Carp Catchers Blog

Deadbait Traces

Being able to make your own pike traces can allow you to be a lot more versatile in your fishing as you can alter your trace length and the distance between the hooks to suit your fishing. Making your own pike traces will also save you more money in the long run and can be a lot more satisfying when you land fish on them. To make your own traces you will need a good pair of wire cutters and crimping pliers. (See picture below)

The rig components used in this demonstration were Drennan 7 strand pike wire, Drennan semi barbed trebles, Drennan slim crimps and ESP Hi Performance Carp Swivels. (See picture below) 

Step 1.

Cut a 13-14 inch length of pike wire off the spool and thread a crimp on to one end. (See picture below)

Step 2.

Now thread a treble hook on and double the pike wire over. (See picture below)

Step 3.

Now thread the other end of the pike wire through the crimp. (See picture below)

Step 4.

Then using the crimping pliers flatten the crimp in three central places making sure that no wire protrudes beyond the crimp as your mainline could catch on this during the cast. (See picture below)

Once crimped the hook should look like this. (See picture below)

Step 5.

Now cut a small 1-2 inch length of pike wire from the spool and bend it in the middle passing it through the eye of another treble hook. (See picture below)

Step 6.

Then thread another crimp down the pike wire to your desired distance away from the bottom treble and thread the two tag ends of wire holding the second treble through the crimp and crimp in three central positions again. Making sure that no wire protrudes like before so it doesn’t catch your mainline. The method of using another piece of wire to attach the second hook avoids kinking the main pike wire. (See picture below)

Step 7.

Now thread another crimp down the wire followed by a swivel, then thread the last tag end of wire back through the crimp and flatten in three central places to finish the trace. Again making sure that no wire protrudes beyond the crimp as your mainline will catch on it. (See picture below)

The finished trace will look like this. (See picture below)

You can make your traces to your own desired length to suit bait choice and fishing situation.

Tight lines

Dave

Customer Oliver Jarvis has been braving the cold weather to catch himself some nice pike. The one shown below weighed 9lb 14oz and was caught on a legered eel section from our deadbait section. Well done Oliver!

Best fishes,

John

Customer Ben also had a pike fishing trip to Pitsford Reservoir recently. Ben tempted this 21lb beauty of a pike whilst fishing a copper spoon lure from the back of a boat. The capture was featured in the Angling Times recently and was a Drennan Cup contender. Bens winter fishing goal was a 20lb pike and he achieved it at the first time of asking. Well done Ben!!

Best fishes,

John

A review on some new arrivals now for you pike and predator anglers. We’ve had a delivery of some very exciting Storm Lures, below are reviews on some of them and if you like what you see go to the main site to purchase them.

Storm Kicking Minnow Lures

These look really good, they have a soft rubber segmented body which gives them a minnow like action with a pronounced kick in the tail.

     Red Hot Chilli                     Fire Tiger                      Perch

We also have the rainbow trout model, so check them out yourself.

Storm WildEye Live Lures

The Storm WildEye Live Series of lures really do have wild eyes and look superb. They have a strong soft body with internal lead head, which coupled with a paddle shaped tail gives them a lifelike swimming action. The natural body colours of the wildEye lures should help you fool the wariest of pike. Below are a couple of examples

                                         Wildeye Live Perch                Wildeye Live Pike

We also have more. Check the site out for more of the Storm Lures there will be others to add soon.

Best fishes,

John

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Here’s a nice photo of customer James with a double figure pike. James was boat fishing at Pitsford Reservoir and took the fine specimen lure fishing a copper spoon.

Best fishes,

John

We have had some more Rapala Lures delivered and again they look absolutely superb. In this blog we’ll look at the best way to use them.

Rapala Deep Tail Dancer Lure

The Rapala Deep Tail Dancer Lure is best trolled from a boat but can be cast from the bank. It is designed to go deep between 4.5 – 9 metres to really search out those big pike. The Deep Tail Dancers action can be greatly improved by using different boat speeds.

Rapala Minnow Rap Lure

The Rapala Minnow Rap can be either cast from the bank or trolled. To achieve the maximum depth (4.5m) use the thinnest line you can, braid if possible. Varying the retrieve can bring outstanding results.

Rapala Super Shad Rap Floating Lure

The Rapala Super Shad Rap Floating Lure will dive to about 1.5 metres, but is best fished just under the surface over weedy or shallow areas. It fishes best with a fairly slow retrieve, but varying the speed will impart different actions which may just give you that extra edge.

All the Rapala lures come in different colours and patterns giving you a range of options for differing light and weather conditons.

Best fishes,

John

Exciting news now for the lure anglers among you, we now have a selection of the world famous Rapala Lures. Yes they are quite pricey but they are considered to be the finest lures available. They are made from the very best materials including VMC Treble Hokks and their actions are as realistic as you can get. Also each and every Rapala Lure is individually tank tested and hand tuned before it is boxed. The Pike season is now underway so give the Rapala Jointed Floating Lure Perch or the Rapala Shad Rap Deep Run Lure Fire Tiger a go. We will have more coming later in the month

  Rapala Jointed Floating Lure Perch              Rapala Shad Rap Deep Run Lure Fire Tiger

Happy hunting

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

See and hear how to set up your new Baitcast Reel correctly.