A nice result for Ben recently with this 29lb 4oz mirror carp from Wellingborough Lakes. Ben was using Mainline Activ-8 boilies scattered over a wide area. Fishing to a silty area Ben used a chod rig tied with a size 5 ESP Stiff Rigger hook on a readymade Ace Hard On Camo Leadcore Helicopter/Chod Rigs . Well done Ben.
Best Fishes,
John
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Regular customer Jonathan had a lovely zip linear mirror carp recently (I’m dead jealous). Here’s his catch report.
“As you know I have been fishing on the Wellingborough lakes ticket since April and I am not superstitious but my ticket is number 13! I have really struggled this year so thought the ticket must be to blame.
Arriving at the Island lake on Friday night to find a westerly wind blowing there were a few carp showing at the bottom end of the lake. I chose a swim which would allow me to walk round and place two hook baits whilst casting the third rod to showing fish.
At 2am one of the rods placed on in the far margin spot received a drop-back which I lost (hook pull) after only having the fish on for a minute so I re-cast the rod to the spot.
At 5am the rod cast to an area where I had earlier seen carp boshing, was away. This one stayed on and kited to my right, picking up one of my other lines which made netting it difficult. I went In up to my knees with trousers rolled up and it was in the net. The fish, a cracking zip linear weighed 32lb 14oz and hopefully sees a change in fortunes.
Rig consisted of a size 10 Korda wide gape hook tied to about 9” of Korda Supernatural braid on a clay Korda Safe Zone Safety Lead Clip, 2oz atomic dung bomb and 18” of ESP brown lead core.
Bait was an 18mm Mainline boilies tipped with a grain of Pop-Up Sweetcorn with about 10 freebees scattered around the hook bait and a small PVA bag of chops courtesy of a Korda Krusha .”
Nice one!!
Best Fishes,
John
We now have two new products from ESP and Drennan in stock. The NEW ESP Two Tone Striptease Hooklink material is marginally thinner in diameter and more rigid than the original stripteaze. It is a tightly woven Dyneema core with a translucent polymer coating and has a specific gravity of 1.25 meaning it will lay flat on the lake bed without the need for additional weight. It comes on 20m spools of 15lb, 20lb and 25lb although ESP claim it obtained average higher breaking weights than stated with a carefully tied 5 turn Grinner knot.
The second product to arrive in the shop recently are the NEW Drennan Buoyant Maggots . These are available in a mixture of shapes and sizes in Natural, Fluorescent or Bloodworm red colours. The range of size means they can have a diverse range of uses from popped up baits to critically balanced bottom baits. They can also be fishing in conjunction with other artificial or real baits as a bait cocktail. The maggots are pineapple flavour and have been dusted with food grade starch powder, although this flavour can be over-ridden with more concentrated flavours. These are a perfect little addition to your winter tactics. For more information or to purchase follow the above links.
Tight Lines
Dave
Ok here’s one for you concerning carp vision. There’s been a lot written in the magazines recently about red mainline like TFG Red Mist and the fact that red is the first colour in the colour spectrum to disappear under water. Now apparently this only happens at depths of 8 metres plus, but anglers are still using it even at shallower depths in an attempt to fool wary carp. My dilemma is this, one of the carps favourite natural foods is bloodworm which are blood red. So do the carp see the bloodworm? or do they smell them out? If the colour red disappears at depth then surely the bloodworm will be invisible! Another anomaly is the use of red maggots, most of the carp anglers that come into the shop for maggots order reds. The reasoning for this is that they believe red maggots immitate bloodworm, a lot of the magazines also subscribe to this notion. My own experience is that reds outfish white maggots. So what can carp see?
I’m not a fan of ornamental carp normally but look at this stunning koi-king carp cross. Caught by regular customer Sean on a recent trip to France it weighed in at 36lb 4oz. Sean was using Baitcrafts T1 Freezer Boilies and he and his companions amassed quite a haul. More on Sean’s trip soon.
Best Fishes,
John
Most chod rigs nowadays are setup using leadcore or some form of leader but not all fisheries allow leaders whether they be leadcore or otherwise. Using rig tubing is an option which can help get round these bans and can also be used on waters without bans as an alternative to leaders. Rigmarole have designed Chod Rig Beads to fit their Freefall Micro Rig Tubing so that chod rigs can be tied up safely and effectively using the Freefall Micro Rig Tube. The Rigmarole Freefall Micro Rig Tube is a plastic coated stainless steel coil so it is extremely tough and heavy, it is also very easy to thread.
The components used in this demonstration were Rig Marole Freefall Micro Rig Tube, Rigmarole Freefall Micro Rig Tube Chod Beads, Rig Marole Tail Rubbers and a Rig Marole Tournament Casting Lead.
Step 1.
Cut the Freefall Micro Rig Tube to your desired length and thread your mainline through it.
Step 2.
Now thread a Freefall Micro Rig Tube Chod Bead onto the tubing, followed by your chod rig and a second bead. Set the beads in place with your chod rig at the required distance up the tubing.
Step 3.
Thread the Rig Marole Free Fall Tail Rubber onto the line and push the rig tubing into it.
Step 4.
Now tie on your desired lead with a Palomar knot.
Step 5.
Push the swivel into the tail rubber and pull the line tight through the tubing.
The finished rig should look like this. This rig can also be constructed using the Rig Marole Free Fall Rig Tube and the Rigmarole Freefall Chod Beads. Warning !!! do not superglue the beads or pierce through the side!!!
