Quest Baits Blog

by Pat Gillett

One of the things that I have noticed in carp fishing during the last few years is the increasing amount of gear that carp anglers seem to be taking with them. In fact it seems that some anglers feel almost naked if they haven’t got at least a barrow load of tackle. I can appreciate the need for all this gear if you are going for a three or four day session especially at this time of year, but I am seeing guys with barrow loads of gear in the summer and they are only stopping for a day or a single night. I am sure that taking too much gear costs anglers a number of fish as it makes them very reticent to up sticks and move swims even when they can see fish on other parts of the lake.

When going for a day session my gear is cut to the bare minimum and I can fit it all into a 45-litre rucksack and small bait bucket (which will include a few Quest Baits boilies, matching paste & pop-ups, a few pellets & a few floaters). Add a lightweight 3-rod quiver, lightweight chair and an unhooking mat and that should be all you need. With this amount of tackle you can have your rods reeled in and be moving on to fish in another part of the lake within 5 minutes.

A couple of my local waters are very shallow and crystal clear. This is an example of the sort of thing I mean; I have seen some guys on these waters make as many as four trips with their barrow just to fish a short night session. Now because of the shallowness and clarity of the water the very fact that they have made all those trips with the barrow has probably ‘spooked’ the fish in the first place. The fish travel around a great deal and so mobility is the key along with concealing yourself and your tackle as much as possible. Usually when you catch a fish it spooks the others so you have to up sticks and move. By taking only the stuff you ‘really need’ you can do this and very often this move will produce a fish whilst the guys with mountains of gear stay in the same place blanking. On a few occasions I have taken a fish in the first hour. If I get the impression the fish have ‘spooked’ from the area and I have not seen any sign in the next hour or so, I will up sticks and move. On quite a few occasions this has bought me another fish in the next couple of hours and so by being mobile you can quite easily end a short session with say a brace of twenties, whereas if you were loaded down with gear you may well have blanked. To me you can have the best baits, tackle and rigs in the world, but if you are not ‘on fish’ they are a waste of time.

It also pays to be mobile through the winter months. I know that when its cold and wet and you are tucked up in your bivvy or behind your brolly you are probably going to be loathe to move but again if you have not got too much gear it is not a problem. There are numerous occasions I can remember where a move in winter has paid dividends for me. For example I can remember fishing one particular club water 10 or 11 years ago. This water was daytime only so I just used to take the bare minimum of tackle. I had been having quite decent success using critically balanced ‘apple-cored’ pop ups in conjunction with a Ritchworth capsule lead. This particular water was about 8 acres and no more than 4 feet deep. I had caught well from one end of the lake through most of the winter but one particular morning I was fishing this end of the lake with a really strong wind blowing down to that end. It was February and after a couple of hours it just didn’t feel right with this wind howling. A quick move to the other end of the lake which felt right (back to the wind, calm water and warmer) and within an hour I had landed an upper double and a nice mirror of just over 25lbs which at the time was the third biggest in the lake. My mate who stuck it out at the other end of the lake blanked. If I had taken too much gear I would probably have stayed put and also blanked.

The mobile approach is also one that I use whilst barbel fishing. If I am fishing a stretch (especially in the winter when the feeding spells can be short) and I am not catching but other people are I will very often move swims. If other people are catching it shows that the barbel are feeding and if you are not catching it’s probably due to the fact there are no barbel in your swim. So to make the most of what can be short feeding spells I will move swims. This approach has brought several good fish on days where otherwise I have been struggling.

So next time you load that barrow up ask yourself ‘do I really need all this stuff’. If the answer is no then go through all your boxes and bags and take out all the stuff you haven’t used for ages (or the just in case stuff which never gets used). For example how many leads etc do you actually need! You will be surprised at how much gear you can do without and next time you see fish moving at the other end of the lake you won’t be put off moving too them. After all five minutes fishing in the right place is worth more than a day in the wrong one.

Cheers, Pat

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Tags: angling, bait, carp, fishing, france, tackle, tips

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Latest Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.