Tag Archives: angling in the dark

Isotopes (also known as betalites, betalights and Starlites/starlights) are an essential item of tackle for night fishing when watching the rod tip for bite indication is required. To attach these to the tips of your rods you’ll need some kind of adapter, or something to attach them to. There are a few products on the market which offer a temporary, removable solution – such as the Korum Starlight & Isotope Holder Kit, Enterprise Tackle’s Avon/Barbel Rod Tip Nightlight Adapter & Quivertip Nightlight Adapter and the Drennan Isotope Kit – but if, like me, you do a lot of fishing in the dark, a permanent holder is a far superior option. If you have the money for a custom-built rod, several rod builders allow you to specify a night light adapter. But if, like most of us, you’re using off-the-shelf rods or if you’d like to retrofit an adapter to your older rods, you can achieve the same thing with a little bit of DIY. I’ve come up with a solution, which I’ve added to several of my barbel rods, zander rods and quivertip rods over the past couple of seasons (they will work for any rods where you may need …

Read More »

I got this season’s predator campaign off to a great start last week, when I tackled the Trent near Nottingham.  After fishing elsewhere all day to try and catch perch, river carp and barbel, I arrived at the river about an hour before sunset, having caught none of the species I‘d been trying for.  I hadn’t managed to catch any fresh deadbaits either, so all the zander bait I had with me was a frozen pack of 5 small roach.  It was going to be tough to make them last, but targeting zander I was only expecting a couple of runs anyway. My simple deadbait rig for zander, incorporating a buoyant leger boom I setup two rods with low-resistance run rings, which I’d adapted and added some small pieces of foam to pop the rig up and keep the line out of the Autumn debris on the riverbed.  There are similar items on the market, called leger stems, but I’ve never been happy with their quality so I make my own.  They’re simple and cheap and I’ll go through exactly how I put them together in a future feature.  The run ring rests on a run rig rubber, which incorporates …

Read More »