Well what a dire Christmas break we're having weather wise ! Things started off looking good at the start of the holidays and I had planned a specimen Roach campaign over the festive period, but it's all gone a bit wrong !
The lake I was going to target has suffered badly from flooding, and whilst the water level itself isn't so much of a problem, it's the colour of the water that is. The lake has turned a very muddy brown compared to it's usual clarity at this time of year and realistically this will ruin the Roach fishing. So I have been scratching around a bit trying to find something to do and have ended up reverting back to a bit of Carp fishing on a more heavily stocked 'hungry' club water on which I had a very good session using a new method to me, zig fishing. I had always planned on getting to grips with this method of fishing with this time of year in mind as the Carp can usually be sat off the bottom for long periods of time in the slightly relatively warmer layers of water that can form, known as thermoclines. Being a reasonably deep and featureless water that I was fishing I decided to give it a go. The day was bright, and a rare break in the stormy weather of late. I had to search around a bit in order to locate some fish but once I got the first bite, sport was quite hectic, especially for the time of year. I fished two different colours of foam on the hook and though I did catch on both colours, one stood out head and shoulders above the other. The baits were fished at about half depth and within the same area as each other so the comparison was quite a fair one. Though the fish in this lake would be classed as 'hungry' they are no push over and the zigs certainly caught them off guard, and interestingly to prove this a fair proportion of the fish were in double figures which is not something that happens when bottom fishing here. Usually in a multiple catch you may get an odd better fish, but normally the only other way to get through to them is with pre baiting. Zigs are certainly something I will be playing around with on other waters in the future, especially when the bottom bait fishing is slow.

I started off well with a number of Roach of this stamp during my first couple of sessions, then the lake flooded !

 

 



Zig caught 16lb'er part of a catch of a dozen fish on the method, not too shabby for 29th December !

 

 



To conclude this entry, This morning I decided to try another club water that may hold some better Roach, in an effort to continue my campaign for the species, but unusually for me I packed up after only a couple of hours having not had a single bite...the water is shallow and a lot of cold water has gone in lately and this can be the only reason why the fish were showing no interest whatsoever. Again this is what you would class as a 'hungry water' and does have a large head of silver fish, so to not even get a liner within a couple of hours is quite staggering...
Hopefully the Roach fishing will pick up again if this foul weather ever abates, and I will be able to get back to chasing specimens of these lovely silver fish, until then I guess I will be scratching around doing whatever suits the conditions. Hope to report back soon !

More Winter Perch fishing

Had another couple of days Perching at the weekend, this time on a different water with a lower stock of Perch but where the average size is slightly better. The lake resides on the same club complex as the one I fished last week and is the same lake I fished throughout the summer and Autumn for Carp. I have always felt that this lake may hold some very large Perch due to the lower stock. There is just as much food available to them in the form of small silver fish as there is in the other lakes so there is no reason to believe otherwise. The fact that the average size of Perch is better is a good indicator of the potential top end. Most of the fish caught here seem to be over 2.5lb many being upper two's and low three's. There is a sprinkling of fish of under a pound that occasionally take the bait, but these are clearly a different year class to the bigger fish, whereas in the other lake I fished last week the fish seem to be of all sizes with the majority of the better fish being of low 'two's, and yet the lake has also produced some 'three's for me despite the higher numbers of Perch.

Back to the two day's fishing and over the course of the two sessions I fished the same swim but the two days proved to be entirely different in the way the fish fed. The Saturday started of quite bright but did cloud over later on, but the light levels were still high despite the cloud and I landed four Perch and a small Jack Pike over the course of the day. The Sunday however proved to be a far more productive day, with the cloud cover being much denser and the light levels far lower than the previous day. This facilitated a much more productive session and I landed around seven or eight Perch including my first 'three' of the winter, and another Pike. Incidentally due to the fact that this lake holds Pike, it is necessary to use a wire trace when fishing for the Perch, and I managed to find some AFW ( American Fishing Wire ), trace material in a 6lb breaking strain which is very fine and clear nylon coated. It is extremely supple and is knotable which is a huge bonus. The wire doesn't seem to bother the Perch as it behaves much like mono and has a dull camo finish. Overall I am very pleased with the results I have had using this wire and as such would wholeheartedly recommend it.



