Gardner Tackle’s articles. Written by our team of highly experienced carp and specialist anglers.

Up Close and Personal – Lewis Read

“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...

Super Singles – Ricky Thomas

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...

Simple and Tangle-Free – Calum Kletta

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...

No Escape with This – Ian Lewis

“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...

Little Baits Big Carp – Ricky Thomas

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...

Into Iktus – Nick Burrage

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...

Digger Lakes – Ricky Thomas

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...

Close Encounters – Ian Lewis

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...

Does Boilie Colour Matter – Tom Oliver

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...

Carp Fishing – Going Afloat Part 1- By Sam Meeuwissen

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 [...]

Carp Fishing – Canal Carping – By Lewis Baldwin

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 [...]

Carp Fishing – Watercraft – By Nick Burrage

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 [...]

Carp Fishing – A Cold Water Campaign – By Scott Kingsley

As winter approached I decided I would fish a reasonably small local lake which held a decent stock of carp; somewhere I could fish short 24hr or 48hr sessions whenever I could fit them in with work. This winter has been exceptionally busy at work in the Angling Direct mail order department, largely due [...]

Carp Fishing – Speed Fishing – By Luke Church

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 [...]

Fake It on Three Levels – Alan Stagg

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…

The Rig That Did It – Alan Stagg

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…

Carp Rigs 101 – Alan Stagg

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…

Bag a Big Carp – Alan Stagg

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…

Making The Most Of It – Tony Welch

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…

A Great Year – Kai Richards

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…

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