Acolyte feeder breaking strain

[Keith M]

Yes it should be as easy as just moving the stopper especially as there is only a 1lb difference in bs.

I’ve often done it myself with no detriment.

This is my usual link leger setup when after Barbel & Chub which I can’t remember ever suffering from tangles with.
I use Drennan rubber gripper stops for my leger stops.



Keith

 

[nottskev]

Rather than starting a new thread with another (daft?) question, humour me on hook lengths.

If I tie a hook length for link ledgering of say 15", but then decide I want to try it longer - and given that the difference in breaking strain between the hook length and main line is only 1lb - rather than tie a new hook length, is it not simply a matter of moving the stopper, so that the ledger weight is higher up the main line?

Thanks.
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If I've got you correctly, yes. One advantage of using those little rubber float stops as a stop for light legers is exactly that. You can move them right down to the knot joining hooklength to main line, and up as far as you judge will help. I think that's one of the points James makes in the video. Even with heavier leads and light feeders, I often use the float stops, two or three as needed. Three will comfortably keep a 11/2 - 2 oz feeder in place. If you want to combine light weights with a straight through, no hooklength rig - I often do for big fish close in or in slack water - the stops mean you don't need swivels, loops or similar breaks in the line.

 

[Keith M]

A small tip when using rubber float or gripper stops: I was short of them one day and I now always carry a sewing needle in my tackle box with a few used stops threaded onto the needle which in an emergency I can easily transfer to my fishing line (which is threaded through the eye of the needle). They don’t very often get used because I usually buy 3 packs of stops at a time now, but once bitten and all that

Keith

 

[john step]

Rather than starting a new thread with another (daft?) question, humour me on hook lengths.

If I tie a hook length for link ledgering of say 15", but then decide I want to try it longer - and given that the difference in breaking strain between the hook length and main line is only 1lb - rather than tie a new hook length, is it not simply a matter of moving the stopper, so that the ledger weight is higher up the main line?

Thanks.
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I do it frequently.

 

[Kevin aka Aethelbald]

Thank you all.

 

[silvers]

Slightly late to the thread ...

avon barbel are often in the 5-7 pound range these days ... but as others have said, they can fight harder than double figure fish.
Your acolyte plus feeder rod is best suited to the chub and bream, although will also handle tench and barbel. After all, we catch barbel on float rods and even on the pole!
fwiw I use a max hooklength of 0.2mm diameter (Bayer perlon) for barbel on the Avon - which is the same diameter as your pro feeder mainline. I’ve never felt undergunned with that for barbel to low doubles, in fact I often drop to 0.18.
There are some proper carp in the river, I’ve seen fish that would be approaching 20 ... but never hooked one yet to my knowledge.

The Avon is a bit of an aquarium ... of the small fish - dace, roach and bleak are common. Gudgeon are making something of a comeback. puppy chub abound in some stretches ... and there are also silver bream, skimmer (bronze) bream and “daddy” Ruffe. I caught my first Avon Rudd last weekend, after 30 years of fishing the river, although I understand they are more common in the mill Avon down at Tewkesbury ... so I reckon the fish you are catching are more likely roach.
the common confusions when similar sized:

• roach vs Rudd ... downward pointing Mouth vs upward (Rudd look like they have a Jimmy hill chin)
• chub vs dace ... chub have a really wide mouth and black tint to the fin tips. Dace has A more delicate “pout” when unhooking
• silver bream vs bronze ... silver bream have a much larger eye and a pink tinge to the fins.
• ruffe vs perch ... Ruffe are like a dull green version with no stripes
• gudgeon vs barbel ... gudgeon are a mottled green colour and have 2 barbules only (barbel are golden and have 4). I’ve only caught barbel above two ounces or so ... and that would be a huge gudgeon!

hope that helps
that’s without hybrids of course ... I had a 2 pounder in a Match a couple of weeks ago!

edit ... wrt feeder and link fishing ...
small dace in slow flows are absolute nightmare on the tip.
link works well, but you really need a more sensitive tip than the 1.5 oz, which is the lightest supplied with the Acolyte plus.
But if you’re missing 9/10 bites, shorten the distance from feeder to hook. You may end up at 6” or less.
Good luck

 

[Kevin aka Aethelbald]

small dace in slow flows are absolute nightmare on the tip.
link works well, but you really need a more sensitive tip than the 1.5 oz, which is the lightest supplied with the Acolyte plus.
But if you’re missing 9/10 bites, shorten the distance from feeder to hook. You may end up at 6” or less.
Good luck

Thanks for the detailed post.

