Carp Catchers Blog

Martin Deathridge has been at it again catching this nice 34lb 5oz common carp from the Bluebell lakes complex. Martin used 18mm  Mainline Cell Freezer Boilies at 120yrds range to tempt his fine catch. The rig Martin used was tied KD style with Korda Hybrid Soft  to a size 6 ESP Curve Shanx . The hookbait was a snowman with a Mainline Cell bottom bait and a 10mm pineapple Mainline Hi Visual pop up. Well done, keep them coming. If  you want to know how to tie the KD Rig see previous blog.

Best fishes,

John

Customer Sean Bown and his friends had a fantastic haul of French carp recently from The Sanctuary. Sean reports

 “Hi John,
A top time was had by all at the Sanctuary in France with 54 fish being banked between the four of us, with 5 40′s and some 20+ 30′s, awesome!!!!
I accounted for 14 of the haul with one 40 and nine 30′s three mid 20′s and one at 12.”

Baitcrafts T1 Freezer Boilies  purchased from us in both 16 and 20mm accounted for all of Sean’s fish. His rigs were constructed wth size 5 ESP Big T hooks tied to either Korda Hybrid Soft Coated Braid  or  Korda Supernatural  hooklinks. Nice one Sean, really good looking fish. Photos’ are pukka too.

                                                                                   38lb 8oz Common Carp

                                                                                   41lb 8oz Mirror Carp

Best Fishes,

John

Regular customer Martin has had a bit of a lean spell recently, but his persistence paid off and it all came good at the weekend. Fishing Swan lake on the Bluebell complex Martin used inline running rigs and a new bait on test to tempt the nice brace of mirror carp shown below. The brace weighed 31lb 8oz and 18lb respectively. Martins snowman rigs were constructed from the new Korda Hybrid Soft  and size 6 ESP Curve Shanx  hooks.

Well done Martin, lets hope they keep coming.

Best fishes,

John

Which hooklink? good question, I’m going to run a little mini series featuring the most commonly used hooklink materials. I’ll also discuss the accepted wisdom as to their best use.

Coated Braids

Coated Braids as the name suggests are supple braid hooklinks covered with a thicker, stiffer material usually a plastic of some description. Some good examples are:-

    Sufix Camfusion             Atomic Jelly Wire             Super Mantis

These coated braids have a plastic coating. The coating can be stripped back to reveal the supple inner braid so that you have a stiff section running from the swivel towards the hook and a supple section near the hook. This is essentialy a combi link rig but easier to tie, which is the main reason coated braids were developed. Coated Braid Combi Rigs can be used with bottom baits or if you put some tungsten putty where the coated section ends, pop ups. Coated braids can also be used without stripping back any coating to produce a stiff rig with increased abraision resistance.

Cut your desired length of coated braid, decide how much coating you want strip and grip tightly with your thumbnail (if you have any).

Dig into the coating with your thumbnail and pull away till the coating is removed.

If you don’t have any nails get yourself a  Korda Strippa Tool  they strip away the coating quickly without damaging the braid, they’re brilliant.

korda Hybrid Stiff/Soft

Korda Hybrid Stiff  and  Korda Hybrid Soft  differ to the above because they have a fluorocarbon coating which is both stiffer and heavier than the plastic coatings. Because of their inherent stiffness the Korda Hybrids need to be steamed over a kettle to straighten them and to bed down knots though this is extra work it is worth it.

There are lots of different combinations that can be tied with these hooklink materials, imagination being the only limit.

Best fishes,

John

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