Advice on Feeder rods

[fishforthebiggest]

I have just purchased a shakespear heavy feeder with 3 tips from go outdoors. My problem is that I hooked 15 fish on Tuesday night and lost 5 of the fish. I normally fish with a strong carp rod but I find this feeder rod very light and bendy? I am fishing for carp and the weights vary from 5lb to 25lb fish. I am casting approx 20m away and using a size 14 speciman hook. What was I doing wrong? Ive lost a little confidence in the rod and what to also know is there a smaller, more strong rod on the market - any help would be great!

[mark(wilf) williams]

hi mate , how did you lose the fish? 5 out of 15 does not sound too bad.. sounds like some could be foul hooked and just shed the hook. cheers

[fishster]

try changing hook size either go up a size or down try it.Cos the same happened to me and i changed size and started hooking all fish.

[justin case]

The rod sounds fine it may be just one of those days, we all have them,

the bigger fish can be a bit on the wise side, try using a longer hair and play around with your feeding a bit

[Brian G]

You say you lost fish, but tell more was it just after hooking, whilst playing the fish, at what sort of distance from you, which strength of tip was you using as a heavy feeder might just be too strong it certainly dont need that much power for a 20mtr chuck.

[fishforthebiggest]

Thanks for the replys - I managed to hook the fish and ive tried playing them, most of the time they have bolted for the other side of the pond. The problem seems to be when the fish changes direction quickly and the bend on the rod springs back up and works the hook loose. I think am gonna try and move to a size 12 hook and see what results I get from that - I wasnt using a hair rig set up, just a bit of meat threaded on the hook.

[fishster]

let us know how you get on.

[lakeman]

lost fish

Hi im lakeman are you hair riging your bait, allso try keeping your rod hi and let the rod do the work hope is helps lakeman.

[fishforthebiggest]

Write then, I changed the hook size to a 12 and fished with bread (no hair rig) just straight on the hook. I got 20 fish and 2 which got away. However the 20 I caught were about 2lb - 3lb carps where as the 2 I lost were much bigger - not a problem with the smaller fish but the big ones just seem to be able to work the hook loose and escape (good on them, but!) ???

[nige cooke]

heavy feeder rod to strong i have landed fish to 17 lbs on a ten foot bomb rod and 014 hook length you need to scale down down mate

[TinCanMan]

You need a softer feeder rod. I had the same problem. I use to use a Tricast trophy 13ft heavy feeder rod for my carp feeder/bomb fishing and use to lose fish. The rod is as stiff as a poker, brilliant for its original use of chucking heavy feeders 80yards acrooss the trent but far to stiff for commercial carp fishing.

I experimented one day and fished the bomb on a commercial using my tricast 11' 6" pellet waggler rod instaed of my triune. The transformation was remarkable never lost a fish as the pell wag rod absorbed all the lunges with ease.

I would purchase a softer feeder rod for commercials, something like a Triicast XRS Carp feeder would be ideal.