After a good run on the Perch fishing I think the next few sessions will be for Roach, especially over the Christmas period as I can Target a water close to home for some short day trips in search of some silver specimens...I'll come back to the Perch of course but I find it pays to mix things up to keep the interest piqued at this time of year !

Winter Perch fishing

This weekend I fancied a change from Carp, and as the weather has taken on a proper chill of late I decided to target some winter Perch. Fortunately as a by product of my local fishing clubs stocking policies, several of their waters hold an excellent head of big Perch, with many of them running to well over two pounds and a small number surpassing the three pound mark. I made it a social event with my son and his friend so they too could enjoy the good sport that is on offer. As it turned out conditions were not ideal for our target species as the sun decided to put in an appearance, and as anyone who has any Perch fishing experience will know, Perch do not feed well under a bright sky. Despite the far from ideal conditions we were still hopeful of a few fish, as we knew that once the sun set later in the day we would have around an hour when the Perch would take advantage of the falling light conditions and have a good feed. As it turned out, a band of cloud came to our rescue lowering the light levels and triggering an early feeding spell. Both the boys and myself managed a few nice fish with each of us landing specimens over two pounds, my son managed the biggest of the day at two pounds seven ounces.

Number one Son showing his skills with a 2lb 7oz specimen

 

 

 



We returned the following day, just my Son and I for a Dad and lad day and again we managed some cracking specimens to over two pounds. Bright conditions again made the sport patchy until later in the day when the light levels began to drop. The last hour or so was just crazy, and wherever we lowered the baits in they were almost instantly grabbed by a Perch. The fish must have fed well into dark as we were still getting takes when we could barely see the floats anymore and I daresay we could have carried on catching, had we the means of seeing the bites. This might be something we have to experiment with as it may be the case that the really big fish, the three plussers will come out after dark. Perch being a predator, like their Saltwater cousins the Bass, have incredible eyesight, far superior to that of their prey which gives them the advantage in low light conditions, and like Bass they are able to spot prey far beyond what you might believe. I may go into more detail about the set up I like to use for Perch at some later date, but basically I like to use a float paternoster set up with one or two little personal touches that I feel work well for me.

Pick of the bunch for me, but we had many fish of a similar size over the two days.

 

 

I'm looking forward to having a few more goes to see if I can net a three pounder, I know they are there to be had because I've caught some from these waters before. I will of course still be having a dabble for the Carp now and again over the course of the winter as I have a target of a 20lb plus winter Common...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 







I think we can safely say that winter has now arrived. The summer bird species like Swallows and Swifts have migrated to the warmer climes of north Africa, and have been replaced by their more recognisable winter counterparts such as Pied Wagtails and the ubiquitous Robins that sit on your rods cheekily begging for boilie crumbs or maggots.  

Fishing wise we can now expect things to slow up somewhat, and indeed this had been the case for me recently on the water I was fishing throughout the summer and autumn. Being a shallow water with an average depth of no more than 4 feet or so it responds very quickly in changes to the temperature, and so with the sliding mercury things have been very different to what they were a few weeks ago and I have experienced several blanks at this particular water. In contrast I have dabbled on another water that is much deeper and so is less directly affected by changes in temperature. With an average depth here of 10 or 12 feet it has taken longer for any changes to take effect, and thus I have had some recent success at this water. Fishing my usual short day sessions I have managed to land 5 fish, three of which have broken the twenty pound barrier and two of which are the largest known fish in the lake. I'll let the pictures do the talking and the weights are listed underneath each one. A simple and actually a bit of an old school fruit seed mix boilie was the successful bait, fished on a straight forward bolt rig set up, consisting of an eight inch hooklink, a two ounce custom made lead and around four feet of leadcore.

