Carp Catchers Blog

Lots of catch reports lately, we’ll get back to rigs and such as soon as I catch up. Still catch reports are good as they show that carp can be caught and gives you the methods they’re caught on. Below is my nephew Julius with a 14lb common carp caught on his first cast on his first carp fishing trip. How happy does he look ? Julius used Dynamite Baits Red Fish Shelf Life Boilies  and a PVA bag of pellets on the hook to bag his first carp. The winning rig was a  Rigmarole CamH2O Fluorocarbon Readymade Rigs . Julius used the new Nash rod and Shimano Baitrunner ST 6000 RA  that he got from Carp Catchers.Well done Jules!!

Best Fishes,

John

The new Shimano Baitrunner DL 4000 FA and Baitrunner ST 4000 FA are now in stock. These are new mini Baitrunners with a front drag system from Shimano and are absolutely ideal for a multitude of uses, from small water carping, to stalking and floater fishing. They are also superb for barbel, big tench or roach fishing. The  Shimano Baitrunner DL 4000 FA is the upmarket one of the two, whereas the Shimano Baitrunner ST 4000 FA  although having many of the same features is aimed at the entry level market. For more information or to purchase please click on the above links.

For those of you looking for a big pit reel, we now have the awesome Shimano Ultegra 14000 XTB . The Ultegra 14000 XTB has stunning looks and will retrieve over 1 metre of line per crank of the handle. It is also considerably lighter than it’s predecessor. For more information or to purchase please click on the above link.

                  Shimano Baitrunner DL 4000 FA

                         Shimano Baitrunner ST 4000 FA

                         Shimano Ultegra 14000XTB

Best fishes,

John

We now have the new Shimano Baitrunner XT RA Reels in stock. The range consists of the Shimano Baitrunner 10000 XT RA , the 8000 XT RA  and the 6000 XT RA. The XT RA’s are a really nice carpy metallic forest green and have been brought in to supercede the Shimano Baitrunner Aero GTE reels. They feature an XT-7 body and rotor, zinc die cast gear and Varispeed plus cold forged aluminium main and spare spools. For more information or to purchase please visit the main site through the above links.

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

We now have a Wychwood account and have had the first batch of products in, they all look good quality and value for money. So what have we got? well first up we have the  Wychwood Flexi Rib Shelter  which has a registered design on its unique erection method. So what is it? The Flexi Rib Shelter is a lightweight pramhood style bivvy. It is easy to erect due to its two break pole system and its’ revolutionary erection system. The erection system is simple but brilliant, the poles are fixed at one end and then you flex the poles and pop them into the receiving rings at the opposite end. The Flexi Rib has some nice attention to detail as well, the chromed steel joints when the shelter is erected are hidden behind the pole retention sleeves, so no shiny metal to give you away.

We also have the Wychwood Equinox 12K Big Pit Reel and Wychwood Riot 65 Big Pit Reel in as well. The Equinox 12K Big Pit Reel looks good and has a massive 13 ball bearings making it incredibly smooth and fantastic value. Check the rest of the specs for yourself I’m sure you’ll be impressed. The Riot 65 Big Pit Reel hasn’t got quite as many bearings as the Equinox but 5+1roller bearing is still impressive for a reel at this price point. The Riot has huge cranking power and is a pretty good looker also, have a look.

In The bite alarm department the Wychwood Extremis VTS Bite Alarm and Extremis V Bite Alarm are now in stock.

I’ve got masses more coming in from Wychwood and will keep you updated.

Best fishes,

John

Customer Eric Marlow Used his Greys Prodigy  Carp Rods to good effect on a trip to Bluebell Lakes in tansor. This beauty of a linear mirror carp weighed 22lb 12oz and was the biggest of a five fish catch, it was tamed using Shimano Baitrunner Aero GTE 10000C Reels. Eric used Mainline Fusion Boilies as bait and his terminal tackle included Osprey clear leads and a Korda IQ hooklink. Congratulations Eric on a really stunning capture.

Best fishes,

John

Here’s the promised catch report from Jonathans previous blog and a nice suprise, read on.

“I arrived at the lake at about 5pm to find the sun shining on the water and a light wind blowing from the NW. I header straight for the sheltered and weedy “back bay” as I had a feeling there would be some fish present. I used a small catapult to fire out a few freebies to see whether the carp were up for it and sure enough a couple of fish began to feed. I continued to feed little and often allowing them to build up confidence on the free offerings but they didn’t really seem too bothered. I then noticed a fish feeding further to my right on some free offerings which had drifted that way so moved along the bank and put a few more free offerings over the fish this time they started to take them so I decided to cast in, casting over the free offerings and slowly dragging my controller float (one of your ESP jobs) into position.

