Changing Tactics
By Roy Von Goor
About 10 years ago I started fishing a local lake,..a park lake about 8 acre’s in size.At that time the stock level was massive, lots of doubles and twenties. with the odd thirty plus fish.
The biggest resident at that time weighted 34 lb…a big mirror carp. Everybody wanted to catch that monster.Fishing was fairly easy, days of 5 fish or more where standard.The fish loved the anglers bait and kept coming back for it. At that time I did not land the monster, but sadly lost it in front of the net twice. Last year I had caught my targetfish from another lake fairly fast. With no direct other option I decided to take a ticket for the lake I fished 10 years ago. After arriving I noticed allot of anglers, but nobody catching anything.. All the anglers complained, they did not feed..weather was wrong..etc I just started using questbaits at that particular moment, and it was a good option to test quest them on these no feeding, weathermoody fish. After the 1st session , using fruitly trifle and smokey fish I blanked.
Hmm..i had seen plenty of action in my swim.leaping, bubbles, and crashing fish. Everybody fished the same way…all in the centre of the lake, using 15mm and 20 mm boillies. That 1st session I was fishing similar..15mm bottom baits about 40 yards out.
After closely observing these other anglers I decided my tactic needed to be adjusted. I would started fish under my rod tips, using 10mm’s smokey fish..and 8 mm fishmeal pellets. For hookbait I would stick to my pop-up bottom style fished rigs..( another chapter in this blog)
Well..to cute the story short..i landed in 12 fish in 4 sessions..incl the big mirror. While I only 1 fish was landed on other rods then mine. Just trying to fish at a different way brought me success, even at the moment I am still catching my fish on that lake on the same tactics.
In Holland its hard to get 10mm baits and allot of locals only think of them as bream magnets..but let them attract bream, the carp will follow. That’s my big advantage at the moment…things will probably change when Quest baits concurs Holland and the rest of Europe.
I love these small baits, and so do the carp!!
Greetz roy van goor
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Tags: advantage, angling, anything, artificial, bait, boilies, bottom, bream, carp, feeding, fish, fishing, fishmeal, france, front, groundbait, hook, hookbait, incl, mirror, moment, park, particles, queries, Rigs, rod, session, success, tackle, technique, techniques, tips, winter
Hi Roy,
Exactly the same situation as you. For many years my big edge here in the UK was the use of small 10mm baits. People simply couldn’t be bothered to produce them.
Unfortunately now the 10mm’s are available to everyone. Interestingly after spending several years catching the Mangrove fish on small baits the last good season I had on there was on 22 and 24mm’s!
It seemed ludicrous using them at the time after years of using tiny baits. But, my catches had slowed down and the common denominator around the lake was everyone using small baits. I went on the big ones and the carp fell for them big time.
Always keep the options open and try and not follow the crowds is my advice. If you do the same as everyone else you will only catch the same as everyone else. Be different and who knows what might happen?
hi shaun,
correct..
and its not just the bait choice..try different area’s that are overlooked by others.
other materials..like for example the hooklink..
some many things that can make you fish different then the other anglers..
never say something doesn’t work before you have tried it yourself.
i find this on of the most important things in carpfishing.
be different then the crowd…in what ever way the situation asks for..
greetz roy
I love it when I turn up at a lake and somone says to me “Big baits don’t work here”.
Or “They only take pop-ups”.
Comments like these give me a clear indication what to try first. If they aren’t supposed to eat something I will always have a go.