Tight Lines
Dave
On a recent trip to Bluebell lakes, regular customer Ian Smith banked 4 carp from Sandmartin during a weekend session. Ian fished over silkweed in front of a thick weedbed at 70 yards to catch his fish. Using a mix of Sticky Baits Bloodworm Boilies and Dynamite Spicy Tuna and Sweet Chilli Boilies with Sticky Baits Bloodworm Pellets. The setups Ian used were 4oz leads on Nash Weed Safety Leadclips with rigs consisting of Nash Triggalink to 50lb Korda Armourbraid with a size 6 Nash Fang Uni Hook and Sufix Camo Skin with a size 6 Gardner Mugga Hook. The carp Ian landed weighed in at 14lb, 17lb 4oz, 25lb 14oz and 27lb 12oz. Well done again mate.
Tight Lines
Dave
James Kirk had a great result recently bagging himself two gorgeous linear mirror carp. They weighed in at 26lb 12oz and 21lb and as you can see from the photos’ below they are absolute stunners. James was fishing to a hole in the weed in 8ft of water at 30yrds range. The successful bait was Dynamite Baits Chocolate Malt & Tiger Nut Freezer Boilies scattered over a wide area and the hookbaits were double 20mm bottom baits straight out of the bag. James end tackle consisted of 3ft of Ace Hard On Camo Leadcore running on a 1oz Guru Square Leads . A size 6 Gardner Longshank Incizor hook featured in James’ rig. The venue was Wellingborough Lakes.
Best Fishes,
John
Here’s a session report from little David who’s featured on the Carp Catchers Blog before.
“A couple of weeks ago I decided to give my rods a dabble at Welham lake as I was hoping to fish there this winter. After arriving I decided to fish peg 11 and started to spread 100 free offerings at 50yds range with Dynamite Baits The Source Shelf Life Boilies after setting my traps over a shallow silt bed, all I had to do was sit back and wait for my alarm to scream into life. Whilst waiting for this “screaming take” I saw a gorgeous looking ghost carp patrolling round one of the lily pads to my right with a few hefty lookin mates too,I didnt have to think twice about moving over to peg 8 with the “carpy” looking lilys to my left this time finding much smoother patch with the marker doing the same again using my ever trusty Gardner Scorpion Stik throwing out 100 free offerings,but this time a lot more spread out to get the carp moving more hopefully resulting in a take. A few hours past and I was starting to lose hope when suddenly that screaming take finally came. The minute I picked up the rod and started doing battle I could tell it was a big fish possibly one of the gorgeous looking mirrors I’d seen. After ten minutes the fish rose and I was amazed to see a golden carp on the surface heading towards my net, I lifted my rod ready to net my prize when Snap! then silence and after staring at my rod for a second I couldnt believe it the Big ,un had come off! After recasting my rod Ian and big David (Im little Dave!) came down and fished the swin next to mine,I told them about this beautiful ghostie on the end of my line. After having a talk with Ian and big David I decided to have a rig change and swapped to a size 10 Gardner Incizor hook, hoping that the bigger hook would stick better in the fishes mouth an hour passed and it was time to go home,losing that fish was extremly frustrating but I was very happy to see that my tactics are working and I hope to reach my target by catching the big ghostie by next summer! I would like to say thank you very much to Ian and Big David they gave me some great advice both a couple of great fellas! I will try to keep you informed of my quest for the biggie im sure he’ll be in my net soon! ”
We’ll keep track of little Davids quest over the coming months.
Best Fishes,
John
After arriving at one of my lakes for a weekend session and finding it busy I made the choice to take a trip over to Welham lake. We arrived at Welham about 2am after picking up a mate from work to find it relatively empty for a weekend. We settled on a couple of swims at the bottom end of the lake away from the other anglers. The swim I choose gave me a nice margin spot, a far margin snag next to the lillies and an open water spot which had all produce for me back when I had fished there years before.
The rods did’nt go out till first light and I got my head down for a very much needed few hours sleep. After no action during the day except the usual bream I proceeded to place the rods back out on the spots for the evening with a handful of freebies over each rod. The left hand rod was waded along the margin and placed gently on top of the soft silt. The middle rod was cast to the far margin snag next to the lillies and the right hand rod was again placed on the open water spot.
The setup I was using consisted of Armaled LocJaw Safety Lead Clips and Armaled LocJaw Tail Rubbers with 3oz Korda Pear leads. A 7 inch length of Sufix Stiff Silt with 2 inchs stripped back, a Korda Wide Gape hook size 8, a small piece of silicone tubing on the shank of the hook and an extended curved shank using Korda Shrink Tubing
At around 12 pm I had a run on the middle rod resulting in a 14lb mirror and after returning the fish to the water I recast the rod and got my head down. I was woken during the night again by the middle rod but this time a small bream was the culprit. The following morning the margin rod was fizzing and bubbling away and I knew another take was on the cards. About 10 minutes later it tore off and I was in again. This time the fish felt a little better and after a very hard fight with several big lunges for the bush I was fishing upto she was mine. A modest 17.5lb common carp was quickly weighed, pictured and returned.
Later that day I lost a good fish on a zig rig after spending an hour or so observing the fish and the route they were taking through my swim. The rod had been placed a few inches under the surface along a route the majority of the carp appeared to be taking. After that I recieved no further action and packed up mid afternoon.
Although there were no big’uns , it was nice to get a bend in the rods.
Tight Lines
Dave