I am struggling a bit at the moment and like you do, I am being critical of my approach to see if I can make any little tweaks. Now, I am fully aware that this may be old hat however, it’s not a subject that I have really heard discussed, or written about. I am starting to have real worries about line colour.

I am fishing a water that is extremely clear and deep, and quite often there may be a big variation in depth between the spot being fished and mid water. For example, I may be fishing in say 6ft of water but have depths of 24ft or more half way between the rods and the baited spot. Combine this with prolific marginal weed growth and numerous snags I don’t think it practical to use back leads or excessively slack line i.e. hugging the lake bed. This leaves a situation where it is unavoidable to have line passing through the swim mid-water.

Rightly or wrongly I chose a clear line thinking that it would be the most inconspicuous. Indeed when tested in the margins my rigs are all but invisible (to the human eye at least) with only the bait really showing up against the lake bed. It’s only when viewing the line passing through mid water that things start to look not so great. In fact in certain high light situations my line looks almost like a laser cutting through the water.

Reflecting upon this, it occurred to me that half of my captures have come at night, the remainder in low light conditions or from fishing right in the edge. To make matters worse, a member who visits the lake far more often than I can, and as such witnesses a far greater number of captures, commented that hardly anything is caught at night. Now that’s either coincidence, and I am just getting paranoid, or I have effectively already answered my own question?


Does anybody have any opinions or real experience, have I already answered my own question, should I switch to a dark line? What do you think?

you could try locking up like guitar strings for half n hour then slacking off..had some strange findings numerous times on one particular rod regular...picture this,marker 40 yards out in 4ft of water...bed going down in dips to 4 n 3/4 foot between tip and marker...then weed up to the surface inbetween too up to the surface...6`sh foot past the marker to the left of it was the lead..on four occasions had onetoners when not expecting one...havin a pee..looking in the margins a few swims up etc..so you could say a longer screamer than normal with no breaks in the screamers at all..yet when struck all fish were to my right and before the marker...strange ..nowt but line being ripped off and i`m further than my marker and the fish went in that direction...couldn`t get my head round it at first..then came to the conclusion the fish belted out on initial run..then in the run through line cutting through all and everthing..the fish chose the path of the fastest...ie out a bit..then beared left in an arc because it was faster and easier in the panic ...and must of done a full circle in front of me before i struck...which leads me to believe the fish wouldnt had done so had i not been rock solid for the first half hour...locked up,build up on exposed line after time,then slack off and the heaviest line sinks which pulls the line down and as if tight..the only explanation i can find...funny you should mention line too..just got a tin of that subline of kordas in brown..X-lines prices are daft now...and thought if this sinks like a brick like it says..it`ll be nice to have slack brown for a change..let you know how that goes..!
About fishing slack over deviations on lake bed..try tight first then slack off after some time...reckon its the old table cloth trick andy!

There is no doubt in my mind that a hooked fish 9 times out of ten will panic into taking the easy option if it comes across solid resistence at the point of being hooked. When fishing to snags on a free spool the fish nearly always make for the snags. Fish the same spot locked up solid and its amazing how many fish instantly kite away from the restence out into open water.

Not exactly sure what you are getting at by having the line bow tight for the first hour? Are you suggesting that you make the line more obvious initally hoping that it may fool the fish later when the line isn't quite as obvious?

No andy,i lock it up tight first just to get the line bedded on weedy waters and in strong currents...then let off to slack once line/current as cut itself in so to speak..found out that less line needs to come off the reel to become completely slack after... than with feeding some off at the start...so reckon less line coming off and still being within a twitch from a fish...the added residue built up on line in open between contours then sinks because its heavier now and then flows into the gullys with ease yet keeping in touch with lead as if tight lined...does that make any sense ..where you didnt want to fish slack lined..which with added residue slack line may really be tight but not up in the water but now bedded!

Ah now I see where you are coming from. To be honest though, getting the line to sink is not really the issue. If I wanted I could pin it down nice and tight, but I really don't think this is a practical option in many situations on this water. Although after writing that, it has just occured to me that there could be some milage in using some sort of back lead 6ft or so back from my rig. That should at least pin the business end down while still being able to keep my line out of the weed and numerous snags in the near margin.

Andy, why not try a flying back-lead at the distance you suggest......?

Flying backlead or a standard one slid right along the line (dependng on distance of course) seems the most sensible and best compromise with the snags/weed and depth variations.
Have a look at the weights used for Carolina rigging soft plastic worms and compare them to most flying backleads.....

rods up high like river barbel fishing..guitar strings for half n hour..then slack off but this time only slightly so no bend in rod...reckon the last 30 yards out of 70 will be along the bottom nicely..and the close in bit will be well out from the snaggs and you can fish heavy bobbins for dropbacks

None of the above addresses the main point...line colour...buy som TFG red line(first colour to disapear in water) and spool it on 1 rod. Just had 2 nites on St Johns and a lad using red main line had 3 fish in his stay fishing over maize,it looked cack but worked for him,and if it worked on St Johns that see's massive pressure then ive an open mind.

j.