I didn't really understand the bit above - about why I might need a more sensitive tip than 2oz (or 1.5oz) - was that specifically for a running link? I think if I do the running ledger again it'll be with luncheon meat and a big hook... and hopefully avoid the nuisance fish.

Drennan lists the wrong tips on their website - the lightest tip that comes with the Acolyte Plus is actually 2oz, then 2.5 and 3oz.

Initially, with a running ledger I was missing a lot of bites, but when I switched to a feeder I'd say I hit 75% of the bites I decided were not nuisance bites. I was pretty happy with that, especially as most were nice sized fish.

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[Peter Jacobs]

Test curve ratings are largely obsolete these days since the advent of carbonactive rods that don't "lock-up" (Carbotecs and Prestons etc.)

The main use of the test curve for modern carbon rods is to establish the optimum line rating to use with the rod . . . . to calculate take the t/c and multiply by 4 (for lowest line rating) 5 (for best) and 6 for highest line rating . . . . . (as a rule of thumb)

Test curves were (and still are) far more applicable for splt cane rods . . . .

 

[silvers]

Thanks for the detailed post.

I didn't really understand the bit above - about why I might need a more sensitive tip than 2oz (or 1.5oz) - was that specifically for a running link? I think if I do the running ledger again it'll be with luncheon meat and a big hook... and hopefully avoid the nuisance fish.

Drennan lists the wrong tips on their website - the lightest tip that comes with the Acolyte Plus is actually 2oz, then 2.5 and 3oz.

Initially, with a running ledger I was missing a lot of bites, but when I switched to a feeder I'd say I hit 75% of the bites I decided were not nuisance bites. I was pretty happy with that, especially as most were nice sized fish.

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Yes exactly ... the link is invariably fished downstream (to where your loosefeed is landing). Any resistance in the tip is therefore immediately felt by the fish, hence superfine quivertips (0.5 oz - 1oz) That allow the bite to develop and you the time to strike.

the feeder is more normally fished dead in front (even cast a little upstream) and with so much weight and so little flow is more like a bolt rig. The point about shorter hooklength if you’re missing bites applies to both, but more so with the feeder.

straight lead and luncheon meat is a great tactic on the Avon. I’ve had some success on stretches up above Stratford by using a Bait dropper to lay down a carpet of micro halibut pellet, then fishing straight Lead and meat over that.

it sounds like you are working it out anyway ... and Howard is a good source of knowledge as well

 

[nottskev]

If you're after the fast-biting small fish on a link ledger, shortening the hooklength down, as Silvers says, is the way to go. but you might be using a feeder at times, and there are ways to set up which result in the small fish mostly hooking themselves against whatever weight is on the feeder. A simple way to do this is to lock the feeder inside a loop on your mainline of a few inches - fish pulls at bait, end of loop stops them short, fish is hooked. But there can be a problem if you hook a decent fish and the feeder can't slide up the line if it goes through a bit of weed etc. A better way, demonstrated in the video, involves running the feeder on a short length of twizzled line (it's explained) between a stop and a knot that can pass through the swivel but is enough of a "bump" to hook the biting fish. The video should make it all clearer than I just did. On my local Trent, a rig with a loop or a "bump" knot makes the difference between missing 3/4 dace bites and coming back with a fish practically every cast.

 

[rob48]

When the feeder was in it's infancy one of the first developments was used for catching dace on the Thames. It was called the Hanger. The apparatus consisted of a short length of lead piping, fixed on the line, which being soft could be cut to the desired spec, and heavy, so no additional weighting was required. By variation of the hook length to suit conditions a self-hooking system was easily developed and the buzz on the rod top (irrespective of it's rating) signalled another fish was ready to be wound in.
Several decades later some carp anglers claimed to have "invented" the bolt-rig.

