Often when fishing, we are presented with problems that we have no immediate answer for. That is to say we're unsure of what is actually going on, what are the true causes and how we could possibly resolve the issue. There are also times when a problem exists and we are unaware of it or we ignore it.

A good example of this is the odd bleeps we get that are put down to nuisance species, you know the ones. You're sitting there by your rods when all of a sudden one of them will bleep or even sometimes a couple or three bleeps. Perhaps you'll see the rod top knock and the bobbin lift a little. You put it down to nuisance species and a lot of the time you'll be right.

However there are occasions when mixed in with all of this, a carp has actually picked up your bait and has got away with it. All you'll see and hear is the bobbin lift, maybe the rod top bounce and a bleep on the alarm, just like the ones you get from nuisance species…
It can be so easy to be presented with a problem and yet do nothing about it or even be willing to recognise it as a problem.

For me a good indicator that something is wrong is when I'm using tried and trusted bait and methods and they're not working as they should when conditions say it should.
That sounds obvious but how many times have we sat there thinking we should catch and not done so and left it? Put it down to bad luck or the weather etc.
How many times does something have to repeat itself before we do anything about it, get suspicious and try and resolve the situation?

On the lake I'm fishing at the moment you're constantly plagued by huge shoals of Rudd and over the past few weeks I've been getting plenty of rod top knocks and bleeps, sometimes the bobbin even going up an inch before falling back. I've also hooked up on a few of these confirming that the Rudd are on my bait. But the nagging doubt remained and I needed to investigate further to be sure that it was indeed Rudd and not carp getting away with it.
So what did I do?
Well the first thing I did was to pop the rig in the margins where I could clearly see it and then set up the rod as usual to watch what happened. I reduced the bobbins weight by 50 percent to aid detection on my end.

As soon as it went in the Rudd were upon it. Banging and chasing it around and swarming on it, yet there was no immediate indication on the rod or the alarm. Eventually one of them managed to get purchase on the hook bait and the rod top bounced with a single bleep. I tried another test, this time I increased the weight of my bobbin by 50% to the full fifty gram and carried on for about 30 minutes. At no time were any of the Rudd able to give me more than a single bleep.

I sat back thinking about it, so if it wasn't the Rudd causing the bobbin to rise and fall back giving me a number of bleeps on the alarm then it must be carp as I was unaware of any bream in the lake.
So what could I do, it seemed obvious that carp were responsible and I was not hooking them.

I got in touch with Jason Hayward at Specialist sharpened hooks and had a chat about hooks, sorted, four packs of hand sharpened hooks on the way.
I still had a pot of his "specials" so that was the hookbait sorted.
I looked at the lead system I was using, changed it, the rig too came in for a some changes, I lengthened it.
Since then, just nuisance species and carp 👍.