21lb 12oz Mirror

 

 

This beast weighed in at 32lb 3oz and is the largest fish in the lake

 

 

At 27lb 2oz I was over the moon with this stunning creature !

 

 

So as you can see, a bit of a result, the two biggest fish came during the same day session and is my biggest ever brace of Carp.

Although I may have caught the lakes two largest 'known' residents, they are not really my target for the water. These fish are all Mirrors and there are a few other nice Mirrors that I would like to see in the bottom of my net in the next few months, however there are also some very nice Commons which are my main target and these tend to be much more elusive than the Mirrors. One particular Common I have seen on occasion has caught my imagination, and whilst I think I may have a rough idea of what size it could be I can only confirm this by putting it on the bank....
Both the waters that I am dividing my time between hold some good looking, twenty pound plus Commons, so I will alternate between the two depending on weather conditions in the hope of achieving my goal.

I also have another water in the pipeline that I shall be dallying with from time to time, it's a water in it's infancy as it is a brand new syndicate, but it does contain some original fish that run to over twenty pounds as well a some stock fish that have been in there for about a year and were stocked at doubles, so it will be interesting to see how they have done. All in all I have plenty to do to keep me busy over the winter period and it should also take me through into the spring of next year. Each water has it's own little challenges and targets for me to go at and hopefully I will enjoy my time at each one even if I don't manage to achieve all my goals.

End of summer finale

The last few sessions have seen me bank several twenty pound fish to finish off my summer campaign. It's been an interesting re introduction to my Carp fishing this year and I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. The flurry of twenties has been the icing on the cake after having applied a bait all summer to the water. I have to say that my whole ethos towards my fishing has also changed which has enabled me to fish in a more relaxed manner and yet still fish in a very effective way. Having banked a large number of fish from the water including a few of the better specimens I am pretty confident in the way that my whole approach is working. My rigs have evolved over the course of the season to the point that I have no concerns whatsoever about their effectiveness. The fish in this lake may not be big by national standards and the water may well be regarded as carrying quite a heavy stock of fish with an estimated number of around 120 Carp in a couple of acres, along with a large head of silver fish, but believe me when I say they are some of the cutest Carp I have come across. Their ability to rid themselves of an anglers rig is their party trick and it became apparent quite early on in my campaign that I was indeed being 'done' regularly by these clever Carp. I knew they were eating my bait and I was catching a few fish but I was also getting indications on the rod tips and alarms that led me to believe that some of the fish were indeed dealing with my rigs. The final conclusive piece of evidence was when I reeled in several times to find the blow back tube up by the eye of the hook.....
This led me to make some very small  but important changes to my rigs, and I now believe that the majority of the fish that pick up the rig are being hooked and if they should still be able to deal with it then at least the rig will still be fishing effectively once rejected, offering me the chance of hooking the next fish that should pick up the bait...

One I'd been hoping to bump into.

 

 

Last fish of my summer bait campaign.

So the seasons are now moving on and summer has turned to autumn and this in turn will take us into winter and it's time to change my approach. The bait I was using, while still one of the most effective baits I have ever used in colder water temperatures, and indeed one of the best baits I have used full stop, has come to the end of it's usefulness in catching Carp as we move into the twilight months of this year. A change of bait is in order to something more suited to the colder water temperatures, and early results on another water suggest that I am on the right track with my new bait.

Early result to my winter bait from a different water.

 

 

 

The Carp are now getting their winter condition and colouration and I am really looking forward to hopefully banking a few in the coming weeks and months. It won't be easy but it will be worth the effort to see them in their glorious winter coats. 

Friendly Ghost !

It's been a little while since my last blog entry, so here's a catch up....

