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

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

Customer Adam Holmes has had the big one out of his local lake. Here’s what Adam had to say :-

Customer Rob O’Brien continues his roll with this gorgeous fully scaled mirror. Weighing 22lb 4oz (weight doesn’t really matter when they’re as stunning as this) Robs mirror was caught from a spot he’s been pre-baiting. The rig Rob used was unchanged, tied KD style with 25lb Atomic Jel-E-Wyre  to a size 8 Korda Wide Gape Hook. Because of the weed Rob dropped the lead on the take using a Korda Hybrid Lead Clip Leader. Keep this roll going Rob, I want to see more of these stunning carp.

Best Fishes,

John

Its getting to that time of year again when maggots are becoming more widely used due to them being such an effective winter bait. Have a go at tying this rig and see how you get on.

The components used in this demonstration were the Korda IQ2 Xtra Soft Fluorocarbon , Korda Wide Gape  hook size 8 and  Korda Micro Rig Swivel.

Step 1.

After cutting your required length of fluorocarbon tie on a Korda Wide Gape using a knotless knot making sure to whip round the shank twice on the way back down to the eye. 

Step 2.

Now thread a micro rig swivel onto the tag end above the hook.

Step 3.

Then pass the tag end through the back of the eye to the front and trim the tag end down to about 3-4mm. This will have created a D shape on the back of the shank for the swivel to move on.

Step 4.

Holding the hooklength out of the way slowly blob the tag end with a lighter to secure it in place. Make sure not to burn the hooklink as this will damage the fluorocarbon and increase the chance of it breaking. Also take care not to burn yourself.

Step 5.

To finish the rig tie a figure of eight knot in the other end setting the desired length of rig you require and trim the tag end.

The finished rig should look like this.

This rig works best with a large bunch of maggots and a couple of imitation pop-up maggots to help counter the weight of the hook. This rig isn’t strictly a maggot rig and can be used with other baits as well. 

The knots used in this demonstration can be found in previous blogs by using the search bar on the top right hand side of the page.

Give it a go.

Tight Lines

Dave

Im a big fan of spreading boilies over a larger area to encourage carp to keep moving, especially as the temperature is beginning to drop. Its helps your rigs work more effectively as the carp aren’t stopping to feed, they are picking up the boilies on the move. It also leaves less chance of the fish sussing your baited area. Tightly baited spots do produce fish and I will also use them in given situations but I believe that a spread of bait is far less obvious as the carp only come across the odd boilie over your area. It can also help produce takes faster as the carp are more likely to pick up your bait if they come across it.

This is a nice clean mirror carp caught over a spread of 20mm Baitcraft T1 Freezer Boilies on a recent overnighter where I put all three rods in the same area and spread 150 baits over the three of them. The rig I used a blowback combi rig tied with 15lb  Korda IQ Fluorocarbon   and 2” of stripped Sufix Stiff Silt  to a size 6 Korda Wide Gape Hook .

Give it a go.

Tight lines

Dave

Customer Eamonn caught this nice scaly 25lb 9oz  mirror carp recently still in it’s winter colours. Eamonn used his favourite Mainline Cell Freezer Boilies  to tempt his lovely mirror. His rig was tied with 24lb Drennan Carp Silk to a size 4 Korda Wide Gape Hook  and cast to a silty area.

Best fishes,

John