Chod Talk - Part 1

Using the loop to loop method of connecting leadcore chod rigs to my main line has served me well for a few years but I have now changed to using the needle knot similar to the old school way fly fishermen attached mono leaders to fly line. The problem I was experiencing with the pre tied and looped leaders was that beads were not freeing themselves from the leader easily they kept getting caught on the thicker section where the loop is formed in the braid. (Not safe for the fish)

 

A few years ago, it was fashionable to pierce the rubber beads with a boilie needle and thread them onto the leadcore so they would grip and hold the hooklink in place, this is no longer acceptable so I found another method which I consider to be much safer and allows the beads to slide freely up the leader and over the needle knot with very little pressure. Two pieces of shrink tube are used on the leader to act as points for the beads to grip onto, these pieces of shrinktubing can be slid up and down the leader to vary the position of the bait with ease and only just grip the leadcore leader material I use, this freedom of movement will vary with different thicknesses of leadcore so experimenting with different shrink tubing will bring the desired results.

My preferred chod setup

I have found that the bottom bead tends to slide down to the lead when a fish takes and I tend to leave this in its lower position whilst there is no weed on the lake, later in the year this will be lifted away from the lead to help with presentation in the green stuff. The top bead does occasionally come loose on a very hard cast being pushed up the leader by the drag from the boilie and hooklink. On feathering the cast, the hooklink slides back down to the bottom bead so it's not a problem, leaving the 5mm tag on the needle knot also helps to stop the bead and hooklink travelling off the leader should they come loose. In terms of safety, this tag is not a problem for the beads to travel over should the leader be lost and takes a lot less pressure than freeing a lead from a clip so shouldn't be a problem for a Carp to rid itself of the leader.

 

Tying the needle knot.

With practise, this is a very neat knot to tie and I believe it is also a very strong way of connecting leadcore leaders to mono main line; well I've never had any problems with it!

 

First job is to push some of the leadcore out from the braided sheath and then blob the end of the braid with a lighter, pull a further 3cm of leadcore out of the braid and break off. You should be left with a 3cm section of soft, limp braid without and lead inner core. Next job is to cut the end of your mono main line at an angle using sharp scissors, this pointed end of the main line is then passed up inside the soft section of braid for around 1.5cms before being pushed out through the side of the braid.

Mono pushed through braid ready to knot.

Tying the knot.

The end of the main line is wrapped around the leadcore five times before passing back through the first loop, the twists of mono have to be moistened with saliva before being teased down into a neat bunch of coils and pulled tight, the mono tag end can be cut fairly flush but I like to leave around 5mm sticking out from the leadcore.

Finished knot with 5mm tag.

I also use this same needle knot for attaching all the leadcore leader rigs I use.