At the moment I'm still Carp obsessed, and I've been doing quite well on my local water that has been my focus of late. I'm guessing that around 70 fish, give or take have come to my net during the short day sessions that I fish. Regular application of bait has ensured the runs keep coming with only a short interruption of the action when the temperatures took a sharp drop a couple of weeks ago. Obviously it took the Cap a few days to adjust but now they have, one or two of the better fish have graced me with their presence..

This Ghost Koi is one that I had in mind as a target as I had never caught it before but I had seen it on the bank a couple of times to my mate. The fish weighed 22lb 3oz and is quite a character.

 

 

 

It can often be seen cruising around near the surface and will frustrate the hell out of you by cruising just inches from you hookbait without showing any interest whatsoever !

 

 

 

Bizzarely I had the same fish again less than a week later.....

 

 

 

Obviously it's decided it likes the bait !

 

Last weekend, I concentrated on an area between two islands, that supports a large stand of Lilly pads. The pads themselves are now starting to deteriorate as we move into Autumn and as such are no danger to fish to now from a fish safety point of view, and they easily dislodge if anything so much as touches them. The spot produced six runs over three short day sessions with all six fish landed safely. The best fish was a surprise 20lb plus Common at 22lb 14oz, a surprise because up to now apart from the Ghost Koi, all the bigger fish have been Mirrors, and I'm not sure how many twenty pound Commons may be in the water. I have witnessed one other twenty plus Common a few weeks ago to another angler and this one I had is definitely not the same fish being much longer and darker in colour than the other one I saw, so there are at least two that I now know of.

 

 

A nice long lean specimen of a Common at 22lb 14oz

 

 

 

 

 

Lastly one other twenty pound plus fish was this Mirror of just over 20lb a couple of weeks ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that's it for the catch up for now, hopefully there will be a few more decent fish to report before winter sets in.

Crucian Carp fishing

Just to prove that I'm not all about Carp fishing as my Blog title suggests, I had a nice afternoons Crucian Carp fishing with my two boys. The club that we belong to had stocked some Crucians in one of their smaller lakes recently and I decided to have a look and see how they were doing. The good news is that they seem to be doing well and with time they will hopefully grow into some nice specimens. It was a great afternoon with plenty of the lovely humpy backed, bronze flanked little beauties falling to my float fished maggots and the occasional reasonable Rudd putting in an appearance to. Both my sons caught plenty of them too along with some newly stocked mini Tench too.

 

 

 

 

 

Tester session

I had a short tester session at a water that I have not fished for a while the other evening. It's a venue that I am saving until it gets a bit cooler and is less busy. The lake and its occupants is one that I am very familiar with and in recent times has received a fair bit of attention from Carp anglers. The upshot of this is that due to the increase in the amount of bait going into the lake, the fish are putting on decent weight gains and the water looks set to produce some good fish. My short tester session was with my eldest son and we fished for a few hours in the evening. Shortly before dusk I had a pick up from a Carp and after a fairly protracted and tense fight I scooped up this stunning fully scaled mirror weighing 24lb 2oz.

 

 

 

 

This is a very good weight for this fish, especially at this time of year and she looks set to become a very big fish in the future. 

Korda Stow bobbins

One piece of equipment that I must review are Korda Stows, I purchased a set of these last year after seeing them on one of the Korda dvd's and thought they would fit in perfectly with the way I like to fish. One thing that made them stand out is the versatility of their design as they can be fished as conventional bobbins and hung on the line or they can be fished in such a way as to be able to relax the line between the rod tip and terminal tackle allowing it to settle on the bottom properly with less chance of the carp detecting it and spooking.
They are quite an expensive Item in my view compared to some other indicator systems but I believe they are well worth the extra cost due to the advantage they provide in helping catch more Carp. They are designed to work with most bite alarms, however I use ATT's and the Stows need modifying to work with the ATT alarms as they are so small. Basically all I had to do was buy some buzz bar extensions such as the ones designed to give access to the switch on certain Delkim alarms or the quick change adaptor type of extension, and I  had to remove a couple of links in the Stow chains to fine tune them to fall off on the take as they are designed to do with other alarms. Not a difficult task and one that affects the performance of the Stow's in no detrimental way. You can see the extensions in the pictures below.

