Twenty number 2!

You join me a few days after the success of another fishing trip down the local ponds. I only had a few hours fishing and I needed to make the most of it. Taking minimal equipment and light baiting ideas allowed me to pursue the fish, instead of baiting and waiting.

It was an overcast day with temperatures struggling to reach upper double figures. A cool but gentle westerly breeze blew straight into my favourite swim. Things looked good, but not as good as I could have expected!
Recently purchasing some new bite alarms and indicators I was keen to christen them with a couple of good, hard fighting carp which would give the alarms a good work out.
The alarms and bobbins in question were Delkims coupled with Korda Stows. To say that start of the session went off well was quite an understatement. The Stows - fished slack - twitched, rose slightly, dropped, and then went ballistic!  Being a short session, I was sat next to my rods with Carp World magazine, a packet of crisps and not much else. By the time I got up to hit the rod, the fish was 5 yards away in another weed bed.

20Lb 10Oz

As mentioned so many times before, it is unwise to just pull, pull and pull a bit more. Instead, giving barely any pressure - just enough to stay in contact with the fish - allowed it to free itself from the weed bed but still keep in contact with the fish. I was on my own at this time, but thankfully an ex-angler was fortunate enough to observe and then finally net the fish - along with another 10lbs of weed behind it!

Many photos were taken, though unfortunately a few had to be deleted. Top tip is to give your photographer a run through on how to work your camera! However, saying that, a couple were quite good and I was made up to see my 2nd 20lb carp, and a first for my home lakes, swim away strongly.

I put the landing net back together again, hung it up to dry, and sat in my chair just to soak up the satisfaction of my catch for a minute or two.

After that, I got up, put a fresh Black Ice dumbell hookbait from Ace Baits on, tied a stick of their fast breakdown pellets and glugged the whole lot in CSL and Molasses liquid. No other bait was put in as the fish were clearly turned off on larger beds of baits.
Take number 2 came off from the left hand rod - though being only 3 yards from where the right one was positioned  - with one of the lakes' dumpy little mirrors. Though giving spectacular bites and fights, all seems lost when they come to size. Not being fussy, as these fish are in fantastic condition and wonderfully scrappy, I do like catching these fish now and then.
Fish number 2 was caught on my favourite type of pop-up rig, see Rig Library, with a Black
Ice pop-up.

As our sessions are getting cooler, get on Black Ice from Ace Baits, it's a fantastic all-season bait!.
Again, best of luck with your own fishing, and don't forget to send us your photos/catch reports. CMM

For any other carp related talk, check out the Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/groups/136521579773468/ .

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.

The story of June 16th.

Wasn’t that good!? June 16^th has come and gone, but the buzz is still there. For those who occasionally fish out of season it may be not so exciting, but I have been desperate to get back onto my club’s lake. To start catching the fabulous carp, that have been teasing every angler as they walk by, - knowing that they can’t be caught ‘till the magical 16^th - has been a great experience.



The baiting spoon was
 very convenient.

At our club, it is tradition to congregate on the 15^th and to start fishing when it hits midnight. We were all down there at 6 o’clock, preparing and waiting. Just like when I was a guest for a friend’s club water - mentioned on ‘A blank shouldn't get you down!’ – I was with Edwin from SussexCarpAndCoarse. The plan of attack was to use high attract baits but still with a strong food signal. The thinking behind this is that we wanted to get bites fast yet resemble what they would have had to been eating during the close season. I had made up a spod mix consisting of CCMoore’s Parti Mix, tinned tuna, chili powder and bloodworm ground bait. This produced a very meaty smell that leaked a huge cloud of attraction.

 

The mini Spomb filled
with our particle mix.

                                       Over the top of that, a light spread of halibut pellets – thrown out with a baiting spoon – would complement my halibut hookbait pellet.

On the other rod, still with the mix and pellets, a plastic sweet corn KD rig would be cast out to the edge of a protruding part of the far margin. This would pick the carp off as they patrol along this at night. Edwin was using particles too but was fishing with a small yellow pop-up on one rod – to imitate the corn in his mix - and three 8mm pellets in a triangle formation on the hair on the second rod.

