10 simple ways to improve your bite indication
Achievable goals – adding one percentage at a time – are a far more successful way of improving your angling than setting yourself massive, scary targets.
“Hit everything that moves/bleeps. It takes no time to re-cast and they might just be getting away with it whilst you think it’s a liner. I’ve caught a number of bonus fish doing this – try it, it might just bag you a whacker.” Rob Hughes
“Use a Line Biter on your main line where it enters the water. These exaggerate every tiny line movement and detect indications that alarms and bobbins miss, giving you a better understanding of what’s going on in the swim.” Martin Locke
“Slack lines are so last year! If you are fishing to a spodded area above 40yds out use tight lines. The only indication you will get is when a fish has moved the lead, so you will know if you have been ‘done’.” Harry Charrington
“I always advocate the use of slack lines; whether that hinders my catch-rates I don’t know, but I’d much rather have a super slack line with light indicators running through my swim than a bow-string tight one with super heavy bobbins.” Iain Macmillan
“Where possible always keep the bobbins at half mast so they can move up or down an equal distance. Avoid using backleads and fluorocarbon lines when fishing much further out than the margins.” Shaun Harrison
“Using slack lines will always improve bite indication and the best way I feel to do this is, after feeling the lead down, slacken off completely and allow your line to sink, whilst paying off small amounts of slack line allowing it to hug the bottom.” Joe Jaggar
“Use indicator heads that grip the line, as these will show up so much more movement. Look out for the new indicator systems from Solar that are a huge improvement on anything else out there.” Myles Gascoyne
“It’s a proven fact that by creating a perfect ‘V’ from your buzzer head to your reel or a line clip on the rod, that you will increase bite indication by a massive 50%. And use a bobbin where the line is fixed, not running – indication: sorted!” Ian Poole
“Cut the angles down if possible, pointing the rods at where you are fishing and using balanced bobbins and quality sensitive alarms will give you the perfect indication. I favour balanced hanger type bobbins like the Bug range.” Tim Childs
“Fish tight lines on venues that are weedy or snaggy – this can often result in lots of fish. There’s no doubt that fishing with tighter lines improves bite indication. As soon as a carp picks up your hookbait, the fish will register on your alarm.” Jon Jones