Making Method Leads Historically, the way to do this is to take an Arlesey bomb, a hammer and flatten it. This method works fine and serves the purpose it’s intended for, but, me being me, I wanted to take it a stage further and make oblong flat leads. This I did quite easily using a similar design as the one for the feeder leads. See Fig. 1a. & 1b. & 1c. However, whilst on the Ribble the other night and not getting many bites due to a steep drop in temperature, I started think about how I could combine a heavy lead and balls of mashed bread groundbait as feed. The obvious answer was method feeders, but I didn’t have any with me and don’t own any anyway, because the ones I’ve seen are too light for use in the Ribble when it’s carrying water. I did however have some flat leads with me and was in fact using one on the pellet rod. I squashed a ball of bread groundbait around it and cast it out and it worked a treat. As I sat watching the motionless tips, my creative head kicked in and asked the question, “Could I improve on this idea and make leads with more grip for the groundbait to adhere to, without sacrificing any weight or the flatness of the lead?”
If I could, it would eliminate the need to carry so much weight in feeders and leads which can be, at times, as much as 4 lbs, as I pointed out in my last article. It would also create ‘Method’ type leads, suitable for fishing the Ribble when carrying extra water. The thought process then went into overdrive and worked out a rough design that included short arms coming off the lead to give it more grip for groundbait. At home the next night out came the tools and the 2 X 1 timber and I started to carve the mould for this lead. Fig 2 shows the design of the mould I made and the finished lead. The process for carving is much the same as I described in my first article using the same tools. However, a sharp Stanley knife is useful and needed for cutting the arm slots in the mould. To remove the  When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission, which supports our community.
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