We all like to see truly huge carp… well here’s one for you!
October 2009 Danny Fairbrass lands Gigantica’s largest resident – the Giant at 72lb. He’d already had several 40’s and a 50 before catching the Giant on his final night. Just look at the size of this magnificent creature!
I’m not a great fan of snag fishing and certainly would not consider sleeping while the rods are close to them. You can imagine how I felt, when on a recent trip to Alder Lake in France I located most of the lakes population in the heavy snags alongside the point forming a large shallow bay in the lake.
I had to get them out!
I loose fed a line of Surf n Turf boilies into the snags running towards the end of the point, and then laid a line of boilies into the centre of the bay. The plan was to lure the carp into an area where I was happy to hook them.
One rod went onto the end of the point then the other into the open water in the centre of the bay.
I had a few liners in the night and then early next morning the point rod flew off quickly followed by the bay rod. This pattern was repeated for the next three mornings.
All the fish hooked were landed and any damage that the snags could have caused avoided.
Surf n Turf certainly has some pulling power!
Cheers Ron
Philip Parker wrote:
I will be tackling a venue that contains a good head of large grass carp. The lake itself is quite shallow 3′-4′ and around nine acres in size. Can anyone offer some advice on trying to catch them. Of all the fish I’ve caught this one has eluded me. Surface baits are not an option at this venue. Any advice would be well received and appreciated.
Grass carp are lovely looking fish and a strange species as they are not easy to target. They will get caught on boilies, but this is more often than not in a water that has little or no weed. In my experience on heavily weeded waters they very rarely get caught at all.
Being basically plant eaters the best way to go about attracting them to your swim is with a plant based bait. I have found maize and sweet corn to be very good in this respect. If you put down a large bed of these particles you have a fair chance you’ll get the fish move on to it.
Top French carp angler Bruno Médou has just sent us a report from his latest trip to the central ‘Morvan’ region of France, and area rich in carp waters and renowned for the large fish that populate its waters.
The region is heavily forested with a large variety of pines, and as Bruno says it gives it a Canadian feel. The beauty of the setting contributed immensely of the pleasure of his trip.
Bruno had the good fortune to spend his trip on three different waters, which had never seen carp anglers before, and was fortunate to bank specimens on all three over the magical 15kg mark (33lb).
An accomplished photographer Bruno has sent us a series of beautiful photos. See Slideshow below:
Well France like the UK has been in the grips of a cold and icy Winter since virtually the turn of the year. Many stillwaters have been frozen on and off and even on the occasions when they are clear the air temperatures and general precipitation, added to the liberal sprinkling of snow over northern Europe, have meant that all but the very brave have stayed at home.
We received an e-mail from French field tester Bruno Medou, who has turned his attentions to the rivers.
This is in fact a great way to bag the odd bonus winter fish. The river carp unlike their lake bound brethren have little choice but to remain active and thus feed during the colder months.
By selecting backwaters, slacker stretches and perhaps even flooded zones you can often find feeding carp. If the fish are feeding they are catchable.
Most of his sessions have been simple over nighters, but the fish have been cooperative in conditions where you wouldn’t even be able to cast a line in a lake.
The advantage also of the colder dryer weather is that so far few of the northern French rivers have seen any significant flood water. Levels have risen and fallen fairly quickly.
So if your local lake is frozen over, don’t give up – try the river instead!
