
 
Howard Cooke said:
but I have been obsessing too much I suspect on long hooklinks/backleads etc/ sinking and pinned down line.
Click to expand...

Howard, if you are going to the trouble of pinning down the main line with backleads you don't need to use long hooklinks, infact they would be a serious disadvantage. The main reason for using the long link is to avoid the need for backleads and stuff when the fish are spooking from the mainline, they are however very ineffective at hooking fish and many will pick up and drop your bait without you even noticing it. If you are going to the effort to conceal your mainline a short 9" hooklink will see far more pick ups result in fish on the bank.
 
Many thanks Andrew-this makes perfect sense. I guess it comes down to the safe area you are trying to create to avoid spooking the fish and this clealry depends on a number of factors. Generally (although I dont know why!) I have opted for around 6ft-contributed to by both the hooklink length and leader (tubing or Solar Unleaded) and sometimes combined with a backlead. Do you reckon 6ft is, generally speaking, overly cautious ? I say generally as I imagine there will be times when fish are particulallry spooky meaning that 6ft or even longer might be necessary.
 
Howard Cooke said:
Do you reckon 6ft is, generally speaking, overly cautious ? I say generally as I imagine there will be times when fish are particulallry spooky meaning that 6ft or even longer might be necessary.
Click to expand...

Perhaps a little but better to err on the side of caution! On the larger rivers i fish it is possible to get a lot of line down and out of the way by fishing with the rod tip low and some slack given to form a bow without the need for tubing or backleads. I tend to only go down that route when fishing runs tight to the near bank where the angle of line between rod tip and lead makes it difficult to deck using the flow.
 
Is this when you are upstreaming? I can see there how you can use the power of the flow to push the mainline away from the bait/lead. Fishing downstream is a little more tricky I find and so is it generally better to fish a tighter line (so there is less mainline being pushed towards and beyond even, your bait) ? Many thanks.
 
howard ,just a thought, why dont you try 2 ft hook lengh with a sliding loop that way you can use any size pellet on the loop ,dont need any super glue at all,
like the lads above depends if you fish up stream with the riddick bow in your mainline,
 
Howard I haven't posted for a quite a while, but don't make it to complicated. It's simple no need for anything fancy. Just fish straight through and a hook length you are comfy with. I vary mine according to where I'm fishing. Regarding the hair and glueing I use a loop as Graham says it saves faffing about when switching baits to meat or boilie. If I intend fishing pellet all day then I won't use a loop.
Tight lines.

Paul
 
Steve and Graham,

Top Tip: If you use Superglue Gel it only takes 9 seconds. That can be a big time saver on the Wye. :p.
 
The message around keeping things simple has landed loud and clear-thank you all. Still unsure about the whole tight or slack line when fishing downstream? As for glueing/drilling/looping/banding-it looks like its just splitting hairs to me.
 
I have always worked on the KISS principal!

Mainly because I am not clever enough to understand how all these hi-tech rigs work.

I have noticed that some anglers over complicate things to an astonishing extent!
 
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