Bite Alarms & Indicators

Being the editor of Total Carp, availability of fishing tackle is certainly not a scarcity and I get my hands on plenty of new and exciting tackle items for review. However, it’s much less frequent that an item of tackle will become a core component within my own personal fishing equipment. Alarms are one such item that I’ve rarely changed, but when a set of Nash’s R4 alarms arrived on my desk, my attention had certainly been piqued! 

For me, reliability is the number one factor I consider when it comes to using a bite alarm. Unlike many other forms of fishing, which rely on immediate concentration to witness a bite, the relatively ‘hands-free’ nature of carp fishing means that we largely rely on our bite alarms to know whether we’ve been picked up. Over the many years of my carp fishing, there’s only been a few occasions where I’ve been let down by my alarms, though I have seen this happen numerous times to others. Sometimes you’ll realise what’s happened and the carp will be successfully landed, other times it’s not so simple. When stakes are so high, fishing for big, rarely caught carp, this is one thing you simply cannot afford to happen! 

One thing that has remained consistent over the years is the reliability of Nash’s Siren range of alarms. Everyone who I’ve known to own a set, whether they’ve liked them as an alarm or not, has reported them to be bombproof. Having seen the abuse many of the Nash team put their kit through, this was going to be one product I was more than happy to use, without worry of them letting me down!First impressions of the alarms were great – they’re not the smallest alarms, but have a slim profile on the buzz bars and personally I really like their design. People say that looks don’t mean anything, but in reality, I think it’s perfectly normal to care how your setup looks. After all, we sit there looking at it much more than we actually hear them working! They also have a robust feel to them, with a solid construction that affirms that sense of reliability. 

Now functionally, the R4 alarms are a huge technological advancement on the R3, which were already a very successful alarm. This isn’t just technology for the sake of it and the development team at Nash really pulled out all the stops to make this the ultimate alarm for people who find themselves in a range of scenarios. For me, one major selling point was that the alarms feature one of the best drop-back differentiation that I’ve seen so far. The unique sound on a drop back makes it immediately recognisable that a drop back has occurred. This makes understanding liners easy without having to see the indicators and means you are immediately aware if a delicate drop-back occurs. 

The R4 alarms also feature a wider range of sensitivity settings, to cope with pretty much any imaginable situation you could be faced with. The first setting is a super-sensitive roller wheel sensing, perfect for fishing super-tight lines at range where even the slightest movements could indicate a bite. The next two are differing levels of speed sensing, whereby the alarms only register movements that are faster than 1 or 2cm per second respectively. This eliminates a huge amount of false indication, while ensuring you’re alerted of a bite. The R4 then introduces Wave Sensing, which eliminates false beeps from a 15 or 30cm line movement forward and backward over the roller. This means that when fishing in huge gales with waves lapping over the rods or even on a boat, you can really minimise false indication. However, as soon as that distance is passed, the alarm then switches back to full indication to allow for successful identification of a hooked fish. Even a twitchy bream take will be registered in amongst the back-and-forth slosh from big waves. Added to this, Nash has also introduced its Drift Sensing Safeguard, which means that even on slow movements that wouldn’t normally trigger the Speed Sensing system, prolonged motion in that direction will then trigger it. For instance this would prevent lines being pulled out of position by drifting weed beds.

The physical layout and structure of the alarm itself is also well thought out. Rubber insets in the rod channel help grip the rod, while a pair of optional rubberised snag bars leave you with little worry of your rod being dragged off the rest – a great feature for those who like to fish with relatively tight clutches. The alarms also feature a quick-release bayonette fitting for Night-Glo indicators, though they also provide a converter for fitting standard chains, which is a useful touch. 

The customisable dual LEDs have an almost fish-eye appearance, meaning they can be easily viewed from all angles so you’re never struggling to see which alarm has sounded. These can be set to your choice of colour and two levels of brightness. I have all three on the buzz bars matching in white, then I have a fourth on a single stick which I set to red so I know which it is in the middle of the night. This is the rod I tend to use fishing up to snags or if I have it down the margin somewhere away from my remaining rods. All the functions are controlled using two easy to use, rubberised push buttons. My natural preference would lean towards the use of dials as push buttons require cycling through menus, but the alarms are easy enough to program using just the two buttons. Individual pressing of the left button cycles through three different muting options: muted but LED flashes; sound but no LED and finally full mute with no sound or LED. Initially I found this a little cumbersome, but soon got used to cycling through the settings when needed. Single pressing the right hand button then cycles through eight volume settings and unlike the older Sirens, both the heads and receiver can go very loud if required. The eight Tone settings and all colour choices are toggled through using a combination of both buttons. 

One final point to consider with most modern alarms is what is the receiver like – again something that you want to be super-reliable in all conditions and stand the test of time. The R4 receiver is a high power unit with performance to over 750 metres, which is far further than you should ever be off your rods! However, this does mean that if you’ve had to head out in a boat or even set well back in dense woodland, you can be sure that the receiver will pick up any indication from your heads with exact replication. One of the biggest things that I love about this receiver is that it’s USB-C charged with around 20 weeks run time – now that’s good going!

So far I’ve put the Siren R4 alarms and receiver to good use in a range of conditions, and they are yet to miss a beat. I’ve yet to really need the Wave Sensing settings, and they have a few other cool features such as the homing beacon on the back of the heads, but until I’m out doing a lot of boat fishing, I don’t see myself needing this function any time soon. Nonetheless, as with many aspects of life, it’s always better to be prepared and these alarms ensure I’m covered in every possible eventuality.

MATT TOWNEND’S VERDICT: "Super-reliable alarms with the technology to take you anywhere"

RRP: £459.99 to £759.99
WEBSITE: www.nashtackle.co.uk