Carp Catchers Blog

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

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

Angela and I recently hired a cruiser on the Oxford stretch of the River Thames. It was really hard work as the cruiser was a bit big for two people but we had a wicked time just float fishing off the back of the boat both of us catching a fish a chuck. One of my ambitions was to catch a new personal best perch and boy did I get one, check out the photo below, it weighed 3lb 5oz and is the biggest perch I’ve ever seen. My new PB was caught long trotting 3 white maggots and feeding approx. 10 mixed maggots every trot down. The swim went quiet just before the take so I knew there must be a big predator about, as the roach, perch and dace we were catching were of a good size. The more usual bait for perch is red maggots on the hook and I did try them but catch rates went down until I switched back to whites, the river was very murky so that may have been the reason. The fight was amazing and I can’t wait to go back.

Best fishes,

John

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Local angler and shop regular James banked his first twenty at 23lb 6ozs and another shortly after at 20lb 8oz, the fish were landed from Headlands near Kettering using Activ Maple-8 Mainline Dumbell Hookers in the near margin on a Blowback rig with a Korda Longshank X and Kryston Supermantis, on a Korda Safe Zone Lead Clip with a 2oz Square Pear and Dynamite Chilli Hempseed over the top.

Well done mate, Top angling.

20lb 8oz

Pictures of the 23lb 6oz to follow.

Tight Lines

David

It’s nice to see a woman catching specimen fish for a change. Customer Carol used 15mm Dynamite Baits Fresh Fish Mussel & Oyster  Boilies to net this beauty from the river Avon. Carols personal best barbel weighed in at 10lb 5oz. Well done Carol I’d love one of those myself.

Best fishes,

John

 Ive just come back from a quick overnight session at Elsons, I arrived in the car park at around 6.30 and after a quick lap I decided on a swim Ive fished twice before as my time was limited and I knew of a few spots I could put my rods out to. The rods were out just before darkness after applying a small amount hemp and Dynamite Baits Frenzied Monster Tiger Nuts to my spots. I changed over to fishing tiger nuts after receiving a lot of attention from the resident coots using fusion boilies in a hope that they would blend in better with the gravel bottom in the crystal clear water. I received a couple of liners on my middle rod during the night until finally I had an absolutely screaming take at 4 o’clock which resulted in a pretty looking 14lb 6oz mirror, which put up a very good account for itself until I eventually managed to draw it over the net cord. In the folds of the net it looked bigger than it was but I was pleased all the same, I left the lake around 7 but had no further runs. Lets just hope that I can pull a few more out before returning to Sparsholt in late September.

Tight lines

David

Using maggots on a Korda Longshank Hook Josh caught this lovely 6lb plus bream. Josh was fishing Headlands and cast his bait tight to the far margin. Well done Josh, good photo too.

Watercraft is one of the most important but most neglected aspects of angling, a basic understanding of watercraft and where to fish a lake in given conditions will put you well ahead of the rest. Knowing the basic watercraft skills will help you find the fish which most of the time puts you half way there to catching them. Firstly when you arrive at a lake you need to look at the wind direction and know which direction its coming from, a strong south westerly wind will be a warm wind and fish will generally follow this but they will generally sit on the back of a northerly wind as this will be a cold wind; this is only a general rule of thumb, it can and will be different depending on other conditions and the lake you’re fishing. The second thing you need to think about when you arrive at your chosen lake is the water depths and the weather conditions on the day, if its a sunny day then it will make more sense to fish the shallowest part of the lake as the fish will move up into the shallows to feed as the water will warm up quicker than the deeper parts of the lake. If its a cold dull day then the fish are more likely to be found in the deeper areas of the lake. Again this is just a rule of thumb and will differ between lakes and other conditions. The last bit of watercraft you want to look at is observation, when you arrive at the lakeside don’t just setup up in the closest or most convenient swim take a walk around and see if you can spot any signs of fish. Spend a little time scoping the water out and watch for fish topping, feeding or cruising around, get yourself a decent pair of Polaroids such as the ESP Camou Polarised Sunglasses and climb some trees if its allowed but be careful as it can be very dangerous. Once you’ve chosen a likely looking swim have a think about where you want to put your rods before chucking them out and think about where the fish will be likely to pass through your swim, for example if your fishing next to a bay then it might be worth putting a rod over into the entrance to the bay to try a catch the fish as they are entering and exiting the bay. 

I hope these few basic pointers will help you get your watercraft on track but remember not everything I mentioned will be entirely true on your water so keep an open mind and try to learn more about the lake itself to build up a bigger picture in your head of how the fish behave in certain conditions.

Cheers

David

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Here’s a couple of tips when fishing straight into weed, firstly use longer hooklinks and lighter leads to avoid the lead pulling your hookbait down into the weed and use a small dynamite stick for added attraction to your hookbait with a couple of pva nuggets in it to help the stick and hookbait sink slowly onto the weed rather than falling into it.

Secondly, try using a solid pva bag cast straight into the weed, people are scared of fishing into weed as they don’t think the carp will find their bait. Believe me they will find it!

Thirdly, use a reliable lead setup that will discharge the lead as soon as the fish is hooked, you don’t want to get weeded up and lose the fish of a life time because you didn’t want to lose a lead. Look at it this way you pay enough to go fishing with spending money on a ticket, transport, bait, tackle and food so what’s an extra £1 or so going to matter.

Give it a go and don’t be too afraid, you might be pleasantly surprised!

Cheers

David

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I’ve just returned from a 48 hour session at Elson’s, I arrived at the lake around 5 o’clock on Wednesday evening and after a quick walk round I discovered there was no one else on so I had pick of swims. I settled for the swim I had over the previous weekend, after getting the rods out on the spots with a pineapple flouro pop-up on one rod and Mainline fusion boilies on the other two I sat back for the evening. The next 24 hours were very uneventful with not so much as a liner although fish were regularly showing themselves they didn’t look interested in feeding. As the late afternoon set in there was a downpour of heavy rain which followed the showers we’d had all day, this obviously dropped the temperature and it looked a lot more promising for a take. I spent about half an hour tying fresh rigs consisting of Korda wide gape hooks and  Sufix Stiff Silt with a small bit of silicone tubing on the back of the hook and some shrink tubing to create a better angle on the hook; and cooking up some hemp for the far margin rod to get myself ready for another night. After walking round to bait up the far margin I got back to my swim and all the rods went out on the button allowing me to sit back knowing they were all fishing how they should be.

At around 1 o’clock I received a slow take on the far margin fusion boilie rod which after a short fight resulted in a very familiar common carp weighing in at 16lb 12oz on my new Reuben Heaton Digital Scales, after looking over the pictures once the fish had been released it struck me to be the same fish I landed on a session back around Easter time along with my PB common. The photos were also my 1st self takes with the new camera. The rest of the night was quiet until early morning when I landed 2 Tench to 6lb 8oz, along with my 1st ever coot which was released no worse for wear.

Cheers

David