Carp Catchers Blog

I get quite a lot of catch photos’ as most of you that read the blog regularly will know. Now all of them are welcome, but here are few tips on getting really good shots of your new personal best or special catch. I know it’s hard, but when you catch a special fish don’t run round like a headless chicken. Retain your catch in a safe manner and compose yourself. Next get your camera ready, if a friend, relative or passerby is going to take the photo show them how to use the camera if they don’t already know and explain what it is you want from the shot. Now, and this is one of the most important tips, select the background for your catch photo. Make sure there are no bivvys, nets, chairs, rubbish etc in the background, a nice bush, hedge, flowers or similar that will fill the majority of the shot are ideal. Avoid tree trunks, rushes or long grass as these can look like they’re are growing out of your head. Check the position of the sun, the camera operator should have it behind them shineing towards you. Make sure that the camera operator is crouched down at the same height as you and is not casting a shadow on you or the fish. The camera operator needs to position themselves fairly close to you and adjust the zoom to ensure that all the fish, your head and torso are in the shot, ASK THEM! On dull days use the flash function, this helps to “fill in” the shot and create a sharp image. At night obviously use the flash but also use your cameras red eye function. If you are taking photos’ of large fish such as carp or catfish, have plenty of water to hand and douse the fish regularly to protect it’s mucus layer and also give you a nice shiney fish to photograph. These simple steps don’t take long and they should help you get decent trophy shots. I may do a more in depth look at photography and trophy shot techniques in the future. Hope this has been of some help.

Best fishes,

John

We have a few new arrivals to look at this time. The New  Waverunner Atom Bait Boat looks set stun, it is compact and robust with lots of unique features. One of Atom Bait Boats unique features is a magnetic hook release which alllows you to drop your hookbait independantly from your bait. This feature amongst other crafty little ruses enables you to place you hookbait off your main baited area to hopefully trick one of those bigger carp. Check out the main site for a full list of specifications.

On the bite alarm front the Prologic Senzora VTSW Remote Bite Alarm Set not only looks good with bags of features but apppears to be really good value, have a look for yourself. The new polyphonic alarms should also be in soon and I look forward to having a play with those.

If you’re looking for a rig tube to really pin your end tackle to the lakebed The New Rig Marole Free Fall Rig Tube  may be what you’re after. It has a coiled stainless Steel wire inner covered with a supple plastic coating making it both very heavy and extremley abrasion resistant. A friend of mine (a very capable angler) has been using it extensivley recently with very good results.

For the pike anglers among you Dynamite Baits have launched a new range of pike deadbaits, we had some of their frozen perch deadbaits delivered. I’ve never seen perch deadbaits before, so these babies might give you an edge in your fishing. They might also give the perch anglers out their some food for thought.

Best fishes,

John

Best

Which hooklink? good question, I’m going to run a little mini series featuring the most commonly used hooklink materials. I’ll also discuss the accepted wisdom as to their best use.

Coated Braids

Coated Braids as the name suggests are supple braid hooklinks covered with a thicker, stiffer material usually a plastic of some description. Some good examples are:-

    Sufix Camfusion             Atomic Jelly Wire             Super Mantis

These coated braids have a plastic coating. The coating can be stripped back to reveal the supple inner braid so that you have a stiff section running from the swivel towards the hook and a supple section near the hook. This is essentialy a combi link rig but easier to tie, which is the main reason coated braids were developed. Coated Braid Combi Rigs can be used with bottom baits or if you put some tungsten putty where the coated section ends, pop ups. Coated braids can also be used without stripping back any coating to produce a stiff rig with increased abraision resistance.

Cut your desired length of coated braid, decide how much coating you want strip and grip tightly with your thumbnail (if you have any).

Dig into the coating with your thumbnail and pull away till the coating is removed.

If you don’t have any nails get yourself a  Korda Strippa Tool  they strip away the coating quickly without damaging the braid, they’re brilliant.

korda Hybrid Stiff/Soft

Korda Hybrid Stiff  and  Korda Hybrid Soft  differ to the above because they have a fluorocarbon coating which is both stiffer and heavier than the plastic coatings. Because of their inherent stiffness the Korda Hybrids need to be steamed over a kettle to straighten them and to bed down knots though this is extra work it is worth it.

There are lots of different combinations that can be tied with these hooklink materials, imagination being the only limit.

Best fishes,

John

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Angela and I recently hired a cruiser on the Oxford stretch of the River Thames. It was really hard work as the cruiser was a bit big for two people but we had a wicked time just float fishing off the back of the boat both of us catching a fish a chuck. One of my ambitions was to catch a new personal best perch and boy did I get one, check out the photo below, it weighed 3lb 5oz and is the biggest perch I’ve ever seen. My new PB was caught long trotting 3 white maggots and feeding approx. 10 mixed maggots every trot down. The swim went quiet just before the take so I knew there must be a big predator about, as the roach, perch and dace we were catching were of a good size. The more usual bait for perch is red maggots on the hook and I did try them but catch rates went down until I switched back to whites, the river was very murky so that may have been the reason. The fight was amazing and I can’t wait to go back.

Best fishes,

John

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The  Angling Intelligence 12 Metre Baiting Pole and  Feature Finder  are now in. These products look really exciting and will give you an edge I’m sure. Firstly The 12 Metre Baiting Pole was developed because anglers using the 8 metre Baiting Pole were having such good results that they realised with another 4 metres even more of those carpy hotspots would be in range. The baiting poles allow you to drop your hookbaits and particle baits under bushes and other marginal hot spots with minimum disturbance. They can also be used to stealthly bait those same hotspots regularly to keep the carp coming back for more. The Angling Intelligence Feature Finders were also developed directly from angler feedback.

 Anglers discovered that when they were using the Weed Rake 2  they could really feel the contours of the lakebed but obviously the weed was catching on the tines. The guys at A.I. realised that the weed rake being made of stainless steel was harder than lead so it did not absorb vibrations as much and therefore those vibrations were transmitted more readily to the rod tip. The shape was also a contributary factor to the increased sensitivity it’s blocky shape and sharp edges catching the lakebed more readily than conventional leads. So the tines were removed and slots put in their place to create more edges, the shape was tweaked and after much field testing the Feature Finder was born.

So if you want an edge in your carp fishing The Angling Intelligence 12 metre Baiting Pole and Feature Finder are definately worth a look.

Best fishes,

John