Etang
du Roivre
71240
La Chapelle de Bragny
Burgundy
France.
Telephone:
+33 385 922 953
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Observations and Suggestions
OBSERVATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
For the last five years I have been in the enviable situation of being able to watch, help and generally become involved with carp anglers while carrying out their chosen pastime,………. carp angling. I run my own fishery in France, “Moorland Fisheries”, and I promise that that is the last time that I will mention it. This is not an advert (please book) but purely an observation of some of the things that I have noticed which may be hindering some anglers from catching the carp for which they desire.
Everyone has his target fish. For some it may be a forty or fifty, for others it may be “only” a twenty. It is also probably true to say that each of our targets change as we catch more fish. By that I don’t mean that everyone targets a personal best every time that they go fishing. Obviously PB’s are wonderful but I think that as your own grows larger you sort of settle into the fact that you become less and less likely to catch a new one and the pressure diminishes. I absolutely adore catching thirties and a forty is a very special fish indeed. My targets now revolve around my surroundings while I am fishing and the quality of the fish. Let me explain.
During my thirty plus years of carp fishing in England I would happily sit alongside a barren, muddy, newly dug gravel pit with a conveyor belt running immediately behind my swim. As long as there was reported to be a big carp in the water in front of me, everything was fine. My target for the last few of those years was simply to catch at least one thirty each season. Once this was achieved or once I had caught the biggest fish in the lake it was time to move on. Gradually, oh so gradually, I began to realise that I was finding much more personal satisfaction from mint condition carp of slightly smaller calibre from scenic pools. Especially if these had taken a bit of thought and skill to capture. I would just add that these realisations only settled in after I had been lucky enough to catch two English forties. Maybe that had something to do with it. Anyway it appears that I am not the only angler to be in this frame of mind. I have noticed that, of the two hundred or so anglers that I meet each year, it is those with previous forty plus PB’s who are not stressed about catching anything specific but want to “relax and catch some quality carp”, whereas others with a smaller personal best are almost desperate to catch a thirty or forty. Sometimes I wonder whether the “karma” travels down the line and deters the fish because it seems to be those who are most relaxed who are also the most successful. Quick give me some vallium.
Now to the “physical” observations. It appears that we are all guilty of “going with the flow”. A huge percentage of anglers choose to use safety beads to hold their leads, braided hook links and tubing or lead-core above the lead. Maybe this stems from the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” train of mind. You start with a rig which has been detailed and recommended in one of the magazines, you catch fish and you stick with it. There is nothing wrong with that theory and I am not for an instant saying that the traditional, semi-fixed lead, set up doesn’t work. What I am saying is that we should consider whether there is an alternative which may just present a bait in a way that trips one of the big, rarely caught fish in your lake. Maybe, just maybe he has wised up to the standard rigs. Having an analytical mind I can’t help but question why we are now at the point where lots of anglers are convinced that carp are capable of “learning” about danger, yet we continue to present them with more or less the same rig day after day.
The carp swim onto their dining table and there in front of them is a stretch of green or brown tubing connected to a plastic coated lead in front of which is a coil of braid with a shiny piece of steel attached, holding a ball of food. If any of you fish a clear lake, tie up one of the above rigs and drop it in the margins. I did during 1996 on Linear’s Manor Farm and realised that, even standing eight foot above the rig I could see every inch of it, and I expected a carp to end up with his eyeball less than two inches from it without noticing it? Have a word. I would just like to add here that, even the cloudiest looking water is actually clearer than you think. A carp lives permanently in the “murk” so his eyes are totally adjusted to these conditions and at less than six inches, believe me he can see everything.
If I suggest that we should “go back” to traditional running leads with no tubing nor lead core the normal arguments against me range from;….
1. It nails everything to the lake bed so the fish don’t bump into it.
2. I’ve covered the tube with black and brown dots of paint to camouflage it.
3. Braided hook links are softer so the bait moves more naturally when a carp tries to eat it.
Let’s take each part one step at a time but I will start with part two first. Camouflaging things is great and taking the time to do it shows the determination needed to be successful at this game. However, camouflaging only works if you can be sure that you are matching the colours of the background. Our military personnel would be sitting ducks if they were sent into desert warfare wearing standard woodland camo clothing. How many of you cut off your entire rig each time you go to a new lake and retie it with the correct colour tubing for that lake bed? Not many I’ll bet. Now to take this analogy one step further let’s put ourselves into the shoes of soldiers being sent into battle. Our Commanding Officer has called an embarkation parade and offers everyone the choice of having the best, most up-to-date camouflage gear or the option to be totally transparent. I have a feeling that the camo clothing manufacturers won’t be making a lot of money after that offer.
