Wot size pellet was u bandin m8?

Casper, quick change beads,if you look at the hole where you tie your line through,just above the hook where your hooklength locates, will see a little ridge of plastic. Trim that down with a craft knife and they will open easily.
Dont cut if flush with the body or they will not lock at all.

It cost me 3 teeth before i twigged this. lol

You didn’t say if it’s an inline feeder, but by the sound of your problem it is, if your not using a float stop above the feeder it can bounce and dislodge the hook.

i find qm1s are a better hook for the method~think

i used to have the same problem

i now use a QM1 in a size 14 with a 8mm pellet and loose very few

How long was the hair? Ideally you want the pellet coming just a couple of millimetres of the back of the bend. The hook isn’t the problem as PR36’s are awesome. If the hair is too long you can catch fish on the outside of the mouth or sometimes just a slither of skin. Also at what point were you losing the fish, just after being hooked, at the net or what?

baitchef is spot on, sounds like a hair length problem either that or the fish are so busy eating what on your method they dont really want to eat your hook bait (of course they will purely because its there) and your hooking a few as they try to eject the bait hense the poor hook holds. try adding a few different particles (broken pellets) to your mix so they dont just see micros or goundbait, this can lead to more positive hook holds as they are not sure whats dangerous and eat the lot with gusto!

Seems an awful small hook for an 8mm banded pellet, could be (along with the hair length as mentioned) that the pellet is so big it’s blocking a proper hookhold.

Size 16 is OK for 8mm. But I think you are right a 14 might be better, its worth a try. I use 16’s for 8mm and 12/14 for 11mm, but tend to chop and change depending how I feel at the moment. Also try the guru nguage as a hooklength material. Very impressive for short hooklengths. Also I don’t know if you are already but try a soft rod and a reel with a nice intricate clutch and take your time getting them in. Its all in the small details I recon.

Casper.I really dont think you were doing too much wrong as in all probability everyone loses a few fish whatever “method” they are using. The matchman who tells you he lands every fish he hooks is kidding no one but himself.As stated elsewhere in this thread there is obviously a case for making small changes to your set-up i-e hair length, hooksize etc etc but the fool-proof way of netting every fish you hook has yet to be invented so you can rest assured that when you lose a decent fish someone else will be having the same problem.

How long was your hair? I’m guessing the pellet was too close to the hook.

I would make it more like 6 or 8mm and a normal size 16 hook, I use a 20 Fox that is equivelent to a normal 16. Don’t like the Preston hooks as the angle of the eye is wrong.

sounds to me that they are rummeging into your method feeder and catching themselves on the hook rather than sucking it up…
hence being hooked outside the mouth
can happen when theres a lot of competition for the bait…
have you tried leaving the hook out of the feeder? that can work along with different hooks longer hairs etc…

From bend of hook.

@casper wrote:

i will try all answers . it seems the main problem is the length of the hair ,if i was to buy a pack of pretied 1s would tht be a better indication for the length of the hair

No! Also find 6mm pellet is best most of the time and if you are using 8mm with a small Preston feeder, cut off the middle bar or the pellet can get wedged in! I would not leave the bait hanging when fishing to an island as that defeats the object of using a method and is more likely to get caught up.

Tried all sorts of hooks for the method and keep going back to PR36’s. Did you try leaving the hooklength unburied or double dead red maggot hookbait?

I wouldn’t try to improve on the answers you have already got, they seem to cover everything. Each day can be different though and sometimes a longer hair is better than a shorter and vice versa. However, I would say referring to the quick change bead, a better answer to perhaps cutting off your fingers is to lose the bead part of the gadget itself and replace it with a piece of silicon. I have been doing this almost since they first came out and have never any problems. You can even get the small ones off in the middle of winter with frozen fingers with no problem. Might have a problem without any fingers at all though~think

There is no strain on the silicon at all. All it does is to stop the hook length flying off on the cast. I do put a normal bead in its place however that just sits on the silicon.

If it’s any consolation Casper the lad who won it lost his fair share and got broken on the line clip more than once.
I fished the same match and lost 50% of the fish I hooked on the method. If I’d landed them all I’d have had two!!

Casper if they were F1s it’s not uncommon to lose a few fish however my advice would be to pre-tie 2 different patterns of hook with different hair lengths.

Personally I’d opt for Fox Series 2 Xtra Strong in an 18 and QM1’s in a 14, (these were recommended by Steve and Andy May), with a 3in hook length.

I’d tie the hairs so that the pellet sits almost touching the bend of the hook, (you can even use a small piece of silicone on the hook to vary where the pellet sits in relation to the point) and I’d tie the other hairs so that the pellet sits 8-10mm below the bend of the hook.

The only bait I’d use on the hook is 6mm pellet or dead red maggots especially as it gets colder.

As far as hairs are concerned I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules especially when it comes to fishing the method however if you ring the changes you will find what works best on the day.

Sounds like f1 s I seem to lose loads too chris not just on the method either !

I wouldnt say your hooks,hair length or pellet size is the problem,the fish your loosing are foul hooked simple as,i fished a match last weekend at bron eifion with the same results i.e loosing fish.The ammount of carp competing for the bait will be rather large with f1’s and it doesnt take much for one to turn its tail or flank against your hook and hook itself,just because theres no scales on the hook when you retrieve doesnt mean it wasnt foul hooked.I tried pretty much every tip as said on this thread to no difference whatsoever.

I reckon f1s have built in disgorgers they are masters at shedding the hook

I use size 12 PR36 for 8mm and size 14 for PR36 for 6mm but will be changing to Guru QM1s and hardly loose any fish with a Preston in line method feeder. The hooklength is about 2ins with hair about 1mm beyond hook bend. I use Cralusso side-line swivels

@casper wrote:

if i was to look at the premaid hair rigs would tht be the correct lenght to tie mine at ,wouldnt want to tie a load up to find ,i,e koram hair rigs are too long or short . i have a soft action rod,maybe the clutch might have been a touch too tight, i was losing fish at alsorts of stages ,just after hooking after playing for a min, odd few at the net, i noticed some where hooked well but some where on outside of mouth aswell.

so would you guys say a pr 36 size 16 is ok for 8 mm pelletts and would it be ok for the 6mm aswell also would u say the hooklength dia is ok .0.19 and the length of it is about 3 to 4 inch.

also when would you guys think of putting the method rod away for winter ,october november…………???????

I have had this in the past and its a nightmare. I ended up with size 12 hook for triple dead red. I discused this with a well known accomplished angler who had coached me specifically on the method and he told me to try a longer H/L. I was using 3″ and went to 4″ and it improved slightly, more hooked in the mouth. I reccon the ones under your rod tip may have been worsened by your clutch as you say though.

That’s quite interesting actually because where i fish its a minimum 6 inch hooklength and of all the fish i have caught this year so far on the method and bomb i have only lost a handful.

If you think about it the H/L has to pivot at your loop be it a quickchange bead or big O swivel.

A fish will blow on the feeder, the bait will rise and they will suck it in. What has not been defined is if casper was using G/B or pellets (or it may have but i missed it if so). Pellets are slightly heavier than GB so the fish may need to get closer to the feeder, hence the suitability of a shorter (4″ or 6″) H/L. With G/B the fish may be able to feed slightly further away due to the G/B particles being smaller and mmore movable in the water. The H/L will be at its full length more of the time (with a shorter H/L) resulting in the hook going into outside of the mouth. Food for thought, not proven but a longer H/L did make a difference!

I was just told to use a a longer hook length which made a difference, all that rubbish above is only my thoughts, it appears i have too much tme to think~think