Dusting off the cobwebs with a bit of winter action.

Edwin Woodhams' story of Christmas time carping.

As you all know winter carping is a bit difficult at the best of times and getting a bite can be quite a challenge, especially if time is limited and you can’t get on the lake at the right time for a bite. However, there are a few things you can do to stack the odds in your favour of netting a winter carp or two. Firstly, being on the water for key bite times, which, in winter, can be quite short and tend to be at dawn, dusk and in the middle of the day when light and warmth are at their greatest. In addition, timing your sessions with the weather can also help, with big low pressure systems from the south-west typically being good conditions for a bite as the warm wind increases the temperature of the water and stirs up the naturals hiding in the silt. Also, pre-baiting will massively increase your chances as long as you use appropriate baits, more of which later!

High attraction but not
overpowering baits were on
 the menu for these fish.

Anyway, Adam and I had been struggling for a bite in the last few weeks so, with the Christmas holidays imminent, we decided to pull out all the stops for a few bites. Living locally to the lake, Adam was able to go down and do a bit of pre-baiting, over about a week, on a few deep marginal spots - which we had caught from previously. The bait used was a mix of Vitalin dog food, hempseed and sweetcorn – all baits suitable for use in winter, unlike for example, halibut or trout pellets, which have a high oil content and as such are difficult for carp to digest in cold conditions and so fill them up for long periods. This actually works against you and defeats the object of pre-baiting. The aim is to get the fish wanting your bait and then recognising it as a good source of food – being consistent and getting a routine in order helps you achieve both these necessities for pre-baiting,
Adam even baited over Christmas day!

So, enough of the theory, how did the actual fishing go? ‘Quite well’ didn’t really sum it up, especially over winter and on this particular lake! Getting down to the lake before sun rise, we soon had the rods out to the prebaited spots and sat back to wait. Adam had typically forgotten his brolly and water-proof over trousers so he wound in and marched off home to get them before the forecasted downpour was due. It was only ten minutes before Adam arrived back in the swim – still quite dark - when my right hand bobbin rose steadily to the rod and I lifted into a fish. Though being in the middle of winter, it made a good account for itself. The fish turned out to be perfection in miniature as I slid the net under a mirror of about 5-6lb. Despite this fish being one of the smaller residents - since their stocking only a few years ago, the growth rates are incredible. It was caught on a rig I've had a bit of success on lately, that being the butterfly KD rig.

One of many fish from
 the last stocking.

The 'butterfly' presentation
of the KD corn rig. 

I reckon its success lies in the odd shaped bait that the fish aren't used to ejecting. I hope to meet that little chap again in about a decade’s time, when he’s put on a bit of weight – If he keeps growing like this, there’s nothing stopping him getting into double figures, easily! As the weather subsided for a minute or two, Adam had the chance to safely re-cast his rigs without getting drenched. His solid PVA bag of Ace baits’ black ice pellets and Marukyu JPz hookbaits went out safely on the spot he had measured up tight against the far margin. And his other rod had a tiny PVA mesh bag nicked on the hook. The bag consisted of liquidised boilies, crushed fast breakdown pellets and a liberal dosing of Nash baits’ Scopex squid In-juicer – though it is not PVA friendly, it does not melt the bag quickly. That small bag then complemented a blatant pop-up rig with a strawberry ice cream hookbait soaked in the said In-juicer. My rods, on the other hand, were flicked out with the KD rig on the right and the other with a couple of the JPz on the hair of a simple bottom bait rig.

The bait that produced the 2
biggest fish of the day.

Both rigs were accompanied by little mesh bags of a mix containing a blend of CCMoore’s live system base mix, pellet Ultramix and liquidised bread. All of which was dampened down with a fair bit of hemp oil and whisky – the alcohol content helps to disperse the oils and flavours. It really works, just ask a chemistry teacher!

My winter stick mix -
all tied up and ready to go.

All we had to do now was wait for the magical call from a twitchy bobbin and the song of a bite alarm’s bleep or two. Again, not long after we had settled down for the second time, the downpour began. We waited a bit more. And then even a bit more! Recasting fresh bags at regular intervals to keep a fresh smell in the water was one of our trump cards as too many people seem happy to sit behind motionless rods! At around 11 o’clock, Adam registered a quiet bleep of the alarm that soon turned into a wary bite. After a mediocre battle with a sleepy common, I netted Adam’s first fish of session. Like many of the fish in this lake, Adam recognised it immediately and told me it was a fish called Dumpy. There was no need to explain to me why! He then, amongst wrestling with it on the mat, proceeded to explain that it wasn't actually a particularly fat fish either.

Descending order;
Spike's twin
and Dumpy.

I guess, like people, some are naturally stocky or lean and some are long or short. The fish was left in the net for a short period to recover and also due to the rain making unfavourable conditions for photography. However, whilst in the net, Adam received a very odd bite on his furthest rod, which took about a minute to materialise into something that definitely wasn’t a liner. After a strong tussle, the draw cord of the net was carefully passed under another common, known as Spike’s twin. Thankfully, it had stopped raining so we got the fish out of the net for their short moments of glory before they were allowed to go home.

Spike's twin weighed in at 15lb 9Oz and Dumpy was 10Lb 4Oz. Adam seemed surprised when I read out the weight of Dumpy as he looked in his log book and noted that it had lost a considerable amount of weight, even though it being winter. He genuinely believes that a log book has not only allowed him to keep an eye on the fish’s habits, but also improve his general understanding of fish and angling as a whole. Though before we could look though his book properly, my JPz pellet rigged rod roared off resulting in a near fully scaled mirror that weighed about 13lb.
Three fish in three quarters of an hour – not bad for a winter session but also highlighting the fairly short bite times typical of winter. The rest of the day session passed without any further events, other than significant quantities of rain!