This leads neatly onto the “nailed to the lake bed” argument. In place of the tubing/lead core I tie a one metre length of strong fluoro carbon. It is transparent, virtually invisible in water and sinks like a stone. It also gives that area of “fish protection” that we lose if we go straight through with a fine reel line as well as giving some extra abrasion resistance where it is needed most. On top of this, being fairly stiff it helps to stop tangles. Whenever I suggest this option to colleagues the reply is normally along the lines of “But it soon gets covered with air bubbles making it visible anyway.” Think about it, if my piece of Ghost is covered with bubbles then so is your delicately painted piece of tubing or lead core. Mine is still less visible than yours…..so there! In fact even air bubbles are less visible against a transparent background than they are against a coloured one.
Part three is not so easy to resolve but can be done. I agree that fine braid allows the bait some freedom of movement. However I won’t use it (and haven’t since 1996) for two reasons. Firstly, as stated above it is visible, but much much more importantly it slices through the sides of the carp’s mouths like cheese wire. My feeling is that we have enough fish called “The Parrot” without producing any more. My first choice of hook link material is a somewhat thinner fluoro carbon in 10 or 12 lb BS. Now if this or any mono is tied “standard hair” system. (Sometimes called “the spring rig”) it allows the hook to turn as the boilie spins. This is not ideal because if a carp is feeding, as they normally do, by sucking and blowing your bait, the hook can end up above it, behind it or in front of it. In other words the hooking percentage drops off. We need to try and ensure, as far as possible, that the hook hangs below the bait. My method of overcoming this and making a superbly efficient hooking system is to always tie the fluro carbon as a “D” rig, even for bottom baits. My first choice of hook is the “stiff rigger” as the slightly out-turned eye makes it sit perfectly on a “mono” type hook-link. With this system the hook becomes a sort of keel and tends to hang below the boilie no matter what. It also offers perfect presentations for pop-ups and snowmen. All of my fish are hooked in the bottom lip and almost to underline the efficiency, while composing this piece I have landed Scaley at 44.04 lbs, on the above rig, and I could barely reach the hook with my fingers to unhook her.
My next statement involves the favoured “lead clip”. I think it is fair to say that we all agree that our bite indication systems (a bobbin hanging from the rod some considerable distance from where the action is actually taking place) leaves a lot to be desired. Short of sitting up for 48 hours at a time, staring at a float, there does not seem to be an obvious answer. However, if the bite indication system is poor, how did we get to the point where we don’t even know that a carp is interested in our baited hook until it has moved the lead. Go on tell me, “Once it has moved the lead it is hooked”. Another load of cobblers promoted by people who like using heavy leads in all situations. If the hooking ability of the semi fixed, heavy lead set up is so good why do we miss such a large percentage of drop backs when fishing tight to an island or similar feature? Our lake has swims which enable anglers to fish across to a forest margin (similar to casting to an island) and almost every week at least one angler will complain that “the bobbin dropped like a stone, but when I picked up the rod there was nothing there.” On top of this, when I fished Wraysbury One, I started by using semi fixed set ups which were rowed out a considerable distance and placed, with the aid of snorkel and mask, on the baited patch. It was not unusual to find, when checking the patch the following morning, that the bait and lead had been moved without any indication at the rod. I am not saying carp were responsible but something was moving the lead, and without getting hooked. From all of these experiences I now choose to fish running leads with only enough weight to enable me to cast the distance needed to reach the fish. Sometimes, if the fish are feeding in the margin at my feet, I will use only half an ounce. This allows me to cast beyond the fish and wind the lead back gently into place with minimum disturbance. I then fish very slack lines but with the line jammed into the rod clip. (Not the reel clip please) So far this has caught me thirteen forties and literally hundreds of thirties and funnily enough, some of these have been “the odd-uns” that don’t get caught very often. Food for thought perhaps?
For me, the big advantage of running leads and slack lines is that, generally, whatever happens at the hook (not at the lead) gets transmitted to the indicators. It is then down to the experience of the angler to interpret the message coming through and act accordingly.
