How tight is your line? Do you wind it bowstring tight for better indication or slacken it off so not to alarm spooky carp?
After casting,most anglers i see keep turning the reel spool until the rod tip is tensioned right round to the rig and the bobbin is wedged up to the butt.
But when using nylon it's a myth that winding the line tight to the lead improves indication. In fact it makes your bite registration less sensitive.
Excessive tightening of nylon and co-polymer lines stretches them like long elastic bands. This makes it much easier for rigs to be moved slightly or picked up and dropped without any indication from the buzzer.
Gently picking up any slack until the weight of the bobbin keeps the line lightly tensioned between rod and terminal tackle results in much better indication, but still the lines are wound tight after every cast.
On the more competitive big fish circuit, the paradox is that there isn't a tight line to be seen. The feeling is that carp are so aware of the line and so unsettled by it that a tensioned line would be a recipe for blanking.
There's no question carp are very good at detecting lines. I've lost count of the times i've watched margin carp agitated and unwilling to settle.
That is until a small alteration of how the line lays from rod tip to rig has allayed their suspicions.
Then they've put their tails up and noses down.
But does slackening your main line off at the rod end make it less spooky proposition for a carp? In the edge, undoubtebly slack lines are less spooky.
The anglers often involved can be extreme and carp often have good conditions to see lines. However, i'm not sure how much differently carp react to tight line than a slack one when you're fishing any distance out.
I've noticed one or two very accomplised carp catchers on local lakes and venues using thight lines where everyone else is in the routine of fishing everything slack and as inconspicuous as possible.
They've caught some of the trickiest carp i've ever fished for this way.
If you can overcome the mental objection, a tight line can be an asset-adding tension to your line can make a difference to the hooking potential of your end tackle.
Using 4 and 5 oz leads fished helicopter style, with short hook lengths several feet back up the main line. Great success can be gained by using disgustingly tight lines-winding a tensioned spool click by click until the rod is quivering in the rests with the tension generated.
It's so far the other way from the slack line mentally, it almost offends the senses but the effect produced is explosive. Straightening the hook length suddenly attaches a carp to a huge, tensioned elastic band and every which way they move immense pressure is loaded on to the hook point.
Bites certainly aren't delicate affairs.
How i see my line depends upon the job i want it to do at any given time. If i want very sensitive indication, i ensure there is an element of slack fed into it.
If i'm trying to use the tension from the line to aid hooking i'll wind it as tight as i can without moving the lead.
But, winding a bobbin tight upto the butt and flicking a buzzer on, with no clear idea of what i'm trying to acheive, means that i'm missing a trick understanding what my line could or should be doing for me.