`None of the above addresses the main point...`


Thats nonsense...line collecting gunk mid water will be easier for the fish to spot..and colour of line wont matter a jot..whereas to lying on the bottom where it will be camouflaged extra now with congregated gunk..dont close your mind

Fair point Timbs...i was focusing on the advice about using flying backleads,and if Andy doesnt have flying backleads in his fox box and fails to understand the use of said product then i'll eat yours,pauls and anyone else who advised the use of backleads shorts !

The use of a flying back lead is part of my armoury everytime when casting and is best when a pva stop knot is placed just on the main line,12inch's,passed the leader knot...ie the whole leader is pinned down,it also aids distance on the cast,cutting down on a bow of line on the wind as the lead dont travel so far,stops the creation of "2" sections of line,from the reel to the back lead,then back lead to lead,in my case this is Xline 17lb,the main line is 12lb sensor,22ft xline on the deck,which we are led to believe is pretty much undetectable(if it's a weedy lie i'll use Fox illusion 15lb,the sensor is fished semi slack,2ft pulled from the spool,let it settle and put on the indicator and adjust,as we all do,but for Andy to achieve good indication,i presume he feels he needs a tight line,i know if im fishing 80 yds plus there is a need to have some weight to pull over the delks if you want em to work properly and aid detection at range,over 20 ft of water depth if you dont put a stop on your line for the lead a back lead may work against you,creating a very odd angle of line that the fish encounter.
Take the pepsi challenge Andy 15 quid do the test fish a tight red line and show us the photo's when bag you oooop lad.

j.

Red line does not become invisible in water, it becomes black/greenish as red is lost in the underwater spectrum (over 10 feet).

Thanks Octopus, not just for getting the post back on topic, but my mind also. Even I was getting distracted by all the back lead talk. I will have a look at the TFG red line, sounds like a real leap of faith though. I suppose the acid test will be if the fish bump into it.

Perhaps I should expand upon what I have written in an attempt to explain the challenge a little more. We are talking short distances here, perhaps 30-40 yards across the corners of a lake or across little bays, fishing to clear patches on the far margins. And no, it’s not possible to walk round and just fish from the other side LOL. The clear spots are usually in about 5-7ft of water but despite such a short cast the water may be as much as 30ft deep mid water, although in most cases it’s more like 14ft. In the past for a considerable length of time the water level was much lower and its rise to the current level quite swift and unexpected. As a result if you go down the marginal slope about 10 ft you come to what used to be the old margin complete with paths, tree stumps, old rotting platforms etc all covered and surrounded by thick weed growing up to the surface. The far margin is usually not quite so scary however in some spots there may be weed and/or snags further down the marginal slope, i.e. back towards the rods. Combine this with fallen trees and It’s not quite a hit and hold situation but not so far off.

Even if the lake bed was clear of debris you would not want to have yards of slack line neatly hugging the lake bed because the fish would have shot through the nearest fallen tree before you got it all back on the reel. It’s a case of nail your rods to the bank, lock everything up and don’t let the fish gain any momentum. At best you can give off just enough slack to allow your line to sink a little at the business end.

So if we concede that in this particular case, having line running through the swim mid-water is unavoidable, we are back to the original question. Any advance on red line? Clear really looks the business pinned down to the lake bed but pants mid water, is dark line any better in this situation?

Oh and by the way, did I forget to mention that it’s so clear that its like tap water.

.....Perhaps I should expand upon what I have written in an attempt to explain the challenge a little more. We are talking short distances here, perhaps 30-40 yards across the corners of a lake or across little bays, fishing to clear patches on the far margins. ....



Problem solved 30-40yds..rods high..guitar strings = less line cutting through water = quite possibly close to float fishing..the line that does cut the water will be in weed so all should be fine..less spooky!...good luck but i see no problem!

Why not fish the main line on the surface ?,plumb the depth of your chosen "hole" and using a fox clear pike float(the internal bore type) free running on 15 lb line and a powergum stop knot the float will pass over under pressure(no leader knots) set the float 1 ft overdepth,use exactly the same set up as normal(lead clip,in line etc). On the cast sink on a tight line,feel the lead and then edge it back toward yourself till you feel the lead on the weed,the line should run vertically up the weed wall to the float and to your tip,you can play about with tips up or down as you like as it really depends on what the wind is doing in any given situation,a blinding method for fishing over huge weed beds,the ressie i fish has 40 yds of weed to fish over sometimes and a pva bag fished in this style has caught me fish,the further you cast the lead,the more "over depth" you have to set the float,cos youre pulling more line back to the reel and cutting into the weed. As for the red stuff...if a bloke has three fish out of St John when the lake aint fishing all that...over maize and not the lastest fishy treats from whoever then i make a mental note...i,m going to buy some red line and try it as hooklengths as i tend to fish deeper marks,bit of nylon hooklink fan,no need for any steamed plastic or fancy coated braids.

j.

great idea ..i would consider giving that a go j.. dependant on weed conditions etc..
That red line does sound good tho..one for the future and very interesting..cheers!
let us know how it goes with further testing andy and j.