Extensions are needed with ATT's alarms

 

 

 

Detail of the unique line clip that allows you to remove tension from the mainline.

 

 

 

 

I genuinely believe that the Korda Stow indicators have given me an advantage and helped me to put more Carp on the bank recently due to the unique way they work in promoting a much more subtle end tackle presentation. Though the line between the rod tip and terminal tackle can be relaxed this does not interfere or delay bite indication because of the effects of water pressure on the line creating 'drag' or resistance on the line when a Carp picks up the bait and moves off. Obviously how much you can relax the line depends on the angling situation and factors such as the distance you are fishing at or whether you have snags or weed or bars to take into consideration when deciding how best to use these indicators, but used sensibly I'm not sure they could be improved on in offering the best in bite indication and end tackle presentation. 

 

 

 

Making up for lost time !

So I've been fishing a fair bit lately and establishing a bait on one of my local waters, one that is dominated by a certain popular mainstream bait...
Obviously the anglers there have little imagination because most seem to be struggling despite being on this particular bait. As usual I have gone my own way and have chosen a bait about as far removed from what the fish are used to seeing as possible rather than jumping on the bandwagon. To me there is no reward or merit to following the herd, I can only gain satisfaction from working out the puzzle myself and taking the 'old school' route of doing my own thing.
So I set out to establish my own bait and results have steadily increased over the past few weeks to the point where I have been catching well, and in fact better I believe than most people who are on the mainstream established bait. My rigs though fairly simple have evolved also over the last few weeks with little tweaks here and there to maximise their effective hooking potential. The fish in this lake, though not big, are very cute and rig shy, and have demonstrated on several occasions their ability to 'get away with it '. I am now pretty confident that my rigs are working pretty well combined with the baiting situation I am using, which is always something that should be taken into consideration when deciding what rigs to use in a given situation. Sadly due to the high density of silver fish in the lake, being a club water, there is little room to use anything other than larger, harder baits, and as I am not keen on using particles such as Tiger nuts over the long term, boilies and large one's at that, are really the only option.
I've really been enjoying the fishing thus far and seeing my bait and rigs steadily begin producing some good results, however one piece of the puzzle that hasn't yet come together here is catching the bigger fish. The lake record stands at about 25lb ish, and there is a fair head of Carp in the lake to get through to reach the better fish. Having said that, many of the Carp are only 20lb plus at the right time of the year, i.e. winter and spring, so maybe I am worrying unduly as I have been getting a few fish in the 18 and 19lb bracket, which will obviously break 20lb later in the year. I have had one scraper '20'  which was clearly still empty after spawning. I'm not sure just how many '20's there are at this time of year, but I would imagine not too many, maybe half a dozen at a guess so hopefully in a few weeks I should start to see a few more in my net.
I haven't bothered to photograph many fish as I have been catching so many, most of which have been in the 13- 15lb bracket but I have taken snaps of one or two of the better fish when I have had a photographer handy to save me doing self takes.

The stamp of 'double' I've been getting.

 

 

An 18lb 8oz Mirror.