Twice I had fish examine my hook bait (dynamite 11mm expander pellet) and disregard it so I reluctantly (big fish in weedy water) decided to drop down a hook size from a size 8 to size 10 korda wide gape. This proved to be the right decision as on the next cast my hook bait was taken with confidence and the line tightened into the 28lb 8oz common, a new PB. It put up a really good scrap and I managed to keep it out of the snags on either side by keeping on plenty of pressure. Those Shimano Ultegra XTB 5500 ’s you sold me are bloody great little reels! After the unhooking, weighing and photos I was well happy and ready to head home but decided to flick one last pouch full of freebies to see if any fish left in the bay were still up for it.

I couldn’t believe it when a fish started to take the free offerings as soon as they hit the water so I had another cast over the free offerings and slowly pulled my hook bait closer to the feeding fish. First the fish swirled at the float and then without any hesitation nobbled my hook bait and made off on a powerful run about 30 yards to my left into some heavy weed. At this point it could have gone one of two ways but the weed the fish had picked up seemed to slow it down and it came in fairly easily. I knew straight away that this fish was heavier than the last and it went 34lb on the scales, my first 30lb+ fish and a second PB in less than 20 minutes. What a result!

I had another couple during a quick overnighter on Friday. The first one at 17lb 5oz and the other 22lb 12oz using chopped  Nash Scopex Squid Plus boilies waded out and placed on clear spots in the margins.”

Jan Porter shows you how to set The Shimano Baitrunner Spool.

I managed to get out Carp Fishing�on the last full moon(Jan 22) after weeks�being stuck in the shop. When I got to the lake there was a light south westerly blowing and as I stood talking to a couple of other anglers a couple of fish showed at the opposite end of the lake in the deeper water. Fish showing in January? almost unheard of on this lake. Loading my gear on the carp porter I got myself up there as quick as possible, excitement and anticipation building all the way, quite a bit of sweat as well as its a long haul from the car park. Sitting in the swim, which is called “no carp corner” a few more fish showed, that will do for me I thought and feverishly set up my Century NG �rods and got them out to the areas the fish had head and shouldered. No carp corner has been very good to me in the past, so I was really confident, two more fish turned over on my spots and plumes of bubbles came up, so they were obviously feeding hard�on the bottom in 24ft of water! I hovered over the rods expecting them to go any minute, then I hovered some more, then some more, whats going on?�I just couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t had a take, maybe they’re only slipping up after dark I reasoned, so as dusk approached the excitement and anticipation started to build again.

Morning broke(I fixed it again) and nothing not a peep from my alarms all night. What to do? I decided as the baits were in a feeding area I’d leave them undisturbed untill packing up time. I whiled away the rest of the day phoning Angela at the shop moaning about my lack of action, it was during one of these phone calls that I noticed the tip on my left hand rod pull round and the next minute the spool on my Shimano Big Bait Runner LC �was a blur “I’ve got a bite” I shouted down the phone as�I threw it on the bed and picked up the rod. The fish gave a good account of itself and went in the net first time, it was hooked bang in the centre of mouth an inch and half back and the hook was buried to the bend, so the rig and bait were working perfectly, deep joy. On the scales it went 30lb 8oz more deep joy a winter thirty, Rob the spod did some great photo’s as you can see.

I decided to pack up�as I’m not a greedy angler and was quite happy with my catch. What’s that noise? turning round my middle rod was bending round and the alarm was screeching like a banshee, picking up the rod I bent into another fish. This one fought a little more scrappily but again went in the net first time, not as big as the other one I thought and the scales confirmed it 23lb exactly bingo! Now the hookhold on this one was exactly the same as the�first fish, this was patricularly pleasing as this�fish was caught on maggots�and I’ve been tieing up loads of maggot rigs trying to get the mechanics the same as my boilie rigs,�bingo again maybe I’ve succeeded. The successfull maggot rig was tied using Rig Marole’s Hydrolink and Gardner Longshank Incizors.

Happy Fishes,

John

Saturday was really awful weather wise, how many of you went fishing? James (featured earlier) and a friend went for the day and had four fish between them (full report to follow). It just goes to show that if you put the time and effort in those crafty carp can still be caught no matter how cold it is.