Walking round before the start of a match at Lindholme lakes a couple of weeks ago, I noticed something about the way a lot of anglers had set up their rigs.  Time and again I saw the hook at the base of the number three section and with several feet of hollow elastic exposed at the pole tip.

This worried me because being in the World Champs in some sun soaked countries showed all the lads on the team just how much direct sunlight damages elastic.  We ended up needing to change all our elastics before the main match!  Believe me, expensive hollow elastic exposed to direct sunlight will perish much quicker than elastics protected inside the pole section.

If you’ve coated your elastics with lubricant, you will also find that the lubricant and the elastic will dry out in sunlight and might become slightly sticky. I’ve started treating my elastic with Slick, because of the smooth performance, but if I leave elastic outside the top of the kit, the Slick is wasted.  Instead of increasing the flow of the elastic, sunbaked lubricant will make it stick, and messing about with sticking elastic is going to cost you a match win at some point!

There’s a very easy solution to avoid these problems, and that is using Hook Ups when your kits are not in use.  These simple little rubber rings can be positioned at any point on your top kit, so you can literally hook up whilst making sure that all the elastic is stored inside your top kit, safe from the sun.

When I’m on a carp lake where fishing dead on depth is of paramount importance, you can make a tiny mark on the pole section to show the position of the hook up, using a Tippex pen, for example.  Then if the hook up moves even slightly on the section, you can see straight away and reposition it to the exact spot. If you prefer to avoid using Tippex, silicone depth bands in different colours and diameters are also provided in the packet.

So a cheap little item like a rubber hook up could save you a lot of money by making your elastic last a lot longer!

Alan Scotthorne