We were both using either leadcore or tungsten tubing to keep our rigs pinned to the lakebed, away from hungry carp.  To prevent a lot line bites we used very slack lines with light bobbins. This served two purposes, it would be out of the way of carp to see and the sunken line would not be in the way for a hooked

carp to wipe out our other rods.To save time and hassle, we cast out a bare lead to our spots to get the distance. We clipped up and put a tape line marker on at this point. This allowed us to find the right length again when we caught a fish. Behind us, we had a long and straight track to walk our lines out to find this tape marker when we needed to.

In the net!

When midnight came we all cast out. Within five minutes Edwin was into a healthy 9lb fully scaled mirror carp on his pellet rig. Not too long after that a confident take on my first rod was indicated and an extremely powerful upper-single was in the net.

                                         Although nothing else happened that night for me, I was constantly awake netting all of Edwin’s fish. It was fair to say that he was emptying the lake that night with the largest being a common weighing in at 18lb. He did remind me that I had my moments of glory last season on that lake and it was his turn now. Although that didn’t exactly help me in any way! At about half five in the morning I had received a funny bite on my second rod. After some time, the drag was ticking smoothly and I was into another of the lakes’ residents. Although only being about the same weight as my first fish, it put up another healthy scrap. This time, a lean common carp was in the bag.

For a long time after that we had nothing. I decided to set up a simple stalking rig and moved off with one rod up the lake into the shallower parts. A net, unhooking mat, alarm, rod and a small bag of pellet was all that was taken along with me. To my simple rig I attached a tight mesh bag of pellet which was to be dipped in secret liquid food dip.

 

A few pellets in a tight bag.

Things had definitely slowed down as even the margins showed no signs of feeding fish. However, after and hour or two, a fish had decided that my pellet was worth eating. What a mistake that was for him! The fish took me into some small lilies but gentle side strain turned him before he could get any deeper. At only about seven or eight pounds, he was definitely one of the smaller chaps in a lake. Not worrying about the weight, I appreciated the fact that they all fight hard and look great.  

 

It could have been better, but it was fun and enjoyable, isn’t that what fishing’s all about?

  

A small lake with large fish!

The smallest of the trio but the most
rewarding after stalking it.

Please feel free to visit Edwin's blog too, he will have his own story to tell about this trip. http://sussexcarpandcoarse.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Now that it’s the open season, watch this space for many more blogs from me. Let me know if there is anything you’d like me to cover next time via my e-mail in the ‘Links’ page. Until my next successful trip, good luck with your own fishing, CMM.

 

 

Well....what can I say?!

Right, where do I begin? I guess I could apologise for my absence of fish related blogs, but we’ll put that behind us.

What matters is that recently I have been fishing an extremely local, private, water – a few friends might know where I’m talking about. Anyway, after recently buying some new bait, I thought I might as well try it out on a rather productive and beautiful water.  As I woke up, several hours past my alarm was meant to wake me, I hopped out of bed to lazily drag my gear downstairs feeling rather put off as I had missed the early morning fishing spell.

However, I was in luck, when I reached the lake and trickled in a small handful of 10mm halibut pellets, two or three good orfe and possibly a carp, drifted over the baited area. It was obvious that it rarely gets fished so when bait does go in, they’ll instantly want a piece of it. The rigs were simple; Rod 1 would have a normal 12x16mm halibut hook bait on a blow-back rig, and Rod 2 would have a squid and octopus pop-up. To that, each rig would have a small, tight parcel of pellet and fishy ground bait in a PVA mesh bag nicked onto the hook.

Both rods were only an under-arm chuck away to some sunken bushes - a classic feature to keep your eyes on any water – to that, another small handful of pellet would be accurately put in.

Only after five minutes of chucking out both rods, it started to heavily rain. Although this being a minor inconvenience, I could have done without it. However, after another minute or so of  being drenched the left-hand rod received a peculiar bite. The bobbin lifted half way and stayed there for a good few seconds, it then went slack, and then slacker than before.

