pigslayer – Personally i’ve always found black hydro set soft to be spot on and i’ve generally done ok fishing shallow catching fish up to 15lb

However its personal preference. Adam1 will tell you double 8 is better

go with what you have confidence in mate

Double 8 is spot on for shallow fishing.

i had a weeks holiday at woodlands last summer and used doubled 8 all the time , was spot on but it is all about being confident in what you are using

@pigslayer wrote:

iv only just started using doubled up elastic,so not had chance to try doubled 8.i wasnt sure if it would bottom out or not.

Ive had it bottom out a few times but thats the risk you run with using solids over hollows as it doesnt stretch anywhere near as much.

If you can stop that initial run then its fine though.

I find some of those battle cruisers are woodlands sometime set off into middle of the lake and I feel hydro just gives you a cushion

I havent fished woodlands loads but managed a couple of trips there last summer. On both occasions i fished shallow and found double 8 spot on. Didnt actually think the fish fought that hard but it might just have been me.

steve – your right, geenrally the shallow fish come in quite easily, in fact often like the proverbial sack of..

just an odd one sets off like a fooking lunatic and theyre often the big bonus fish

av used double 8 and black hydro and I just feel better with black hydro or 15H but thats just me

As you say it comes down to personal preference and whatever you feel most confident in.

I fished Woodlands a bit last year and like mr tournament (heard he doesn’t own a plummet 😀 ) much prefer hydros to solid elastics for carp. I’ve had some carp that have run so far that I’m sure they’d have bust me on solids and I found that the fish fought less on grey hydro than they did on black.

I actually agree with mr fisk (not sure if thats a good or bad sign..)

I tried double 8 on an open and got done by a lunatic fish and came 2nd by 2lb, im sure id have got it out on hollow, after that it was playing on my mind so took it out and went back to either 12-20 maver orange or black hydro.

personally i use double 8 all summer at woodlands and find it perfect and cant recal ever being broke and i fish alot lighter than most people do. only thing i would say is change it quite often as it does tend to get very soft after a while

i used to use black hydro and personally found it too heavy with fish coming up and splashing as you hooked them.

i suppose alot of it depends on your top kits aswell, different elastics seems to work differently in different top kits. i sat and watched andy geldart fishing with some double 8 (he d lent top kits off some one else as he d left his at home and said he d normally use white hydro) and his hardly came out of the pole and seemed to work terrible yet in my top kits it always seems very soft

also depends on your black hydro!

mine is quite well worn in so is soft, when I hook a fish its smooth. my mate put some in his pole last year and it was horrible,

when we checked, his hydro was visually thicker than mine.

anyway at this rate I wouldnt worry about it mate its gonna be august before anyone gets a bit shallow!! lol

adam1 – do you use a puller with double 8?