I’ve read that you have to use light leads with chod rigs? Is this true and if so, why?

Oz Holness:

Yes, it has always been a good idea to use as light a lead as possible when fishing chods, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, you are not relying on the lead to hook the fish with chods, the weight of the leader or mainline does that job for you. Therefore, a smaller lead creates less disturbance and is less likely to drag your carefully tied presentation into the weedy, dirty areas the rig is designed to fish over.

Secondly, when using such short links, a heavy lead swinging around under your hook-hold can often lead to lost fish. 

Of course, there is always a solution to any problem and the various heli-style drop-off lead systems now enable you to fish chods at long range with heavy leads safely and efficiently. Once a carp is hooked, the lead can be discharged, allowing you to play the fish without the potential hook pulls involved with big leads and short links!

As a rule of thumb…use as light a lead as you can get away with at a given distance when chodding.