The fish was giving me a classic drop back bite from the heavily snaggy swim.

I picked up the rod, wound in to the fish and set the hook, a rather dogged fight eventually landed me a pristine and fin perfect golden orfe weighing in at about 3Lb.  

After regaining my warmth that had been quickly lost through my hands while releasing the fish, I cast the rod out again with another pre-made PVA mesh bag – just hooked lightly in the side – and a slightly heavier amount of pellets. The thinking behind this is that the orfe were getting to the bait faster than the big carp that swim in that lake.  However, after a good half an hour – which was along time to go without a bite in this lake – the bobbin on the pellet rig indicated another weird bite, picking up the rod hard, I must have caught the fish unaware because shortly after feeling the weight of the fish, it made a very strong lunge towards a sunken snag in the middle of the lake. Keeping the rod low and steady, turned the fish. Unfortunately for me,  it then swam at me and only cranking the reel hard caught up with this clever fish. After four, or even five minutes, we had the first glimpse of the fish. It was a fantastic and flawless, golden koi carp. I had seen this fish before, and nicknaming it ‘goldilocks’ seemed very appropriate for the colour of this fish. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much of a chance to admire it, because it was ready for another powerful run. This happened for several more minutes before it eventually gave up and came in like a wet cloth!

Slipping the net under the fish, my brother and I just looked at it and grinned. We had caught goldilocks. Result. The magnificent fish weighed in at 13 Lb and 5 Oz. Not a monster for this lake but it was a rather spectacular fish to catch.

There is one thing I can be sure to tell you, I am definitely going to be fishing that lake more often now. Esspecially as we have seen much, much bigger carp swimming in that water.  ‘Till next time, I wish you happy fishing and good luck. The CMM.

Have you got any plans ?!

Hello and welcome to my third post for you, it may not be about my fishing, but i'm sure it'll make useful reading.

We are more than half way though a grueling close season – at least for me from my local club water! Although we can always visit waters, it’s just not the same! Sadly, we have to rely on other people’s success with sporadic buying of fishing DVD’s and magazines. But how many of us use this time constructively? Getting ready for June the 16^th is vitally important to your future success and mainly, convenience on the bank. This could be; repairing tackle, improving your water craft skills and targeting new waters –especially learning about them!

Many fishermen will happily fish at their own pace, fair enough, but you never hear about the people that just occasionally go fishing. You don’t have to be an ultra keen angler, but just taking your time and learning about your tactics WILL make you a better fisherman. I, for one, have at least four targets this season to meet. As mentioned in my page ‘about me’, I claim that I will always strive to beat my previous targets.  Having a target, and reaching it, will give you a great sense of achievement. It certainly did for me when I, finally, beat my rather small PB after just 2 weeks of changing lakes. Any targets would focus any of us and give anyone a great deal of determination.

After targeting your intended quarry and your location, the next thing to do is to decide where you are going to fish to have the chance of catching your target(s)?
During the close season especially, you can play around with baiting up and practicing your water craft. Buying in bulk of a quality bait doesn’t cost a load and it’ll give you a massive edge from the baiting up when it comes to open time. However, be sure to check with the water management if you are allowed to bait up and play around with this sort of thing during the close season. Of course, you don’t need a close season to do this, but it’s sometimes very hard to bait up a particular swim and hope that no one comes along and fishes on top of it!

One handy tip for your confidence is to not set a target too high or even too low; doing this will have the same effect as doing either. Catching loads of fish at your targeted weight will become boring and pointless. On the other hand, catching a fish that is almost impossible will lower your confidence and have the same effect as a too easy target.
Although many private clubs don’t get featured in magazines, a lot of venues do. Reading up on these places will teach you a lot about what’s working and what’s not! It’s as simple as that!

While talking about certain venues, using Google maps or Earth will allow you to make plans of how, where and when to fish. Using a form of overhead mapping, you can easily see the shallow, weedy, clear and deep areas of the lake.

I think that is all. I wish you all the best of luck with the future of your fishing – whatever it may be.