Blogs

Boilie is a rather inadequate word and a bit of history.

The word boilie is a rather inadequate word and doesn't really tell you anything. It is a commonly used word that I actually hate. It's really like using the word dinner to describe all meals. Here I run through a few different categories of 'boilie', with hopefully a few things which will make a lot of sense that perhaps weren't quite so obvious to you before.

Changing Seasons

The seasons are well and truly changing and as we move into March, here is a late catch up from my angling over these past 3 months.

Best wishes
Shaun Harrison

40 years catching carp!

2017 sees me enter my 40th year of catching carp and my first ones were in the snow!

Extracts from my Diary June 2016

Well, I saw another month out, another month that had yet again been kind to me. So, it’s time to scan back through my dairy as in previous months and pick out some of the highlights. Well, I need to show that I still angle. A lot in the trade don’t, yet they manage to come up with new must have’s that have turned their angling around – yeah right!

Extracts from my May 2016 Diary

June 1^st has passed, so half way through yet another year and the time really is flying by. Old age and more aches and pains will be catching up much sooner than I want them to be at this rate.

Looking back over the few weeks of May I have again been rewarded with some lovely captures, so here are a few extracts from my daily jottings in my angling journal.

Moon Phases and my April Diary

I must apologize for the lateness of this April Blog. I had completed it and then discovered my close friend Jan Porter had sadly lost his brave and determined battle against cancer. It totally destroyed me and I held this piece back. I wanted to write about Jan but still I'm finding it hard to find the right words to say.

Strap your guitar on mate, find us some nice quiet water and if you see Brook, tell her I'll be back with you both one day.

So, here is what I wrote before I'd received the devastating news that one of the best had been taken early...

Rest in peace me old Mucka!

 

My start to 2016

Well with 2015 passing us by I can’t help but reflect on what an incredible angling year it had been for me and no doubt largely due to the fact that for the first time since starting Quest Baits I’d not spent most of the year wasting rod hours whilst tweaking and playing around with new baits.

Finally for once I was able to fish the whole season with baits that I had already perfected in previous years, I was so happy with the range that I really couldn’t see the point in bringing another bait out for the sake of it and my catches showed that.

I even made a facebook post at the end of the year of 52 of what I considered to be my best fish of the year to represent each week of the year. I don’t think I could have done that in many other years, not without totally scraping the barrel for mediocre sized fish.

So the year ended and joined this one with big fish from 4 different waters falling to my rods within a  three week period and multiple captures from 2 of those. One has a real poor track record of producing many winter fish so I was particularly proud of a catch of fish there. The old Magnum Whites with a handful of Fruity Trifle to add some bright colour to the swim encouraged the fish to drop down and have a bit of a feed as they always do. It still amazes me anglers still stick with baits that are going to be an issue for the carp to digest in colder water which then messes the fishing up for everyone else. 

Follow the Wind to find the carp.

One of the best bits of advice I was given when I started carp fishing was to look for the swim with the most foam in it. The swim with the biggest waves which was taking the main force of the wind. There is always one swim that little bit rougher than the others.

Which Boilie for winter?

It often surprises me the bait choice made by some for the winter months. A lot of baits that are highly effective during the warm water periods of spring, summer and autumn simply do not ooze the same attraction in cold conditions. Cold water affects a lot of baits, sealing in attractors and stimulants that flow freely during the summer. It is little wonder so many seem to struggle to catch winter carp.

When it all came right. - The Mangrove Record Brace

Well, this tale comes in two parts really with the first part starting on Wednesday 11^th July 2001 back in the days when the only place I really wanted to be was the infamous Mangrove Swamp in deepest, darkest, Shropshire.

How I loved the peace and solitude found at this historic water and totally true to form I was the only person there that day. Just me, the tackle and anything that nature wanted to push my way. As it happens nature was pushing a very strong and very cold wind my way, but what did it matter? There wasn’t another place I would have rather been sat at during that part of my life other than the Lightning Tree swim on a deserted Mangrove.