by Shaun Harrison

Snag Fishing

Now then, back to the previous edition of Carpworld. I enjoy interview type pieces and like to see what makes certain anglers tick. Some come over a little bit cold, in my opinion, and some at the opposite end of the scale seem to absolutely ooze eagerness. I like to think that by the time I have finished reading an interview I have a rough idea what the angler is like, personality-wise. The ‘Big Interview’ with Jim Carpenter showed just how much he has sacrificed in the pursuit of carp over the years, but the one thing which really makes me take my hat off to him was quite early on in his piece where he said:
“I learnt then that I would never be a snag angler, and to this day I very rarely do it. I think that many fish get damaged in those hook-and-hold scenarios and I prefer to keep the fish looking good.”


I wish a few more would try to get that message across. I also dislike snag fishing, which entails fishing excessively weedy waters where the carp get bogged down on the take.
The Mangrove, where I have been a member for several years, has snag margins in every swim where you often see the fish. The majority of the carp I have caught there have been 40yds+ out. I do like to get a scrap out of my fish rather than have the fish bogged down moments after the take. Yes, we can take to a boat and untangle them, but to me that is so far removed from the carp fishing I enjoy. I very much liken this type of angling to ‘fishing for trophy shots’ rather than ‘fishing for pleasure’. Everyone to their own I guess, but I am sure the condition of our fish would be better if a lot more anglers chose open-water swims on more occasions. I do feel that this small point also ties in a little with the long, drawn-out battles we used to have with the softer rods everyone used. We never had things such as unhooking mats, no one had thought about them, yet the fish were hardly ever messed up. I feel that the quick landing of fish these days, along with hook-and-hold snag-type tactics not only tear mouths and create damage that way but also leave the fish full of energy to carry on thrashing it out on the mat.

Mats

Perhaps this is the main reason we didn’t appear to knock the fish around even though we never used unhooking mats. Then again, we were particularly careful where we laid down the fish – I have used a small cut-down groundsheet a few times in the past when the bank has been less than ideal, and before unhooking mats were brought to our attention and made commercially available, I always carried one, but the grass had always sufficed before that. Ah, now then. I have just had a thought – here we go again, time to get momentarily sidetracked yet again. You struggle to find long soft grass around most carp lakes these days, don’t you, because the grass doesn’t get a chance to grow with the number of anglers stomping about and no close season, etc. Thank goodness for unhooking mats.

Belief

Martin Gibbinson’s ‘Not Just Another Method’ should bring home to everyone that no one gets it right all the time. It seems he had a right grueller on Aquatels, but the sheer grit and determination that can only come from total self-belief shone through and rewarded him in the end. It can become so difficult keeping faith when others around you, especially very successful anglers like his brother Rick (who he mentions), offer different advice.
I have been there so many times in the past, where I have ended up swapping and changing everything several times during a particularly difficult spell only to find myself eventually getting back on a roll on the methods I originally steered away from after a few blanks. It was particularly difficult when I worked in the tackle shop environment.
Anglers who I really rated and had a lot of respect for would come in and I would often be given the nod and the wink to give something a go because it was taking such and such place apart. It is very difficult not to take on board advice from certain anglers who have been around a long while, but in the end I found all that happened was I would waste a lot of time trying to catch on alternative methods when my own methods were already working perfectly well.

If you have been on the same water for a while and have slowly tuned yourself into it, you should find your methods to be particularly suited to that place. I often used to find myself using things which weren’t ever designed for the type of fish for which I was fishing. Listening to others, no matter how successful they are, isn’t always the best thing you can do. I remember talking to Lee Jackson about this quite a few years ago. He was (and still is) in the same situation, where he spends all day every day talking to carp anglers. It is so difficult to keep focused and stay on your own successful course.

New Safety Rig Approach

James Harrison has certainly stirred a few hornets’ nests with his radical ideas regarding lead release, etc. It doesn’t matter who they are, or what they write, as soon as someone comes up with something rather revolutionary as regards rig development, someone will try their hardest to pick fault and criticise. When the Hair Rig was first published in the magazines during the early-’80s you would have thought the end of the world was in sight with such barbaric methods given editorial space. Some very well known anglers spoke out about the unethical grounds of having the bait mounted off the hook. Move forward 25 years and no one gives it a second thought; the Hair/hook out rigs are now the norm in most circles. I don’t think there is a rig going which I can’t pick fault with; some rigs have many more faults than others and these are the ones on which the knockers ought to be exerting their energy.

Keep it coming James. Without the foundation of original thinking there is nothing to work upon to reach possible perfection – or is perfection possible, I wonder? I know one thing for absolute certain. There will be more than one company working on marketing the methods described by James and reinventing them as their own….

See you next time

Best Fishes, Shaun

Originally published in “Carpworld” – October 2007

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