Carp Question

[GearJunky]

Evening all,

I have been doing a lot of carp fishing recently (sometimes its nice just to cast out and relax!) and I am loosing the battle. I would say in the last 10 fish I have hooked into 8 of them have broken my line.

I don't recover any of my terminal tackle which makes me think it's not a weak knot thats letting up and I am using 20lb braid... What am I doing wrong?

The most common scenario is this:
A fish hooks itself and starts running, I reel in the slack applying tension to the line and it instanly snaps. I'm not horsing it, and almost every time its within the first 5 seconds of me picking up my rod and winding in the slack.

Any suggestions or advice will certainly be appreciated!

thank you.

 

[Shawarma]

What kind of setup are you using? What knots are you tying?

Without knowing the details, I'm almost guessing it's a knot issue. If you aren't horsing it and it's within the first sprint that is doing, something is slipping.

If it's not that, then maybe you're applying to much tension and not letting them run like we know they want to before you start reeling in.

If you're pulling back slack and they take off, stress on the line is going to be much greater. So many unknown factors here

What kind of structure is around there? Is there anything that could snap your line that easily? Is the line old? Drag set too tight?

 

[tcp]

sounds like either your drag is way too tight on your reel, or there are alot of zebra muscles where you are fishing, or there is some type of snag that you are casting into and upon applying pressure, the line breaks.

with 20 lb braid, and your positive the main line is snapping, I would lean towards zebra muscles or a snag. Tough to break 20lb braid with just shear weight alone, easy to cut it on zebras or some type of rock shelf.

I would explore those two thing, you could use a slip float and weight to check depth to see if there is a shelf. zebras, you may have to go for a swim to know for sure. Either way, I would up the mainline. go 65 lb.

I have fished up in long sault at mille roche a couple times and this has been an issue. rock shelf with zebra muscles. to get around it we used 65 lb braid, with a lead core leader and short hook links in 20lb braid.,, short like 3-6 inches

 

[GearJunky]

Thanks for the responses.

As far as structure goes, there are a lot of downed and sunken trees. I would say roughly 1 in 10 casts lands in a snag. I wouldn't know about zebra mussels, I haven't seen any but that doesn't mean they aren't there.

I am usually using a 2oz weight tied to a swivel, tied to a hairline rig. I tie the rigs myself and I use clinch knots.

I have never had a break... or disconnect where I have retrieved any of the tackle including the top swivel.

Do you think that fallen trees can cut braid that easily? Should I switch back to mono?

 

[tcp]

The trees can definitely cut braid, but they can cut mono and flouro too. Personally, I fish some sunken trees and depending on how I react to the first dash of the fish. I will get borken off too. For me, I'm fly fishing with 9lb fluorocarbon tippet, if it touches the tree branches, it freys pretty quick.

For your fishing, I would also try some safety lead clip systems so that you lead can break away if it is getting snagged. Check carpkit.com

 

[GearJunky]

Cool I will check it out. Thx

 

[MaxHook]

I was carp fishing this past weekend and my line snapped twice on zebra mussels ... and I'm using 50lb braid.