Hook links.

[Troydog]

On one of DaceAce’s excellent videos about roach fishing, I note that he uses a 22 inch hook link, usually of the Reflo brand. I was wondering about the tell tale shot? I only use a 12 inch hook length, also on Reflo 8 or 10 mml, and I squeeze the tell tale shot onto my main line, normally Maxima 3lb BS, just above the hook link knot.
Any advice on hook link lengths please?

[Dave Burr]

I think it's a personal thing Tim. I tend to go for 15" or so with a tell tale about 5" from the hook and a bit more at the knot. I have gone longer when holding back. However, Dave Steuart uses only 5 or 6" on the Test, his thinking being that the bait goes past the fish at speed and they have to make their mind up too quickly to check your heavier line above it. He's caught more fish than most people so it works for him.

Mentioning 'holding back', Dave S doesn't. He just lets the bait go through at the speed of the current but I've always found checking the flow occasionally to increase bites more often than not.

[Moley]

I think it's a personal thing Tim. I tend to go for 15" or so with a tell tale about 5" from the hook and a bit more at the knot. I have gone longer when holding back. However, Dave Steuart uses only 5 or 6" on the Test, his thinking being that the bait goes past the fish at speed and they have to make their mind up too quickly to check your heavier line above it. He's caught more fish than most people so it works for him.

Mentioning 'holding back', Dave S doesn't. He just lets the bait go through at the speed of the current but I've always found checking the flow occasionally to increase bites more often than not.

Fatty fishes the Test on the stretch above Mr Steuart but varies the hook length between 15 inches down to six inches depending on flow. Tending towards the shorter length in faster flows on the main river and longer on the slower back streams. This is of course when using the stick float, generally a largish one with a bulk and two droppers. The bulk is usually an olivette appropriate to the float size and the droppers No.8's as any smaller becomes hard to put them on the line at my age. The stick floats are made by Drake Floats and are biggish but well balanced and are really good in stronger flows.

Holding back in really strong current is, to the mind of Fatty such as it is, mostly pointless and best fished at flow speed because any slowing of the float merely brings the bait to the surface. On slower water holding back, especially for roach is the best way to buy a bite on hard days. The late Vic Beyer accompanied by Pete Shadick watching Fatty long trotting exclaimed 'Moley you don't trot the stream, more like lurch it!'

Probably there is truth in that statement but it works.

Very rarely does Fatty put shot on the hook length because with the fine lines he uses it is all too easy to kink it and consequently weaken it.

When the water is really weedy, a light chubber fished waggler style with the shot round the float or preferably weighted by copper wire round the stem and no shot on the line at all is the way to go. Fishing this way cuts down the number of times the float is weeded because there is no weight on the line with bait a large chunk of bread covering the hook. Should you get fouled up, very often by walking down to the hung up float and giving a swift tug frees everything up. If not by using a lighter hook link all you loose is the hook if care is taken and you don't go berserk like the Ancient Mariner who after half an hour of frantic pulling, tugging and turning the air blue with language that would make a Docker blush, javelined his rod into the air and down into the river, screaming like a banshee. Amazingly this action somehow freed the hook up, with his rod floating down river at a great rate of knots. More agonised screaming and carrying on ensued.....honestly who said fishing is a quiet pursuit

Any way to conclude this example of an unhooking technique not frankly recommended for the sane, Fatty had to put down his pie and slurping tea and cast over the javelin retrieving all intact, whilst declaring to the Ancient Mariner ' You really are a complete Berk.'

Fortunately the pie and tea were unharmed until scoffed and slurped.

As ever,....

Moley

[Olly]

I think Dave - my "tutor" when I frequented his shop, Edgar Thurston & Co, in East Twickenham - uses the Thames shotting pattern. I am sure Bill Rushmer also does on many occasions along with the 'Francis Francis' puntsmen. Bait was bread/crust trotted - held down by the style of shotting.

I agree with Moley about hook lengths being "too fine" on occasions for a shot.

[Troydog]

Well thank you gentlemen. It is fascinating how some of the experts differ. I know Dave Steuart advises letting the float run through at the speed of the current, whereas Capt Parker is very much a ‘holding back’ man. As Dave Burr says, it is a personal choice and both methods probably work some of the time on some waters, but not always. Isn’t that why we go fishing??
It is probably the same with hooklengths but I agree with Moley about trying to avoid putting shot on hooklengths - especially the fancy super thin ones like Reflo. But if you use 22 inch hooklengths, you either shot the hooklength or leave your dropper that distance from the hook.

[Catfish.017]

Benny Ashurst used to recommend an 18" hook length. He believed anything shorter increased stiffness near the hook thereby making the bait behave unnaturally. I've never been sure that the difference is noticeable, particularly when you consider the fine lines he used anyway . On the subject of holding back I would think that Moleys 'lurching' method would give the most natural presentation given that water does not flow down a river in a straight line but rolls over and over itself, hence the boils on the surface downstream of a riverbed obstruction. A bait that rises and falls as it moves through the swim would mimic the loose feed quite well I would have thought.

[Dave Burr]

When I talk about hooklinks Tim, I'm not usually on about ultra-fine, pre-stretched and brittle stuff. On the Wye I am always expecting a lunging great barbel to set off with my hook in its mouth. Alas, I am not a great barbel catcher on the float as years of elbow and shoulder issues usually mean that by the time they get on my feed, I am resting my limbs and have a lead or feeder on. I digress. My mainline will be about 6lb and the leader 4 or even 5lbs. It may not seem 'sporting' but the dace, chub, trout and grayling don't worry.

When roach fishing, it's a different game and I use the light stuff, but not on the Test. Dave always asks for a 2 to 3 pound differential between mainline and hooklink and I always err on the 2.5 to 3lb leader due to the damned trout and their sharp teeth. It's funny, I grew up like so many on here, with the strong belief that the leader must be as light as you can get away with and the float as light as possible for the conditions, indeed, there are times when it is essential. But I've caught 'shy' biters on big baits and substantial line when they have dragged a heavy float around like a hungry pike. This is especially so when using silkweed or worms.

It's that old angler's question, do we catch them because or in spite of our methods?

[Olly]

From another thread - my ledgering hook length is a 'cubit.'

[Dave Burr]

From another thread - my ledgering hook length is a 'cubit.'

It's also what I do with luncheon meat

[Troydog]

Yes Dave, its a different ball game on the barbel. I had about ten years on the Lugg barbel and it was wonderful to catch them on the float. I also fished heavier then, with 5lb Maxima on my Rapidex centre pin with 4lb Maxima hooklength. The telltale in those days was a BB some foot or so above the Drennan Super specialist hook. Size 14 for four red maggots. Lovverly jubberly .....