Hints and Tips
London to Birmingham is an hour and a half by car, 1 hour by train and 2 weeks by boat. The latter being by far the best way to travel in my opinion, it's more fun and you get to soak in the sights whilst drifting lazily along. Boats have been a part of [...]
Spring is finally here and for me that generally means one thing, it’s time to start targeting the population of canal carp that inhabit the Midlands canal network. Don’t get me wrong winter is a great time to be canal carping as a good friend of mine has been proving recently, but with pike [...]
Have you ever wondered why carp prefer to sit at a certain depth? Or even why they would be at one end of the lake or the other? Understanding what makes a carp tick takes effort. For instance, I’ve been reading the water temperatures for years now across all the seasons and a picture [...]
As I have progressed through my angling career, I have learnt so much along the way, which has certainly helped me become more of a successful angler. With spring just around the corner the carp starting to wake up after another winter. To try and help you catch more this spring, I thought it [...]
Photography is becoming more and more popular amongst anglers these days. We all want the best possible shots of the fish that we catch and why not?
As you can see from my last blog, I’m not one to shy away from spending time on the bank in the cold. Being there and observing the water, all paints a bigger picture for me...
Perch are a species that are often synonymous with cold winters, yet autumn and the early winter months of September, October and November are a great time to target perch. Often they can be fairly plump at this time of the year as they prepare for the onset of winter and will often feed heavily [...]
Imagine we are now leaving the summer behind, the greens will be turning to golds, browns and oranges and the nights will be gradually getting longer. What does this mean for the nation’s barbel anglers? Well we certainly need to start thinking about what bait we are using and more importantly how it’s going to [...]
Barbel fishing throughout the winter months can be a very hit and miss affair. If you get it right and fish when conditions are great then the results can be spectacular - but if the conditions are poor (which is the case more often than not) then unless you put your hookbait on the nose [...]
With winter here and temperatures dropping rapidly, many anglers will be looking at their tactics and thinking about cold water baits and fining down their rigs ready for those tricky cold water carp. So, with thoughts of a winter jet black mirror in the folds of my landing net I thought I’d write a short [...]
It can take years of personal findings to perfect a rig, but with all the rigs shown in magazines or websites for you to try, I have noticed there’s always something missing… You’re own confidence and understanding! I’m going to take you through my findings from over the years, I will try my best to [...]
Well, hopefully by the time you are reading this, the weather will have finally cooled off enough to dig out the old pike gear again and I will have put away the summer gear. Lovely though the long summer has been, I am glad to see the back of it. Not only as with my [...]
This autumn I have been bang into my barbel fishing. After gaining a ticket to a rather special stretch of a Thames Tributary, I decided to dedicate a fair amount of my time trying to track down and catch some of its big, yet nomadic residents. I have fished some hard and low stock section [...]
I am not an angler that spends sleepless nights over minute changes that I could make to my rigs, I would much rather they are simple and effective. For this reason, my favourite rig is the snowman rig, with a few little tweaks that separate it from a bog-standard snowman rig, and make it work [...]
In my experience there is nothing better than donning the waders, coupled with a prodding stick and venturing into the wet stuff analysing viable spots on the lake bed in which to present a bait on to start priming for later sessions to create a feeding spot. Having a long handle rake is helpful to [...]
Where do I start with this piece, well if I am honest, I think the best place to start is by asking you to read (or hopefully re-read) Alan Stagg’s article entitled ‘Bream Dream’ last month, as this one runs alongside and follows on after Alan’s piece. Going back a few months, I too was [...]
Mark Casper is without doubt a hugely successful big fish angler. He has an enviable track record when it comes to big carp captures from some of the most prestigious waters in the South East of England. From low stock inland sea’s to highly pressured big fish circuit waters, he has an uncanny knack for [...]
Picture the scene: Low water levels, high light levels, barbel that have probably been hammered in the weeks leading up to my visit, a complete change of scenery, totally varied aquatic topography and a few as yet unknown technical challenges thrown in for good measure. All in all a perfect set of circumstances to charge [...]
The Naked Chod is by no means a new rig and is one that has been well documented for several years now. I have seen the rig used to great effect, yet I have also seen it used incorrectly and in situations where it isn’t really the method I would adopt given the circumstances. The [...]
Right, in Part One I tried to set out a really solid basis for you, the consumer, to understand the really critical information related to the key specifications that generally govern hook design, strength and function. In this second part I’m going to try and offer some more general guidance on what patterns to use [...]
