A new PB and "It's a 20!"

What a session that turned out to be! We had the highs, the lows and the awful. As mentioned before on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVnXUtMbSug&feature=plcp from SussexCarpandCoarse, we were off to a new complex known as Tanyard fisheries in East Sussex. The trip was to become very new to us as it was a new water, new tactics for some of us and four days long. It was nice to know that we had four days to catch and the pressure that we normally have was pleasantly gone for what we saw was a nice time to chill, with the addition of maybe a couple of fish. Though we were quite shocked to find it was very hard, what with this new-found heat wave of ours and the constant pressure these fish endure, we had a good time chilling and trying every tactic under the – rather hot – sun.

Our home for 4 days.

The session actually started on a different lake to which we were going to fish on. To be honest, it was a silly mistake as nothing was caught on the whole lake, let alone between us three. We decided to move as a pair of anglers had caught a ‘20’ during the early hours of the morning on the other lake.  We had brought a fair bit of bait withy us as the ‘Catch Report’ had given us a few tips on what was catching. We then knew that to catch these big fish, at this time of year, we would need to use larger beds of bait to keep them feeding. I had worked out that I was to roughly use a kilo per 12 hours with the addition of possibly some particles and 10mm pellets. On one patch, I would try to use just particle with chopped boilie. I decided to use this approach on one spot as I know the fish have all seen a lot of boilies, hoping that they’d slip up when feeding over a different type of bait. The issue was that this spot, that happened to be shallower, allowed the ducks and swans to easily clear me out of bait within half an hour.  During these hot days there was not much point in fishing with these tactics during the day. This allowed me to give the fish some free bait to get them used to it and also learn more from the water in front of me. 

5 foot, get a bait on it! 

I didn’t rush things when it came to feature finding with the marker float. I was glad that I did as I found – after an hour – a very small patch of where the lakebed drops off from 4 to 5 foot up against some thicker weed or chod. I believed the fish would hold up against this as the water would hold the heat from the day in the deeper water. Add to the fact that I then added a kilo and a half of fresh bait to the spot really made it look good for a bite.

Fresh bait was a must.

 I was given a new rig from Edwin, known as the Reverse Snowman Muzza rig, and I was very happy to use it as he had already caught 2 20s from another water. It paid off! At 1:30 in the morning I received a single bleep – which awoke me and allowed me to put my shoes on ready for battle – and then off it went. Being dark I could not see what I would imagine as a big bow wave leaving the swim! The fish’s fight was sadly short lived as it found a light patch of floating weed which covered its eyes and it gave up fairly quickly after that. Peering into the net it didn’t look anything special. However, after lifting the fish to the mat I certainly felt the full power of this fish as it woke again. Keeping the head torches to a minimal and covering the fish’s eyes calmed it down to safely lift it up for a good picture and weighing. At 22lb 9oz, it was definitely a new PB and my first 20! 

 A success and well earned at that! After that, we quickly decided we’d be back in October to once again catch an even bigger one next time!

Any success stories would look great on ‘Our News’ or in ‘Pictures’ from you, just find my e-mail in the ‘Links’ to have your part up here too.

Perfection of powerful particles.

Particles! Every angler should be familiar with them. They’re deadly effective in all types of fishing. Even better, they’re not just for Carp, just look at some of the specimen bream, roach, rudd, barbel, tench, crucians, the list is endless for fish caught on particles. Particles in their dictionary definition means ‘small pieces of matter’, this ‘matter’ is; nuts, seeds and pulses – in a fishing bait term.

So many seeds, so much goodness!

There is a lot of bad press about incorrect preparation of particles, and rightly so! Uncooked particles are as dangerous as fishing baits gets. They can swell up in the fish’s stomach and cause all sorts of nasty implications to the health of the fish – including death.

With that out of the way, correctly cooked nuts/seeds/pulses can be a very effective bait in your armoury.

This will swell up so leave
space or it gets very mucky.

