was fishing barston last weekend and instead of clipping up my line in the usual manner while fishing method i decided i would wrap a bait band round the line and feed this round the clip on the spool. read something about damaged line etc! anyway for those of you who don’t know barston it is absolutely stuffed with skimmers and the odd big carp. anyway i was happy catching skimmers quite reguarly when rod shot of rest . now i have fat fingers and trying to get line out of the clip with an angry carp on the end is not something i have ever got used to. then the bonus. the line ripped straight through the band and the drag on my reel came into play. landing a carp about 12 lb a few minutes later. anyway it took me a while to get my distance back on ( 34 reel turns)so this time i tied a sliding knot behind the band incase it happened again. sure enough after a few more skimmers i struck into another carp. line ripped straight through the band and i landed a carp about 8lb.

now i don’t know if there are any down sides to this but if anyone has had similar experiances i wouldn’t mind some feedback. i was using a 3.2mm bait band which was a bit fiddly but if it means not pulling out of bonus fish on the strike its got to be worth it