I’m going to have to get down and dirty with you on this Top Tip. As anglers we come into contact with water every time we fish. Water is the very place that many pathogens (those nasty germs that cause diseases) are at their happiest, just waiting for their next victim to contaminate. Yet it amazes me how careless and sloppy most anglers are when it comes to hygiene while they’re fishing. It’s a case of ‘it will never happen to me’ type scenario. Think so? Think again.
There are many options for accurate baiting and bait presentation. Probably one of the most neglected is wading out your baits to give you that perfect presentation. On 90% of waters this will not be possible, due to depth, silt or wading restrictions, but if it is possible then why not give it a try.
On a local lake that I fish the depths of the waters quantify the use of chest waders. With depths of around 3 to 3 ½ feet, getting in the water in chesties is not a problem.
Prior to this I would have already have done my plumbing work with a marker float to ensure that wading is possible.
Care still has to be taken as there a some large areas of deep silt and weed. I initially take out my landing net handle to use as a prod to ensure that I am not walking into a silt hole or walking off or onto a ledge..
Now there may be some of you that are horrified that that I am disturbing the carp from the margins and scattering them to the far end of the lake. Most estate lakes, as with the one that I am talking about, are used to graze cattle etc.
Have you ever caught a carp, weighed it accurately and then a few days later the same fish is caught weighing 2 to 3 lb heavier by another angler.
Watch some of the angling video’s on the internet web sites and you can witness for yourself, examples of fish being weighed in-correctly.
I have in fact caught a feedingfish at 9.30 am and returned the fish for it to be caught later at around 11.30pm that evening by another angler, weighing in at an extra 3lb. Do you think that is possible? No! It is not. So why do anglers claim these exaggerated weights. Is it ignorance, self esteem, or simply knowingly cheating?
Every now and then you find a bit of kit that makes life so much easier that you wonder how you ever managed without it. If you use a lot of PVA in your fishing then I think you’re going to like this little product. What I call the ’mega towel’ made by a company called Tiemco in Japan. (more…)