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

The autumn period has to be one of my favourite times of year for fishing. The leaves are falling off the trees, a lot of anglers start to stay at home due to colder conditions and the fish get on the munch before the impending winter, as this recent capture of mine proves during a session on one of my syndicates. Its a fish known as the “Dumpy Mirror” and weighed in at 34lb exactly. The fish fell to a corkball pop up fished on a Chod Rig consisting of an ESP Stiff Rigger Hook, Gardner Tripwire and 9 ft of ESP Original Camo Leadcore. 

Get out there and bag an autumn whacker!

Tight lines

Dave

A recent trip to one of my syndicates saw me bank another 30lb common known as the ‘Elusive Common’ at 33lb 2oz. The fish fell to a corkball pop up fished on a Chod Rig consisting of an ESP Stiff Rigger Hook, Gardner Tripwire and 9 ft of ESP Original Camo Leadcore.

The fish was backed up with a small stocky and a lovely dark 25lb mirror.

Tight Lines

Dave

Heres a nice common carp weighing in at 26lb 8oz. The fish fell to a snowman hookbait with a Solar Juicy Pineapple Fluoro pop-up topping the combination. I have had a lot of success this year using snowmans with bright fluoro pop-ups.  The rig was my usual Blowback Rig consisting of  Atomic Jel-E-Wyre  hooklink material and a Korda Wide Gape Hook in conjunction with a 3oz pear lead, ESP Bulk Spool Leadcore  in Original Camo and an Armaled Lead Clip.

Tight Lines

Dave

After a period of time away from one of my syndicates a recent trip back saw me land 8 fish to 24lb including this scaly scraper 20lb mirror that I’ve now caught 3 times, but who cares when they look like this! All fish came to Atomic Jel-E-Wyre hooklinks with size 6 Korda Wide Gape Hook  tied blowback style. The lead set-up consisted of Armaled Loc-jaw leadclips, ESP Original Camo Leadcore and Korda 3oz pear leads.

Tight Lines,

Dave

Fishing for short periods in the week can bring you success when the lake is quiet and all the other anglers are at home. Here is a 25lb mirror I had on a recent overnighter after baiting the swim on a regular basis for nearly 3 weeks. The fish was landed using an ESP Leadcore leader and Armaled Lead Clip with a Korda 3oz pear lead. The rig consisted of Atomic Jel-E-wyre and a size 6 Korda Wide Gape Hook  tied blowback style fished with a snowman hookbait and a 2 bait stringer cast to the baited area.

Tight Lines

Dave

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

Regular customer Scott had a nice result recently. Fishing an afternoon session at a local lake Scott had two doubles, the biggest of which was a 16lb 6oz common(shown below). Scott caught his fish using a chod rig constructed from ESP Bulk Spool Leadcore  in choddy silt and the new  ESP Curve Shanx Carp Hook  . Well done Scott!

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