 

[Kevin aka Aethelbald]

Apologies for playing devil's advocate, but isn't a self-hooking rig for those who prefer to set up the bite alarm and then have a nap? It just doesn't strike (excuse the pun) me as a particularly engaging way to fish. Isn't missing a percentage of bites a part of the game - more challenging but rewarding? Genuine question, because I'm sure I'm missing something. Hope nobody is offended.
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[nottskev]

Apologies for playing devil's advocate, but isn't a self-hooking rig for those who prefer to set up the bite alarm and then have a nap? It just doesn't strike (excuse the pun) me as a particularly engaging way to fish. Isn't missing a percentage of bites a part of the game - more challenging but rewarding? Genuine question, because I'm sure I'm missing something. Hope nobody is offended.
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None taken
But wait til you've had a bite every cast for a couple of hours and have caught 2 dace. I absolutely agree that reading the bites,, timing the strike and all that are at the heart of it. I sometimes fish a carp lake, and I'm the only one touch legering or float fishing. But sometimes an ingenious rig is the only thing to stop you pulling your hair out..

 

[Kevin aka Aethelbald]

...sometimes an ingenious rig is the only thing to stop you pulling your hair out..

If only I hair to pull out! But I take your point. Nice to hear that someone uses float and touch ledger on a carp lake.

 

[silvers]

Apologies for playing devil's advocate, but isn't a self-hooking rig for those who prefer to set up the bite alarm and then have a nap? It just doesn't strike (excuse the pun) me as a particularly engaging way to fish. Isn't missing a percentage of bites a part of the game - more challenging but rewarding? Genuine question, because I'm sure I'm missing something. Hope nobody is offended.
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As a match angler ... I’m rather more interested in maximising the bites to hooked fish ratio
There’s still plenty of challenge in optimising the rig on the day (feed amounts, weight of feeder and length of hooklength). And lots of reward in keeping on top of mood changes during each day. Worth saying that I’m also a noob at feeder fishing, I much prefer floatfishing.

IMO this book is ”the bible” for river fishing feeder techniques. Originally authored by a well known match angler, later updated as web pages after he’d turned to the dark side (Aka speci hunting)

Legering Book - Bob Roberts - Fishing information for the complete angler

www.bobrobertsonline.co.uk

The whole book has More chapters, but those are related to Stillwatere, where techniques have been rather superseded by the Method and Hybrid feeders. It’s sadly long out of print as a paper book.

 

[Kevin aka Aethelbald]

I caught my first Avon Rudd last weekend, after 30 years of fishing the river, although I understand they are more common in the mill Avon down at Tewkesbury ... so I reckon the fish you are catching are more likely roach.

Not sure where you fish on the Avon, but I was halfway between Marcliff and Bidford today and - armed with what you said about the differences (and having chatted to a local angler who has caught rudd on the same stretch and described them to me exactly as you did) - I'm pretty confident that today I was catching both roach and rudd... just a few rudd, but loads of roach... and more perch than the two put together.
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[rob48]

I've caught rudd on the stretch between Cleeve Prior and Offenham, which is just below where you were. They usually feed shallow on the deeper slower pegs.

 

[silvers]

25+ years ago I used to fish the Evesham area quite a bit ... but mainly fish around and above Stratford these days.

well that certainly confirms that it’s an aquarium!

 

[rob48]

25+ years ago I used to fish the Evesham area quite a bit ... but mainly fish around and above Stratford these days.

well that certainly confirms that it’s an aquarium!

Do you fish the Tiddington stretch upstream of the Lido?

 

[Kevin aka Aethelbald]

Okay guys, not worth another thread, but what weight would you guess a chunky 14" perch comes in at? I had one that size last week and three between 11"-14" within about 10 minutes today - measured them off against the markings on my rod, but I've no idea about weights.
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