Many online tackle/bait shops sell prepared and un-prepared particles. Although, particles bought in the shop ready-to-go are generally more expensive. On the other hand, they’re awfully convenient and you are safe in the knowledge that it’s safe for the fish. However, uncooked and un-prepared baits like these are much cheaper and you can add what you like to your desired mix. Many particles need at least a 24hr soak. This doesn’t have to be just plain water, adding sweeteners, liquid foods, flavours and other additives – but not salt (explained later on) – will greatly enhance the pulling power of them. It’s always safer to soak them longer than the minimum amount of time. Hemp, for example, apparently only needs a 24hr soak, I tend to allow a 48hr soak instead.

Mmmm, tasty!

Making PVA friendly particles is easy – if you know what you’re doing – soaking the particles in salt will seriously work against you, as this dehydrates them even more. This, intern, makes them almost impossible to cook to a safe standard! I tend to soak the particles in a mix of lake water and chilli powder, this impregnates a spicy taste to the bait throughout the seed. After the cooking process I will drain the mix off fully, leaving no juice. I then add the damp – not dry – cooked mix to a super salty mix of water, chilli and any other water soluble additives. After 36 hours I drain the mix off – keeping the liquid to be used as a PVA friendly glug or an additive to other mixes.

Home-made PVA friendly
particles work. 

Not only that, the high salt content makes the mix last a little longer than a normal fresh mix. Hopefully you can apply this to your own fishing. It’d be great to see the results, send in your catch via the e-mail on ‘Links’, to be up here on the pictures tab.

New water, new adventures.

We are now safely into the open season and what a joy it has been so far. The weather has given some opportunities to wet a line and, as always, you’ve got to take it as it comes. That’s exactly what I did last Wednesday to carry on my adventure on this new water of mine. The lake is the largest on the club at about two acres with heavy weed growth. To make it even more difficult to get to the carp and tench, there is a heavy stocking of 3-6lb bream. If there is one thing to know about bream, they are greedy fish with a great appetite for carp anglers’ baits. As company is concerned, I was greeted by SussexCarpandCoarse for this session. We kicked off at 10:30 to finish at 18:30, a short session wasn’t ideal as this isn’t a lake with a great deal of the target species – carp! Without being able to change this, moaning about the times wasn’t going to help. We packed the barrow and headed down the steep track to the lake. The swim was excellent for two as the island was long enough to house four rigs cast along the side of it.

I was using a 10mm Cell dumbbell hookbait topped off with a Milky toffee pop-up – balanced so the rig sinks very slowly on top of the weed. My other rod had the same hookbait tipped with a white plastic corn – soaked in strawberry buttercream and molasses.

 Not much happened for about an hour – not even a bream. However, large fish – probably carp – were crashing out between two lily beds and a gentle ‘flick’ got the rig on top of them at about 65 yards. Pulling off plenty of slack line and resting the rod for about ten minutes allowed the line to fully sink to the lake bed. After the slack line had sunk, my 

lightest bobbins were clipped on. Another hour past without another sign of the fish crashing, a recast was in order but as I walked over to the rods, the bobbin jumped into life and the line was ticking through the rings at a steady pace. 

At first, I thought it was a decent tench but then a lean carp boiled the surface before picking up a clump of Canadian weed in the next swim down. Netting the fish - and the weed – was a great success as it was only my 2nd carp out of this low stock lake.

Not a big fish, but in pristine condition and around 8lb I wasn’t unhappy about it. After not much success on the island rod and only one between the lilies, a move onto the dam wall proved it far easier to cast to my lily spot and a more promising edge of the island for SussexCarpandCoarse to fish to.

Until about 18:30, I had 4 tench including my first male and a PB of 4lb 6oz, not huge but in nice condition and put up a great scrap.

However, a few local friends had popped by as we were packing up. We were in no immediate rush so we hung around a little longer than expected. It paid off though. As the sun was setting, my 6th fish was on it’s way with a screaming alarm. Running to the rods, I could see in the distance my fish boiling on the surface of a weed bed. Side strain brought the fish in with no hassle and a 10lb mirror carp was in the net.

Again, SussexCarpandCoarse will join me in a 4 day session carping on the 23rd of July. Watch out for our ‘tails’ on that trip soon.