Carp Catchers Blog

I had another good session recently banking 4 fish, 3 of which were 20lb+ including this immaculate 28lb Common. The fish fell to my standard Blowback Rig set up consisting of a Korda Wide Gape Hook, Korda Weed Green Shrink Tube and Atomic Jel-E-Wyre hooklink with an Armaled Locjaw Safety Leadclip, 3oz Korda Pear Swivel Lead and 3 ft of ESP Leadcore. The hookbait was a 20mm snowman presentation topped with a 14mm Solar Fluoro Pineapple pop-up. The fish were all landed with the aid of the new Korda Subline.

Tight Lines

Dave

After a recent 24 hour session on a local syndicate I landed this stunning 25lb 8oz Ghostie along with 4 other fish. The fish fell to my standard blowback set up consisting of the new Korda Kaptor Wide Gape Hooks, Korda Weed Green Shrink Tube and Atomic Jel-E-Wyre hooklink with an Armaled Locjaw Safety Leadclip, 3oz Korda Pear Swivel Lead and 3 ft of ESP Leadcore. The hookbait was a 20mm snowman presentation topped with a 14mm Solar Fluoro Pineapple pop-up. The fish were all landed with the aid of the new Korda Subline.

Tight Lines

Dave

A couple of new lines this time. The Korda Subline  comes in translucent green or brown and is extremely tough supple and super heavy. This stuff sinks like a brick and comes of the spool with virtually no twist and has a very soft supple feel to it. If you fish slack lines and want a tough reliable line, Korda Subline may be the answer. For more information or to purchase please click on the above link. The  Ace Velocity Leader Line  is aimed at the angler fishing at distance. It features a high breaking strain leader end which tapers down to normal mainline i.e. 25lb leader end tapering to 10lb mainline. This means no more knots to catch and cause birdsnests. The Ace Velocity leader Line has the tapered leader at both ends, so when the leader gets a bit worn you just turn it round saving you money as well. For more information or to purchase please click on the above link.

                                               Korda Subline

                                   Ace Velocity Leader Line

Best Fishes,

John

Some new products from Korda this time. The new Korda Mouth Trap is a purposely designed chod hooklink. It is much easier to use than other chod hooklinks and does not need steaming to shape it. Mouth Trap has a really carpy olive tint to it which makes it blend in really well. For more information or to purchase please click on the above link. The Korda Kontour Fluorocarbon Mainline has been in developement for three years. It sinks like a brick, has high abrasion resistance and casts exceptionally well. Kontour is very soft in comparison to other fluorocarbon mainlines making it very user friendly. Due to its true knot strength, Kontour will be strong and reliable. The Korda Solidz PVA Bags  are manufactured at Korda to stringent specifications using the highest film available. The Solidz PVA Bags have a virtually neutral PH, melt rapidly are extremely robust and come with a Free Bag Loader. There is zero residue when the Solidz melt and they are completely aroma free. They come in four sizes so should be suitable for most baiting situations. Finally we have the Korda Skywinder Spod which is a modified version of Skyraider Spod. The Skywinder is designed as a boilie rocket or to deliver maggots at range. For more information or to purchase any of the above please click on the links.

                                                               Korda MouthTrap

                                     Korda Kontour Fluorocarbon Mainline

                                                       Korda Solidz PVA Bags

                                                       Korda Skywinder Spod

Best Fishes,

John

Here’s a little Carp Catchers tip to help pin that mainline down on the lakebed. The Korda Sinkers  were developed to keep rigs pinned down, but try spacing out 3 or 4 of the large size along your maniline at the rig end to really sink your mainline. I’ve got them on my set up and they really work well sinking your mainline straight away, even quite heavy braided mainlines. For more information or to purchase please follow the above link.

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

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

Some interesting news for those of you experiencing problems with knots for fluorocarbon. One of the big American line manufacturers has done some research on knots and fluorocarbon. They found that one of the most popular and strongest knots the palomar, weakened fluorocarbon by up to 30%. Gardner Tackle who have considerable knowledge on fishing lines, suggest using the blood knot, which is usually considered one of the weakest fishing knots. So you might want to consider doing some knot tests yourselves armed with this information.

Best fishes

John

New in are the Century Neville Snag Ears and Berkleys Spiderwire Stealth Camo Braid. Both of these items look as though they would give any carp angler a significant edge.

Century Neville Snag Ears

As I’m sure most of you know Century have taken over the manufacture of the Stevie Neville Stainless Range. Though the snag ears have been around for some time, it’s always been a bit difficult to get a hold of them. Now that Century are involved supplies should be more readily available. The Snag Ears are for snag fishing primarily, but are also great when fishing nearside margins with the rods pointing forward. An excellent bit of kit that does what it say’s on the tin and also looks good.

Century Neville Snag Ears

use the link above for more info.

Berkley Spiderwire Stealth Camo Braid

This looks really interesting and I’ll be giving it a try myself. Berkley have done lots of tests in their fish laboratories in America and they found that fish spook of lines that are a single colour. After trying various combinations they came up with The Stealth Camo Braid. The same tests showed that the fish did not spook off the broken outline of The Stealth. The colour on the Stealth changes every two or three feet and there are about four or five different colour variations.

                                        Stealth Camo Braid

So for all you braid users out there, this is definatley worth a look. For more info click the link above.

Best fishes,

John

The Needle Knot is a very small neat knot used to tie a mainline to a leadcore leader. As for knot strength the needle knot rates at approximately 100%. The kneedle knot is the prefered knot when considering carp safety as due to its compactness it allows beads, hooklinks, rings etc. to slide of easily in the event of the mainline breaking. The Items you will need to tie this knot are leadcore in this instance I am using ESP Bulk Spool Leadcore  in the Choddy Silt colour, a largish sewing needle, a lighter, some scissors and your mainline obviously.

Step 1

Pull out an inch or two of the lead from the leadcore.

Step 2

Snip of the lead wire

Step 3

Insert the kneedle into the empty leadcore sheath and seal the fibres with the lighter to prevent fraying

Step 4

Thread your mainline through the kneedle and thread the kneedle through the leadcore and out of the side approx. half an inch in

Step 5

Pull the kneedle and mainline through the leadcore sheath

Step 6

Lay the kneedle alongside the leadcore sheath like so

Step 7

Whip the mainline around the leadcore and kneedle 5-6 times in the direction of mainline

Step 8

Thread the tag end of the mainline through the eye of the kneedle

Step 9

Pull the kneedle and tag end through the loops created by the whipping

Step 10

Moisten the knot then slowly pull the mainline and tag end in opposite directions to bed down the knot

Step 11

Carefully snip of the tag end

The Finished Kneedle Knot

Your knot should look even neater as I have used an extremely thick line for photographic clarity.

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Best fishes,

John