Why a lead will not hold bottom

This is the part that turns a list into a diagnosis, and each test is quick.

IT MOVES IMMEDIATELY ON LANDING, EVERY CAST. The lead is not engaging. Suspect ground type against grip type, or a slack line letting it settle without biting. Test: cast, tighten down firmly as it lands, and feel for the wires biting. If it skates, the ground is wrong for that lead.

IT HOLDS, THEN GOES AFTER A FEW MINUTES. Almost always drag building — a bow forming, or weed collecting. Test: retrieve and look at the line and the rig. Weed on it answers the question. Clean line points at the bow.

IT HOLDS AT SHORT RANGE AND NOT AT DISTANCE. Line drag, definitively. More line in the water, more pull. Test: fish the same lead half the distance. If it holds, weight was never the problem.

IT HOLDS ON SOME CASTS AND NOT OTHERS FROM THE SAME SPOT. Ground variation — a patch of clean sand between rock, or a hollow against a slope. Test: note where the successful casts landed and repeat them.

IT WORSENS AS THE SESSION GOES ON. The tide is building. Nothing is wrong with the tackle; the water is changing, and the answer is to expect it and plan for the state of tide rather than to keep adding lead.

IT ONLY HAPPENS IN A LUMPY SEA. Swell and surge. More weight helps least here, because the problem is vertical lift rather than horizontal pull.

Cheapest and most effective first, which is close to the reverse of what most people do.

ONE. TIGHTEN DOWN PROPERLY AS THE LEAD LANDS. Free. Fixes the commonest engagement failure and prevents the bow before it forms.

TWO. FISH SHORTER. Free, immediate, and frequently the whole answer. The fish in a tide race are often closer than the cast anyway.

THREE. THIN THE LINE. The largest single lever available. Fifteen-pound braid presents a fraction of the frontal area of thirty-pound mono at similar strength.

FOUR. MATCH THE GRIP TO THE GROUND. Fixed wires on sand and mud; breakaway or plain over hard and mixed ground.

FIVE. CHECK FOR WEED AND KEEP CHECKING. It is invisible from the rod and it is often the answer.

SIX. RAISE THE ROD. A high rod tip lifts line clear of the surface flow, which reduces the length of line the tide is working on.

SEVEN, AND LAST. MORE LEAD. It works, and it costs casting distance, comfort, tackle and — over rough ground — more losses.

WHAT NOT TO ASSUME. That the tide is unusually strong; it is usually ordinary and the tackle is mismatched. That distance helps; it frequently hurts. That a heavier lead is a neutral change; it is not, and on a rock mark it is a bigger thing to lose.

Some water cannot be fished, and recognising that is a skill rather than a failure.

AT PEAK SPRING FLOW on a hard tidal mark, the honest position is that the mark has a fishing window and you are outside it. Two hours either side of slack is not a compromise; it is when the mark works. Fishing the middle of a big spring tide with progressively heavier lead is spending the session losing tackle.

WHEN WEED IS RUNNING HEAVILY, no lead holds. Not one, not six ounces, not a wired grip. Weed comes in pulses on the tide and sometimes clears; if it does not, the session is over and no tackle change alters that.

AND WHERE SWELL IS THE CAUSE, THE ANSWER MAY NOT BE TACKLE AT ALL. A building sea that keeps washing the rig back is also a building sea at the angler's feet. On a rock platform or a low ledge that is a safety signal rather than a fishing problem, and the correct response is to move to higher or more sheltered ground, or to leave.

That is the one instruction in this record that is not about holding bottom, and it is the one that matters most. Conditions that make fishing difficult are frequently the same conditions that make a position dangerous, and treating the first as a tackle puzzle is how people miss the second.