Carp Hints and Tips
Bit and particle fishing is a successful summer method and whether incorporating it as a short session stalking method or part of session fishing, it’s a tactic that should never be ignored. My favourite ‘bit fishing’ rig is one that was shown to me by edge fishing supremo ‘Little Jon’ Coxhead and it is a [...]
For my own style of short ‘hit & run’ sessions, with little or no preparation prior to the day, I favour a ‘chuck it anywhere’ pop up rig! My favourite rig uses our 25Ib Vigilante as the hook link combined with the awesome Covert Longshank Mugga hook. Recently I have been using this combination successfully [...]
The simple approach will nearly always catch you fish, but now and again we may come up against particularly tricky fish. In reality they aren’t hard to hook because they are super intelligent - far from it in fact! Normally it’s just because of the way the fish are feeding on the bait. Quite often [...]
The development of specialist high memory hooklink materials like ‘Trip Wire’ revolutionised the use of early stiff rigs, and enabled the Hinged Stiff Rig to evolve from being a good rig into an AWESOME one! Using Trip Wire enables a curve to be set into the hook section - meaning it will always aggressively twist [...]
Carp are a bit like people in a great many senses. You get all types of shapes and sizes, with different characters, appetites and feeding habits. What this means is there isn’t a single magical rig that will trip up every carp, in the same way as there isn’t single wonder bait that every carp [...]
Throughout the year carp spend a lot of time away from the lake bed, either swimming around sunbathing, or searching out mid water sources of natural food. They will happily feast on emerging insects like Caddis and May Fly or filter feed in clouds of daphnia. These invertebrates make up a large proportion of the [...]
With spring approaching more quickly than expected I thought I would share a few things that I feel help me put a few carp on the bank during this period. The first thing on my list is tackle maintenance. Whether you are a seasoned all weather angler who still goes in search of carp during [...]
Several years ago I was sat up a tree watching carp feeding on the Cell boilies that I was flicking into the lake one at a time. It was very relaxing just sat there swaying backwards and forwards in the branches in the light breeze on a warm sunny spring day. I watched as these [...]
To me, productive fishing trips are all about making the right decisions when you arrive at your chosen venue. You maybe lucky enough to find some fish in an area that is uninhabited by other anglers, you may have a bait that those carp will find irresistible but how much thought has gone into your [...]
With the colder weather soon to be upon us I thought I would write a short piece about a method that can put one or two bonus fish on the bank during the winter months. Back in the 1980’s when my love affair with carp began it was deemed difficult enough to catch carp in [...]
Going long.... It was probably around fifteen years ago when I first got the feeling that my catch rates would dramatically increase if I could only cast into an area of my local lake where fish would never usually see bait. I would sit and watch the fish cruising up and down along the far [...]
Despite its apparent popularity in the angling press these days fishing zigs or zig rigs still seems a pretty underused method on some of the waters I fish. I would hazard a guess that perhaps only 10-20% of anglers give them a serious go and I’m still shocked to speak to people who have never [...]
Bait and the successful application of it can mean different things to different people, and of course this can change dramatically at different times of the year. As anglers we all fish different venues and whilst some may fish busy well stocked day ticket waters, others choose the solitude of big fish low stocked venues. [...]
It was with great relief that the last week or so of January finally saw a number of waters return to liquid as both day and night time temperatures slowly started to rise. I could not believe it had been since way back in mid November of 2010 that I’d last managed to get out [...]