While writing this it would seem silly not to at least mention my thoughts on bait, after all we’ve covered everything else. Our lake is very rich in natural food items and for the last two years we have been using and promoting CC Moore’s Odyssey followed this year by their Meteor freezer baits. Both baits are superb and have produced hundreds of carp for our customers. However, my analytical mind kicked in again and referring to our catch records showed that there were a number of the big carp which were very rarely getting caught on the traditional flavour signal baits. Now we all know that each lake has a number of carp which are regularly referred to as “being on the missing list”. I think we worked out that at one point Wraysbury’s “Mary” was accounting for something like 95% of the captures, meaning that the other twelve or thirteen fish in there were on the missing list almost permanently.
These thoughts had been plaguing me for a few weeks when I decided to give Ian Moore a ring and discuss the situation with him. The combined brain power of the two of us agreed that carp have a built in “good food radar” which enables them to seek out protein and amino acids. Hence their ability to discover and devour bloodworm beds which, as far as I am aware, have not been glugged in strawberry essence. These discussions resulted in a decision being made to try a bait with a protein and mineral signal and very low flavour levels. We are now five days in to our tests on the “Moorland Special live System” boilies and they have already produced twenty four twenty pound plus carp including 17 thirties and one forty. The interesting thing being that the forty, and one of the thirties are fish which only normally get caught once each year. It is far too soon to be able to make any judgements yet but the initial results are staggering and we have a bait base which can be adjusted to suit winter fishing. I would just add that I feel that the bait is probably going to be one of those which either takes a water apart or fails miserably. It may be that it needs to be used on lakes with high levels of natural food or even a high Ph value. Who knows maybe the two go together?
The above paragraph should have been the end of this article but things have happened that I can’t wait to tell you about. I started writing this script on Friday 7th July 2006 and had no idea that it would turn out to be an “as it happened” article but here we go.
On Friday morning I noticed some very big carp visiting a quiet corner of the lake. The area in question was reed fringed and had about 30 inches of water immediately off of the edge of the reeds, sloping gently down to about three feet at ten yards out. The fish seemed to have chosen this range to travel but did not appear to be feeding. Once they had moved out, I trickled in some of the new bait and left the area in peace and quiet. I checked the spot on Friday evening but there was no sign of any action. However, Saturday morning the same group of carp slowly meandered over the patch. They weren’t yet feeding but now I knew that they knew the food was there. Tension and excitement were beginning to grow. On Saturday evening there were the first small signs of carp feeding over the area. Sunday morning saw the big fish taking their habitual constitutional and by the evening two carp were feeding very heavily. I could not contain my excitement any longer. Begging on bended knee resulted in me being given permission for yet another night or so by the lake and the bivvy, the bed, and all the associated gear that we can’t do without, were set up so quietly that even God didn’t know I was there. Half ounce leads were attached to my normal running lead set ups and each rod was cast well beyond the feeding fish and wound gently back to settle each side of where they were devouring my bait from earlier. I didn’t add any further freebies as I wanted to use the “disappearing food syndrome” as one very eloquent carp angler once called it.
I was actually quite surprised that no action came before dark and the signs of activity seemed to have disappeared. I settled into the bag fairly disappointed and must have quickly drifted off to sleep. At three in the morning on Monday 10th July 2006 my alarm sounded a few bleeps. Nothing rushed. No “one toner”, just the occasional bleep. Normally I would have lay in bed and watched for the next stage of the bite. For some reason I got up and examined the rod. The night was inky black but the bobbin was tight to the rod and the glow from its light showed the tip to be pulled round to the right. The line was still in the clip but now under considerable tension. Probably, had I waited, it would have pinged free and roared off but I clicked off the bait runner and gently swept the rod skywards. The tip didn’t move as far as the rest of the rod and then the water in front of me exploded. The clutch screamed and my glasses were covered in spray as the spool span. The fight was slower than normal but the fish always made me aware of its power and weight on the other end.
There is something special about the fight from a big fish in the middle of the night when you are the only one who knows what’s going on. You can enjoy every second. After all if you make a horlicks of it no-one need be told. I am pleased to say (as if you hadn’t already guessed) that it ended better for me than the penalty shoot out did for France. The zoo creature, that I was attached to, slid into the net after twenty minutes or so and at the first time of asking. One look told me that it was immense. One phone call got my son-in-law Wayne to attend to the weighing and take some photographs. We recognised the fish as “The Beast” (48.09 lbs last October) and she weighed 56.07 lbs in words that’s fifty six pounds and seven ounces. What more can I say? Other than Oii Oii !
I think I’ll stick to the running rigs with no tubing !!! Hark, I think I can hear a trumpet blowing, it must be my own. Now where’s that bloody sixty?
Be lucky.
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