Solar tackle are mostly known for their superb range of stainless steel metalware and indicators, but now Solar have come up with a little gem of an indicator, that is the answer to those shy winter bites. Enter the Line Biter.

How many times during the colder winters months, when bite are shy and hard to come by have you seen your rod tip bang without the slightest of movements from your indicators or you get a single bleep from your alarm with nothing to follow. We’ve all had the “was that a bite” moments and no doubt we have all thought about ways of registering those ultra shy winter nibbles to no avail. So when very good friend and angling colleague told about this new piece of kit from Solar Tackle called a Line Biter, I was intrigued to say the least.

What the Manufacturer Says 
The Solar Line Biter is designed to highlight very shy bites and slight movements of the rig. Simply cast out, clip on the Line Biter and let it slide down the line until it settles on the waters surface. Any small movement of the rig or bait sends out rings of disturbance from the Line Biter. One thing is for sure, the Line Biter will show any movement long before you get an indication at the rod tips or the alarm!

How the Line Biter Works
The Line Biter main body is manufactured from closed cell foam. This ultra light, buoyant material has a near zero absorption level making if perfect for any type of light weight floating indication system. The mechanism which attaches the Line Biter to your reel line is a simple spring loaded system, with the main components house securely within the body of each unit. As part of this mechanism and to assist in the stability of the Line Biter, a stainless steel weight has been fitted at its base.

The Line Biter can be attached to your reel line with one hand; once you have cast out, you simply place the body of the Line Biter between the index and middle finger with the stainless steel weight resting on the ball of your thumb. Then simply push the weighted end into the indicators body to reveal the reciprocal groove found on the top plastic loop. Once the line is in place, simply release your thumb and the spring mechanism engages and secures your reel line. You then let Line Biter slide down the reel line onto the waters surface, job done!

Also fitted to the Line Biter, is a wrap of 3M reflective tape that lights up in torch light, so you can see the indicator in low light levels. Perfect for those situations where the lines are close together and you are playing a fish in the dark or navigating a bait boat around the swim.

The Field Test
I decided to use a Three rods set up, Rod One had a braided reel line and a back lead at approximately a 45 degree angle from the back lead to the rod tip. On Rod Two I also had a braided reel line and back lead but I decided to reduced the angle from back lead to rod tip to approximately 15 degrees, the difference in angle from back lead to rod tip is to see if the reel lines angle improved the Line Biters performance. Last but not least, on the third rod I had a mono reel line with no back lead, giving me the option of slack lining or fishing a tight line straight to the rig.

One of the immediate advantages of using the Line Biter is that you now have a third point of indication that is visual. I for one found this to be a great advantage as I could clearly see rig and fish movement, bringing a new dimension to my bite awareness. I could now clearly distinguish all rig movements, liners and takes well before my usual forms of indication were saying anything. On Rod Two I was getting constant rippling indications from the Line Biter, however during this time neither my indicator nor my alarm had shown any movement or sound, bite or line bite?  It was time to find out.

I proceeded to tighten the clutch and engage with what ever was playing around at the other end of my rig or would I be hitting into thin air. With clutch engaged I raised the rod skywards to feel the steady but heavy chug of what was most definitely a fish and from the bend in the rod a good one. Then the nagging doubts started, I bet it’s a foul hooker?? It couldn’t be in the mouth, I never had a proper take. Then after about 5 minutes a superb 23lb plus Mirror carp slid into my landing net and to my surprise the hook was set perfect, dead centre of the bottom lip.

It had to be luck I hear you say but proof is in the pudding, I had 16 takes over the next 48 hours Landing 9 Carp including 3 fish over 20lb. Now, only 6 of the 16 takes I had were proper takes, meaning indicator rising or dropping back and alarm registering positive line movement. Out of those 6 takes, 3 of these were definite line bites and a fourth led to a lost fish. So out of 12 takes only 2 can actually be classified as regular indicated runs, all of the other bites came about through visually monitoring movements from the Line Biters.

Another critical observation made over the two day test, was that the angle of the reel line through the Line Biter made a substantial difference to the clarity of indication. As we previously stated, we had three rods set up in totally different ways and this produced totally different results. We found rod two clearly registered far more movement than rods one & three. My personal conclusion is that the greater the angles of the line to the back lead from the rod tip, the greater the tension on the reel line. This substantially reduces line movement and clear bite indication.

So by simply keeping you rod tip low (I had mine about 25cm off the waters surface) and having you back leads as far away from the rod tip as possible, creating a greatly reduce angle from rod tip to back lead. This set up clearly improved the movement of the reel line from rod to rig, displaying much clearer indication via the Line Biter. Once all three rods were set up in this manner, all three rods started registering fish and rig movement which was not accruing before.

Final Comments
I’m not a great believer in wasting money on gimmicks or gadgets to catch fish, but the results collected over a 48 hour winter session speak for themselves. We have also had great success using the Line Biter as our only indicator whilst legering dead baits for Pike on a Local marina and yet again they worked superbly. I have already shown numerous anglers the benefits of the Line Biter from the Carp, Pike and Specialist worlds and they have been pleasantly surprised to say the least. A simple yet very effective must have item that will aid you in the catching of more fish.