Korda Stow bobbins

One piece of equipment that I must review are Korda Stows, I purchased a set of these last year after seeing them on one of the Korda dvd's and thought they would fit in perfectly with the way I like to fish. One thing that made them stand out is the versatility of their design as they can be fished as conventional bobbins and hung on the line or they can be fished in such a way as to be able to relax the line between the rod tip and terminal tackle allowing it to settle on the bottom properly with less chance of the carp detecting it and spooking.
They are quite an expensive Item in my view compared to some other indicator systems but I believe they are well worth the extra cost due to the advantage they provide in helping catch more Carp. They are designed to work with most bite alarms, however I use ATT's and the Stows need modifying to work with the ATT alarms as they are so small. Basically all I had to do was buy some buzz bar extensions such as the ones designed to give access to the switch on certain Delkim alarms or the quick change adaptor type of extension, and I  had to remove a couple of links in the Stow chains to fine tune them to fall off on the take as they are designed to do with other alarms. Not a difficult task and one that affects the performance of the Stow's in no detrimental way. You can see the extensions in the pictures below.

Extensions are needed with ATT's alarms

 

 

 

Detail of the unique line clip that allows you to remove tension from the mainline.

 

 

 

 

I genuinely believe that the Korda Stow indicators have given me an advantage and helped me to put more Carp on the bank recently due to the unique way they work in promoting a much more subtle end tackle presentation. Though the line between the rod tip and terminal tackle can be relaxed this does not interfere or delay bite indication because of the effects of water pressure on the line creating 'drag' or resistance on the line when a Carp picks up the bait and moves off. Obviously how much you can relax the line depends on the angling situation and factors such as the distance you are fishing at or whether you have snags or weed or bars to take into consideration when deciding how best to use these indicators, but used sensibly I'm not sure they could be improved on in offering the best in bite indication and end tackle presentation.