I fished years ago with the French Mahin brothers on their crystal clear lake... they caught loads on bright fluorescent yellow main line.....

I have heard the same technique worked on Cassien in the early 80's,people thought because the fish could see the line they would follow it to it's end and there low and behold there was food. I have not looked into line colour and spectrum so can't comment on where yellow would be in the spectrum of disapearing colours under the surface.

j.

Yellow is next in the spectrum to be absorbed by water, and like red it does not disappear at all and become invisible. They simply lose their colour and become black/grey

Exactly. I wish I had a quid for every angler that believes all that guff about red line 'disappearing' at depth

And i take it you have some experience in "all that guff" Trig ?

Experience in the order in which light becomes less visible under the surface ? Or experience gained from using different coloured lines as a test bed ?

Or you busy counting your small stack of pound coins ?

j.

As FA has already explained, it doesn't matter at all and never did. I can't believe how many people have been fooled by this ridiculous assertion that the line disappears when the colour does. The red will be replaced by shades of grey, heading towards black, when the red fails to show up as red, which will be far more visible than a colourless line. A simple enough concept, I reckon

I think you are spot on....

Whether it is "spot on" or not was not my point,why not post what you know,or what you believe to be the facts in the first place rather than post a negative reply to a post(because post killers have effected this site). If it is "spot on" Paul,why did you not post your knowledge on the subject (opposed to recommending a flying lead)when Andy asked the original question about line colour ?

When Flurocarbons first came on the scene i'll bet plenty scoffed at the idea,me included,it now has the endorsements of the Japanese univ of aquaculture with data to support a 5/6 - 1 increase in takes received,and has a place in every carp anglers rucksack,whether as leaders or hooklengths.

I await enlightenment.

So you'd rather continue discussing the perceived merits of this 'invisible' line and make us all look daft, than admit that it's a non-starter and move on?

Fluorocarbon is a handy material in the right circumstances and isn't comparable at all.

Paul did make a very good point about high visibility lines though. I've had surface baits taken after the fish has clearly followed the floating (and presumably highly visible from below) hooklink, and not from mug fish on heavily stocked waters either It would make sense that the fish would investigate a high-viz line. They are, after all, an inquisitive species. If we all tried it, though, the effect would be somewhat different...

Octopus I don't think line colour matters one jot because I don't think carp detect it visually in murky or in crystal clear water.....

I have used every colour of monofilament line imaginable since the mid-1970's e.g. white, brown, black, multi-coloured, clear, green, yellow, red, blue, camouflaged......I think carp detect line through their other senses which are very different to ours...

The best bet I feel always always is to have it pinned down hard to the bottom, I feel, this can minimise the risk of carp detecting the main line, the colour is irrelevant.....

Holy sh*t now that’s a serious can of worms.


That’s really interesting, would you be willing to expand upon that a little Paul? Do you believe that the carp can detect the line chemically, i.e. taste it for want of a better word, or do you feel that they can sense its physical presence without touching the line, or indeed a bit of both? Do you have any ideas about the specific senses in play, or is this more of a general belief based upon years of observation and experience?

To be honest I have never thought beyond the carp being able too see the line and feel it if they are in direct contact. But now that you have made me think beyond that, one or two of my own experiences would appear to make a little more sense.

This really does open up a whole new set of questions and line of thought (no pun intended). For example, is fluorocarbon successful because the fish can’t see it, or is it successful because its chemical composition is simply different to those that the carp have learned to associate with danger? Was braid really so devastating initially because it was supple or was it working because the danger signals stopped short of the hook bait?

One thing I have learned over the years is that in many instances different works better than good. What I mean by that is, crap bait that is different may often out fish good bait that is the norm, a really crappy rig may do the business despite of its poor mechanics simply because the fish have never seen its like and don’t know how to deal with it. Could there be an element of this with new lines/hooklinks not because of their obvious properties but because they don’t give off the same signals as those that have gone before?

Along those same lines I have just thought of something that puzzled me for years. To be honest I feel a bit of a prat now, because the potential answer suddenly appears to be obvious. So obvious that I can't believe I could not see the wood for the trees.

