Carp Catchers Blog

Regular customer Sean Bowen sent in this catch report.

Hi all,
hope you all well, just got back from a 3 night session on Welham Lake, my first session in the UK since last September. Pre-baited a spot a few days prior and was lucky enough to get back on it, which resulted in 17 carp being banked with a mixture of commons and mirrors, two of which where 20′s.
All fish where taken on T1′s and rigs used where claw style made up of ESP Big T’s size 7, tied to 15lb Jelly Wire and Korda Supernatural Braid.
Back over to France next week to fish the river Gav with my mate so will see you soon.
Sean.

Nice fish, well done Sean.

Best Fishes,

John

Michael Siweki had a fantastic result at Dream Lakes recently. He had 40 carp including the massive 53lb 2oz common carp shown. Michaels rig was tied with Korda Supernatural  in weed green to a size 8 Nash Fang Twister  Hook with three 18mm Mainline Cell  boiles as a hookbait. In his report Michael said ” It was b####y heavy”. Well done fella.

Best Fishes,

John

The Shot On The Hair Rig is basically a bottom bait rig with a small shot added to the hair to allow a pop-up hookbait to be used. This completely alters how the rig to reacts to how it would with a bottom bait. The hookbait is allowed to move more naturally due to it’s bouyancy and the length of the hair. The shot on the hair allows you to either critically balance or overweight the pop up hookbait.  The nature of supple braid allows the hookbait to be picked up with minimal resistance and the pattern of the hook means the point hangs low below the hookbait helping it to grab hold. The simplicity of The Shot On The Hair Rig makes it easy to tie and it minimises the bulky components such as shrink tubing used on some rigs.

For the purpose of this demonstration I used the Korda Supernatural Hooklink, a Korda Kurv Shank Hook and a No.4 split shot. The shot size is determined by the size and bouyancy of your choosen pop-up, the bigger and more bouyant the pop-up the larger the shot. I found a No.4 shot to work perfectly with a 14mm Richworth Pineapple Hawaiian Pop Ups  although it varies between different makes and types of pop-ups.

Step 1.

Cut 14″ of Korda Supernatural from the spool and tie a small overhand loop knot in one end.

Step 2.

Thread on your choosen pop-up and secure in place with a bait stop.

Step 3.

For this version of the rig pinch the shot onto the hooklink below the pop-up. This will give you a slow sinking hookbait which is almost critically balanced. We will show you an alternative version of this rig, which has  the shot positioned differently, soon.

Step 4.

Thread the Korda Kurv Shank Hook onto the hooklink passing the braid though the back of the eye to the front and position the bait about 6mm from the top of the hook.

Step 5.

Now whip the hooklink up the shank of the hook 6-7 times and then pass the hooklink through the back of the eye to the front to finish the knot.

Step 6.

Double over the other end of the hooklink.

Step 7.

Then form a loop with the doubled over section of the hooklink.

Step 8.

Now pass the end of the doubled over section around the bottom and through the back of the loop created in step 7.

This creates the figure of eight, if you get this eight shape then you have done it right.

If you struggle with tying the knot then try this method. Alternative Figure of Eight Loop Knot.

Step 9.

Now gently tighten down the knot and trim the tag end.

The rig is now complete and ready to be attached to your lead setup.

The rig is best fished of with a small Dynamite Stick or PVA Mesh Bag thread down the hooklink over the hook to avoid tangles.

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

In this third part of which hooklink we will be looking at braided hooklinks. Braided hooklinks are almost self explanatory in that a soft material is braided to give it a smooth finish and extra strength. The most popular material for braids is Dyneema which is the registered name for a super strong polyethylene fiber. Because Dyneema floats it is often braided with another material usually Dacron to counteract its bouyancy. Kevlar another registered name is increasingly becoming more popular as a fiber for braiding due to its incredible resilience. Kevlar is the stuff they use to make bulletproof vests so that tells you how tough it is. It also is braided with other materials such as Dyneema to give it different properties. Some good examples of braided hooklinks are shown below.

Korda Supernatural      Sufix Silky Soft          Super Nova               Sufix Nu-Flex

Braids

Braids were originally used because early carp anglers believed that carp could feel hooklink materials with their lips. Because braids are soft, thin and supple they reasoned that the carp would be less likely to detect them. Nowadays though they are used as a supple hooklink which allows the hookbait to act naturally. Braids are also very useful when using solid PVA bags as the hooklink can be folded into even the smallest bag.

Though braids are usually used to construct supple rigs they are quite commonly used to tie combi-link rigs, this is because supple rigs are easier for the carp to eject. Combi-link rigs are tied with the braid at the hook end knotted to a stiffer boom section which is attached to the swivel. This gives a rig which has a supple hook end, therefore hopefully catching somewhere in the carps mouth with the stiffer boom section making ejection more difficult. Another variation of the combi-link rig is to have a stiff hooklink material at the hookend attached to a braid section running to the swivel.

Carp Care

Finally just a word of caution some fisheries are banning the use of thin braids as they believe they have a cheese wire effect and cut into the scissor area of the carps mouth. If you find that this is happening in your own experience please, please stop using them.

Best fishes,

John