 

 

 

Chub Extra Protection Carp Cradle

I recently decided to upgrade some of my Fishing gear as some of my old gear was starting to look a bit dilapidated after years of hard use ! One of the more pressing items I had to replace was my unhooking mat as my old Chub compact Beanie mat was no longer providing the support and protection it used to due to my using it to sit on when I was stalking ! So it was time to look around for a new mat, and with the recent development of the cradle type mats that offer the best in fish protection, I decided this was the type of mat I would look into getting. After considerable research and considerations regarding the practicalities of the various types of Cradles and Mats available to suit my own needs I decided to take a punt on the Chub Extra Protection Cradle Mat. As I only fish very short day sessions, I needed something that was compact and easy to transport, and the Chub Cradle fits this criteria very well. The mat folds down to a very compact size thanks to the use of zips on the four corners of the mat that form the support of the padded side panels. When unzipped the sides collapse and you simply fold the mat into itself to make a very compact package that fits neatly into a drawstring carry bag. Padding wise the mat is very well padded and there is a separate padded base that velcro's  into the bottom of the cradle. there are drain holes n the bottom of the main section to allow excess water to drain away. Other features include a small fold away kneeling mat, side pockets for your Carp care kit, and a fold over flap to keep any fish secure should you need to leave them unattended whilst preparing weighing gear etc. So far the mat has proven itself to be a good investment and has lived up to my expectations well and fits nicely into the niche that I require for my angling. Obviously I will have to see how it performs in the long term as regards durability, but it appears to be very well made and robust and as long as the zips aren't mistreated I see no reason why it should not last a long time. All in all I think this is a great product from Chub and in my opinion one of the best designed mats on the market.

Well supported sides that don't collapse !

 

The fold over protection cover

 

Carry handles

 

Unzipped ready to remove Velcro in mat for folding

 

Mat removed showing drain holes in base

 

Plenty of room for fish of all sizes

 

 

 

 

 

Stinking hot July Carping !

July, and it's stinking hot. Not my favourite time of year and not a great time to re immerse myself into Carp fishing ! However I have been doing a bit on a local water and with some immediate success. I've been fishing just mornings for a few hours while it's still relatively cool and the sun isn't too high. Once it is too high of course the Carp just bob up to the surface like corks and have no interest in feeding, then it's time for me to leave. One of my short sessions yesterday was quite busy and I landed four Carp all in double figures in a short space of time. Three of the fish were commons to around eighteen pounds and I also had this nice looking Mirror of just over Eighteen pounds as well.

 

 

 

 

Tactics for this lake are very standard fair I'm afraid due to the large number of silverfish present, 18mm Boilies fished over a scattering of the same keeps the Carp coming and the silvers at bay most of the time ! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming home

Well, here I am again back on the Coarse fishing.....
To tell the truth I'm not that surprised really, I've been struggling with my physical ailments for quite some time now and having attempted some saltwater fishing this year I'm afraid it has only served to aggravate my condition. So that's it I think, no more saltwater fishing for me, certainly not any adventurous trips anyway such as climbing up and down cliffs or long hikes along shingle beaches ! I had no real ambitions with the saltwater fishing apart from to catch fish. You have to take what you can get with saltwater fishing unless you can really put the time and effort in and there is so much against you all the time, not withstanding health problems on top!
I still have a lot of ambitions to achieve in coarse fishing however, so having turned 44 years old yesterday I have decided it's time to fulfil those dreams !

I left off the last blog entry here talking about a special little local water with a very nice stock of desirable residents in the form of Carp, I did pretty well there last year for the short time I was on the water and to tell the truth though I caught some nice fish, I didn't catch any of the fish I really wanted to catch apart from maybe the first one, the fully scaled. I had fish to 34lb and whilst that may be a nice fish weight wise, it isn't always about weight, though it's a nice bonus if you catch a good looker at a good weight !
So I'm toying with the idea of having another go to try and finish what I started, and depending on what sort of deal I can work out with the owner on the price of a ticket I may well begin a campaign on the water in a few weeks time.
In the meantime however I will just be fishing the local club waters to get back into the swing of things, much as I did last year, it's important for me to gain my confidence in my methods again and hone my skills before moving onto anything 'serious' !

I'll try and keep the reports coming and busy the blog up a bit with what I'm doing and how I'm doing it as I go along, in the meantime here are a few pictures of some of the fish I had last year at the special water.