In the early- mid 90s a friend introduced me to a fairly obscure braid that he had come across. On paper at least, this braid was the answer to an anglers dreams. It had a tiny diameter and profile for its breaking strain, it was a nice unobtrusive dark green, it was very supple and more importantly you could hardly feel it against your lips if you ran it through your mouth. It made our usual 25lb silkworm hook links look and feel like tow rope. It appeared so good that it almost felt unethical using it.

So as to gauge exactly how good this new wonder braid was, we fished one rod each with 25lb silkworm and one rod each with the new braid tied in an identical way then sat back dreaming of reels going into meltdown and wondering if we had enough reels of film with us. The experiments went on for many months. Truth be told, probably several months longer than they should have, because the results were quite conclusive. Despite all our expectations the 25lb silkworm consistently and quite convincingly out fished the wonder braid.

Could never quite get our heads round that one? But if we assume that you are correct Paul, to the fish, using senses different to ours the line in question may have actually stood out like a sore thumb before its positive qualities even had a chance of coming into play?

The $2000 question is, were they ever positive qualities or a total irrelevance, because they were what a human preceived as being positive qualities, as guaged by human senses?

Andy some stuff of intrest.

A carp has microscopic 'hairs' particularly concentrated all along the lateral line that split into three separate lines around its head. (Under the jaw, over the eye and around the snout).
These hairs are called 'neuromasts' and are super sensitive to water pressure and other stimuli and each are held in a microscopic elongated cell filled with a jelly like substance which produces a small voltage or nerve impulse.They are sensitive to ANY pressure change in the water which is the perfect medium for them to work. These send a direct signal straight to the carps brain and from what I have learnt in my mind there is no doubt they have a perfect mental picture of their surroundings for some distance.
They also, I have learned, send out audio pulses through bodily movement which is then reflected back from nearby objects and these reflections stimulate the neuromasts.
This is akin to sonar but on a much lower audio frequency.
A carp’s sight is generally poor for various reasons but that is another subject and its sight is really only good for wide angle short range work (hence 'fish eye lens' a term for wide angle photography).I suspect movement of a food item for example from watching my carp in a tank is seen far more readily and detected by the neuromasts as well, than say a boilie on the bottom from the same distance. These neuromasts working all the time in unity is why a carp knows exactly where it is day or night (as long as the carp has some movement and this could be just the wave of the tail) and how far exactly from any static or mobile object like a baitboat or other fish or animals,snag or the bank.These neuromasts can be likened to an old record player stylus tracking the bumps in the groove of a cut old fashioned vinyl record or disc. Someone asked somewhere on 'ere if carp had built in GPS... this is better really, as the carp will know every inch of its environment as well as we know our bedroom, office, workplace or back garden aided too by memory and experience.

To my thinking, it matters not one jot what you use or how you use it, they will know its there;);) and i totally agree with Paul when stating the "best" way is pinned to the lake bed.

kind regards Jeff

Great thread this, very interesting.

How about using a line that is blatant easy to see ?, it shouldent put em on edge to much if it is right in there face, everything else is thats Natural.

Oi, what you doing back on here loike????

Having fun again hopefully, does the little fella still play on here? Stumps i mean.

Walker wrote a lot about line colour in his Trout fishing stuff, he seemed to think that it made a big difference as to where the line was, ie, on the surface, mid water or on the bottom or a bit of each.

I've been down under the surface to have a look at me own lines and it was a real eye opener, i know you can hide the stuff a bit but when at range its like a big arrow pointing to the important bit.

But if the fish are this cute to realise, how do we ever get near them in the first place?

As a generalisation I don't think we do when their minds are on the game. Its only when they take their eye off the ball whilst having a good munch that they slip up.

Great post Jeff, very interesting and informative.

There is no doubt in my mind, and there never was, that line is best pinned down. In fact when fishing in the edge, when the situation allows, I have been known to get in the lake and place small stones at intervals along my line before kicking debris, silt, sand etc over it in an attempt at total concealment. Looks a bit bizarre to see your line going straight down from your rod tip to a pebble before totally disappearing, but in my opinion it can and has made the difference.

There are times though, when pinning your line down, or at least total pin down, is not a practical option, hence my sudden paranoia about line colour. Reading the last few posts it would appear that opinion is swinging in the direction of line colour being an irrelevance, if it’s cutting through the environment they live, the carp will detect it.

God help us! Any innovators out there want to take up the challenge of coming up with a line with stealth technology, that doesn't reflect low audio frequencies.

Excellent post Jaffa.
Thats what i mean Paul,now your singing like a canary,you have a wealth of knowledge on this subject...pray tell.

And because of your secret bloody squirell atitude i will be sending an e-mail to the managing director of this site asking for your removal,it's just not on !!!



j.