Gardner Tackle Magazine Articles
If you like to stay discreet and keep your lines away from your cautious prey, then using backleads can give you a definite edge. Lewis Read gives you the low-down on what, where, how and why. With the increase in popularity of fluorocarbon line, you could be forgiven for thinking that the days of the good old-fashioned backlead...
“All my target fish are special” He’s caught some of the most desired carp in the land. Here’s what Gardner’s Lewis Read has to say. LEWIS Read has fished many of the country’s toughest waters, including the tricky Car Park Lake, where he caught his personal best – the famous Heather the Leather at 47lb 12oz. UK Carp spoke to him...
Ricky Thomas demonstrates the effectiveness of keeping your rods active and finding the fish during a session on a large winter reservoir WINTER carp fishing is a challenge. Fish will usually be lethargic, so I find a mobile approach gives me the best shot at locating them. Durleigh Reservoir is an 80-acre venue with a good...
Calum Kletta’s take on a favourite rig means he can fish it anywhere from right under the rod-tip to extreme range. I AM not an angler that spends sleepless nights over minute changes that I could make to my rigs – I would much rather they were simple and effective. For this reason, my favourite is the snowman rig, but I do make...
“This is a rig I have a lot of faith in. Ist ’fairly simple to tie, almost tangle-free and offers superb hook holds with great anti-eject properties,” says Gardner’s Ian Lewis. I USE this rig over most substrates, and the broken colour of the Disruption coated braid blends in nicely, especially when you've got a mixture of...
Gardner Tackle’s Ricky Thomas looks at how smaller baits can catch wary specimens. WITH the modern big-fish scene now dominated by boilies, it’s not surprising to see how many anglers arrive at their chosen venue, get the throwing stick out and fire out 18mm baits. With their aerodynamic shape and different application methods, it makes...
Nick Burrage finds there’s something special brewing at this crystal-clear venue in the far south of France... MOST people book their French trips well in advance, but my trip to Iktus Lake came round rather quickly to say the least. After speaking to Robert Watts from carpfishingtrips.co.uk who takes bookings for...
Gardner Tackle’s Ricky Thomas fishes Digger Lakes in Devon for the first time and reveals the tactics he uses for a successful debut... YOUR first session on a venue is always exciting as you plan how to get that first fish in the net. There are some simple rules I always follow to give me an edge, and they certainly served me...
There's an instant cure for insect bites, sunburn and hay fever that exists only to anglers. All the unwanted by-products of a summer’s day on the bank are banished in a flash by a screaming clutch. Ian Lewis’s single rod, lying in the freshly trampled grass of a tucked-away margin spot, is shaking and bouncing as a fleeing...
Gardner-sponsored angling coach Tom Oliver discusses the role that both bright and dull hookbaits play throughout the seasons. I'm often asked why I use certain hookbait colours in particular fishing situations at different times of the year. Through experience, my decisions now come as second nature, but it was...
Imitations, or fake baits as they are called, have a big advantage over natural baits in that they are less likely to suffer from the attentions of nuisance fish. Plus they have the advantage of being buoyant, so they can be fished at any depth. Plastic imitations like corn and grubs have been around for ages, and in the…
Coarse Fishing Answers expert Alan Stagg is one of the best and most well-known big-fish anglers in the country. He’s captured a number of monster fish over the years and has a PB list to make even the best of us green with envy. His latest capture, though, is one of his best, rocking the big-fish world with one of the biggest…
Since the evolution of modern carp fishing began way back in the last century, anglers have devised and developed ever-more elaborate rigs to fool ever-more clever fish. Some have come and gone, others are so complicated you need a PhD in design and knot tying to build then, but there are three that every aspiring big-fish…
The PVA bag has become a bit of a go-to presentation for carpers over recent years. In terms of bait presentation it’s pretty much unbeatable. You’re essentially placing your hook bait slap bang on top of a pile of feed, meaning that once a carp comes across your bait and starts feeding the chances of you getting a take are massively…
I was watching the telly when my wife said, “You haven’t been night fishing for a few weeks. Why don’t you go for a couple of nights?” She was correct; I had only done a single night’s fishing in each of the previous three months. Of course, I had done plenty of day sessions, but that’s the way I like to go in the winter…
I have had a great year’s fishing, catching 10 thirties and my first UK forty. I have been concentrating on a syndicate water in Ringwood and this is currently my second year on there, but this year I have managed a few special ones. My first memorable session was during the middle of March. I decided to set up on the Woods…
There can’t be a more exciting way of catching a big carp (or any carp for that matter) than watching it feed close into the bank, planning your approach and then watching the moment the fish is hooked! It is an easy and effective way of fishing, but too many anglers get caught up in the three-rods-on-a-spot-and-sit-back-and-wait…
In the early spring last year Tom Oliver, Andy Loble and I had a brilliant long weekend trip to France, visiting a lake called Lac de Laneuville. We all managed bites, which was a result given the freezing cold conditions, and I managed three thirties topped by a 36lb common. At the end of March 2014 I was lucky enough…
In 2012 I was lucky enough to get a winter trip to the famous Abbey Lakes complex in France with the purpose of doing some filming for the Gardner Tackle website and YouTube channel. We did really well with all three of us catching new PBs and even two fifties between us. We had been keen to get back ever since…
Understandably, I was full of excitement and anticipation as I arrived for my first session on Horton Church Lake. With the carp barrow loaded, I headed off on to the banks. I’d never even seen the Lake before and came to an abrupt stop when I first gazed across the water, almost pulling a muscle in my cheeks with…
