I decided to write this piece about one of the hooklink presentations I have been using to good effect this season. I would recommend the use of this rig on firm bottoms such as sand and gravel, light silt and sparse weed, but not fished in thick weed or heavy silt as I feel the hooklink may sit up off the bottom awkwardly.
Just recently I have started using a lot more combi-link rigs again, and for the life of me I can’t remember why I stopped using them in the first place, perhaps the introduction of the coated braids maybe played a part in this. With a lot of anglers switching to combi-rigs made by simply stripping coating off the braid I think I may have been a little paranoid that the fish would suss it out and my results would suffer.
I used them almost all the time in the late nineties and I guess I must have either moved onto a venue that I found an alternative more productive, or as I said, become paranoid about their effectiveness with so many other anglers now using a similar type of presentation. Anyway I have been using them quite a lot again this year on a couple of venues and have tweaked them to suit my requirements really well. (more…)
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?
by Pat Gillett Over the last few weeks I have been doing a few short afternoon / day sessions, with the longest one being no more than 10 hours. This really is my favourite type of carpfishing. I have kept the tackle to a minimum and been very mobile in my fishing. By moving around a lot (sometimes up to four or five times) and closely watching the behaviour of the carp I have been able to catch one or two fish when the going has really been pretty slow.
The Midlands Estate Lake I have been fishing is about 4 acres, crystal clear and very shallow (no more than 3 ½ feet deep). It also has an increasing amount of weed has the weather warms up. Stocking levels are not particularly high with approximately 35 fish. Because of the water conditions it really is a better ‘nightwater’ with most angler’s catching very little in the day. But I have always believed in the old adage of ‘catching on my own terms’ and as such I have still not fished a night on this water. (I get more enjoyment catching in the daytime). (more…)
Steve Vaughan wrote:
I have just started fishing a new water with a large head of carp to 28lb. It has seen little carppressure and hardly any boilies, however it does get fished for the large bream that live in the lake. The depth varies from 5ft to 18ft, could you give some advice as to how the bloggers would go about fishing for the carp.
Shaun Harrison replies:
Good question this one and one which could be answered in many different ways.
My approach to any new water if the waterclarity allows is to put small traps of bait in likely looking areas then keep walking around the venue until either I am lucky enough to stumble upon a few fishfeeding or until it becomes clear that the carp don’t particularly visit the margins during daylight hours.
If I’m lucky enough to find fish I can then experiment to find what sort of baits the fish prefer rather than going in with the bait I want to use.(more…)