Carl noobie

Hi,
I am sat on the bank currently!, awaiting my first bite. I've been bitten by the carp bug. I'd like to ensure I'm doing everything okay. I now have decent rods (3lb TC), and bait runner reels. I want to know what kind of line I should be using in an ideal world. I only have mono at the moment and I caught my first carp with mono hooklink. Should I opt for braid anywhere? What about sinking line like leadcore? Also what about the strength of the line? I have 12lb mono.
I did buy some ready made rigs with what I assume is braid hook length. But it had issues getting my boilie over the knot.
To cut a long story short, what line do you suggest I use for mainline and hooklink?
Many thanks

---------- Post added at 07:35 ---------- Previous post was at 07:29 ----------

Stupid phone! Of course it should be carp noobie!!!
Second question, when using more than one rod, is that to increase chances of a bite in one area or to increase the odds of a bite over all by spreading out the hooks?

welcome to FM

Hi,

All of your questions are good valid questions but depend on so many factors. The first really is will you fish many different waters or do you have a water you will concentrate on? If you plan on fishing one water then you can focus your tackle around that water.

So for your mainline you need to consider a few things such as snags, fish size, weed, bars, water clarity/colour, big pit/small pit ect ect. For anything with snags or heavy weed really you want to be going 15lb+ or by diameter of .40 as the breaking strain isnt always as stated.

I use leadcore but you really need to have fish safety as your priority so make sure you know how to tie it up safely otherwise a tungsten tubing is a good alternative until you can research this or even better ask a more experienced angler to show you.

As for hooklinks this again is going to dependant on so many factors but I would definately suggest learning how to tie them up yourself. Pre tied are great but once you start getting into it you want to have the ability of changing your rig based on conditions and even the fish being more finicky on the day. There are so many different materials out there but as a rule of thumb I use a supple braid over a weedy/debris as this will follow the contours better than say a stiff/hybrid material. But if its clear I'll usually go stiffer to push the hookbaits away from the lead.

If you give me more details I'll be happy to help you further and welcome and highly addictive world of carp fishing