Carp Catchers Blog

Little David equaled his personal best recently with this nice 15lb common carp. David used a Korda Longshank X Hook  and Nash Amber Attract Strawberry  Boilies to catch his fish. Well done David keep them coming !

Best fishes,

John

Customer Eamonn caught this nice scaly 25lb 9oz  mirror carp recently still in it’s winter colours. Eamonn used his favourite Mainline Cell Freezer Boilies  to tempt his lovely mirror. His rig was tied with 24lb Drennan Carp Silk to a size 4 Korda Wide Gape Hook  and cast to a silty area.

Best fishes,

John

A quick word now for those of you who bought the Nash Box Logic Rig Station, the Nash Rig Light is now in. The Nash Rig Light clips onto your rig station or bivvy table and has a flexible neck so you can direct the light where it is needed. The reason it has taken so long for these to come in is that Kevin was not happy with the original batch and sent them back. We also now have the  Nash Box Logic TT Linkers in stock. The Linkers are clever little boxes which can be linked together and are really handy for storing smaller terminal tackle items. For more information or to purchase follow the above links to the main site.

Best fishes,

John

Customer Ben Roberts has been getting amongst them recently, as this gnarly old mirror shows. Ben’s carp weighed 25lb 12oz and shows signs of being clipped in the distant past. Clipping used to be a fairly common practice on some waters back in the day. This was before carp anglers realised each carp was unique and therefore distinguishable from any other carp. The rig Ben used was constructed using 15lb ESP Ghost  knotless knotted to a size 6 Carp’ R’ Us Longshank Nailers . Ben was fishing a snaggy area and used his  Shimano Big Baitrunner LC  reels loaded with 15lb Nash Bullet XT  to guide the old warrior safely to the net.

Nicely done Ben.

Best fishes,

John

Here’s a different one from Rob O’ Brien. Customer Rob did a bit of fluff chucking at Rutland Water the other night and had 4 fish. The best of which is the nice rainbow trout shown below. The fly used was a green and black tadpole with a gold bead head tied to a weight forward line to a fulling mill leader(which Rob says is great for floater fishing for carp).

Nice one Rob.

Best fishes

John

Oliver just keeps catching here’s a nice 10lb pike he had recently. The venue was the local canal and the bait was an eel section from our deadbait department.

Well done Oliver.

Best fishes,

John

One of the problems with using leadcore is the size of the knot used to attach it to the mainline. In a previous blog I showed you how to tie a proper needle knot, which is an extremely small and strong knot. In this blog I am going to show you a very good alternative devised by Keith Moors. Keith used to write for the mags in this country before he bought a carp fishery in France and moved there. Anyway on with the demo.

These are the components used to tie the knot.

I’ve used the ESP Bulk Spool Leadcore  in sandy gravel as I find it really easy to work with. I’ve used the Korda Fine Baiting Needle because it has a really wide body which helps to stretch out the leadcore sheath making easier to thread things through.

Step 1

Pull out about 2 inches of the lead

Step 2

Trim off the lead

Step 3

Singe the end of the leadcore sheath with a lighter to stop the sheath fraying.

Step 4

Loop the end of your mainline

Step 5

Trap the loop in the needle and close the latch of the needle

Step 6

Pull the looped mainline through the leadcore sheath, it should look like this

Step 7

Thread the end of the leadcore down through the loop

Step 8

Pass the leadcore over the bottom part of the loop

Step 9

Thread the leadcore over and under the top part of the loop

Step 10

Thread the leadcore over and under the top part of the loop again

Step 11

Gentley tease down the knot, then pull down tight

Step 12

Pull back the leadcore sheath to expose the tag end

Step 12a

Snip off the tag end

Step 14

Let the sheath go and you have your finished leadcore leader knot. Small, strong and unobtrusive!

Best fishes

John

The best pike of the season by a Carp Catchers customer so far was reported to us recently by Tom Cox. Toms’ monster pike weighed 25lb 4oz and was caught on a legered roach from our deadbaits section. Tom has been tying his own traces using Drennan Barbed Carbon Trebles  , Drennan Slim Crimps and Drennan 7 Strand Pike Wire. Well done Tom that is one big, toothy pike.

Best fishes,

John

Knowing how busy it was likely to be over the bank holiday weekend I planned to fish Elsons from Wednesday to Friday of the previous week. Upon arrival at the lake it didn’t appear to be too busy but I decided to slip in behind someone who was just leaving, opting for a swim that Ive fished before that would give me control over a lot of water. I placed one rod out to a far margin, another to a clear area in the weed and the third was slipped a short way down the margin on a clear area that I could clearly observe from the bank. After a very uneventful 24 hours with little to show for my efforts, I decided I was going to up the bait a bit and put around 100 baits over the far margin rod. For the next night I recieved no indication of any fish feeding or moving around for that matter, but at around 11 o’clock the last morning I recieved a single bleep on the far margin followed shortly by another two then a very stuttery take which left me a tad confused as when I lifted the rod the culprit hit the surface between the snags. To begin with I thought it was a coot but then as it rolled I saw the distinct sight of a carps flanks, it had just come to the surface as the lead had discharged on the take. After a short fight I netted the smallest fish landed from Elsons this year, at 13lb 6oz it wasn’t massive but it was definitely a stunning little mirror that could one day be a gorgeous looking 30 or even 40lb’er. 

The going bait was a single 16mm Baitcraft T1 fished on a simple ESP Soft Ghost fluorocarbon hooklink, lead clip setup and 3oz distance lead with around 100 free offerings baited tightly to the gap in the trees.

Customer Eamonn had a really nice scaly mirror recently. The fully scaled mirror carp weighed 19.5lb and was caught from an open water spot using Mainline Cell Freezer Boilies  in 18mm. Eamonns’ rig was tied using a size 4 Korda Wide Gape Hook  and Drennan Carp Silk . Nice one Eamonn!

Best fishes,

John