Don’t forget to check out the accompanying video soon and get out there and catch some winter carp! Keep an eye out too for a pike video and article too!

By E.Woodhams - Carp Mad Men

Never fear, it's that time of year.

A golden carping session.

Winter, a time where many carp anglers move onto different species. Whether it’s due to the season opening for that particular species or that winter carping is, quite frankly, not as comfortable to fish in to say the least. One particular recent session certainly proved that point. It was 19th of December and it forecast light rain showers. However, it was quite mild and a gentle breeze was entering our chosen swim from the west. Following such winds really was one of our trump cards as many fish will follow this. Such winds bring an undertow in the water which suspends food particles. Even in winter, where the fish are reluctant to bother with many traditional baiting methods, carp can simply not resist the ‘scent trail’ of a free dinner waiting for them. If correctly baiting with this in mind, carp can be as easy to catch as in any season. You see, if you are fortunate enough for this wind to blow for at least – I believe – 24 hours in the same direction, the carp have already congregated into wherever this wind has lead them. All you have to do then is give them what they think they want, bait.

Now after the first 200 hundred words or so, I don’t blame you for still wondering what the title of this article is about! And to be honest, you’re going to have to wait to find out. As I mentioned, we, yes we – Edwin and I – were fishing this very carpy looking swim. The wind was blowing in our favour, it was pleasantly mild for December and we had the whole lake to ourselves. Our tactics were either to go with really ‘foody’ baits – to try and get them feeding instead of just mooching. Or, really high attract baits like 2 pence size PVA bags packed with attractants and small, bright pop-ups. Edwin chose to go with gooey, sticky, boozy tiger nuts with a cloudy mix and me, knowing this lake the way I do, going with a Black Ice flavoured yellow hookbait an inch popped up. This was because I wanted to fish over some chod where the last remaining natural food would be and a slow sinking pop-up rig with a coated braid hooklink would allow the rig to flutter down on top of it all.

What we all want, just that
bobbin jumping into life!

It certainly worked fast! Casting out and feeling the lead down at least 9 foot onto a very hard patch of silt the bite came about 20 minutes later. If you have read ‘Well....what can I say?!’ then you may recognise this fish! That’s right, it was Goldilocks. What a pleasure it was to see it again. It still fought as hard this time and it certainly knew its home. It made a dash for the same snags which were well over twice as far from where it was hooked! However, this time I had more powerful rods and the fish was turned a lot easier this time. Though this only made it try harder. In the clear water the golden flanks and bright white belly shone straight through the water as it writhed beneath our feet, still 4 feet down and you could still make out it the beautiful scales and big shoulders. As it came up for one last breath the hook and bait was clearly visible in the side of its pristine bottom lip. A gulp and a gentle knock it’s the head gave the all clear for Edwin to slip the net under it. Taking into consideration the fact that a fish like this cost considerably more than a standard mirror carp, we carefully lifted it out of the water in the collapsed net, removed the hook and weighed it immediately. We then put in the sling and let it have a rest in the margins.

2nd time and still impresses me. 

Like many fish, you don’t want it swimming away and then seeing it floating upside down in the middle of the lake! But this fish was even more precious and we are very privileged to fish this water – carp care was not just a necessity, it was a top priority. After the fish had recuperated, we then took it back to the unhooking mat and quickly took some stills. Thankfully, it swam away strongly like nothing happened and at 13Lb 4Oz, it was almost at an identical weight as last time!

All the time this was happening, however, Edwin kept on receiving countless line bites. Unfortunately, he could do nothing about it as he had to have tight lines as he was fishing very tight to heavy snags. All he could do was wait and hope the fish could find his hookbaits. However, after noticing my fish had been caught on a blatant pop-up, he quickly tied up a hinged stiff rig. Though his hands were so cold, I had to tie on his pop-up! We were both now receiving an unusual amount of liners of which one was so powerful I struck at it, only to find nothing attached!

Oxygen rich and slightly warmer,
fish love inlets.

This was getting irritating but there was nothing we could do, we had to have tight lines. Recasting my rig with a fresh bag, a new glugged hookbait and onto new spot, it was out in seconds. Though, this spot was a little softer on the drop. This might have had something to do with the fact that it was near an inlet and after some heavy rain, much of the leaf litter must have washed in from here. Though, I had nothing to worry about as this brought oxygen rich water and a trickle of warmth to the surrounding water. If the fish weren't here then they must not be in there! Soon enough, another funny bite was received from this spot and after cautiously picking up the rod a small little common was plodding away under the rod tip.

Weighing only about 9lb, it was not going to be much to shout about but it was another untouched gem of the lake. The size of these fish really doesn't matter when you have fish of this quality very local.





‘Till next time, stay lucky...and warm,
Adam, Edwin and Simon.

An apology and added news.

Hi all!

 As you may of noticed, the site name has changed. This is because, as mentioned in the news and at the bottom of Carper's Tips, that Edwin Woodhams and Simon Bosher - 2 very competent anglers in all lines of coarse angling - have joined me and thus, we are now a trio...the 'Mad Men.
However, this post wasn't really about that. It was about the trip, or the lack of it materialising to your knowledge, that I mentioned on here a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the trip did go under-way, and I say 'unfortunately' due to the poor quantity of fish caught - 2, a small 'ghosty' and a nice fully-scaled upper double mirror - and the awful weather, which did no good for the chance of filming.
To add to that, I also have to apologise for the lack of recent articles! But, and a big 'but', Edwin and I especially are out to fix that. As well as the carp, pike may be on the agenda this Winter for you all. Just something a bit different.
 'Till then, keep fishin' .... they'll soon come.

                            CMM

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.