Carp Hints and Tips
In my fishing and particularly with the rigs I use, it’s about creating a situation that has to tick certain boxes for me to be 100% confident in what I am doing and how I am fishing. The rig mechanics have to be spot on and work as they were intended to originally. I have [...]
I first started using this rig a couple of months ago on a small pressured syndicate that I had just joined. The lake has quite a large head of carp, with plenty of smaller fish backed up with a good amount of 30lb+ fish were the ones that I wanted to be catching! It seemed [...]
As we approach the months of winter it's important to try and prepare for what lies ahead. Short days, long nights and freezing conditions make big carp fishing challenging. Unless there is a big improvement in temperatures, I rarely bother with the big deep low stock pits and instead concentrate on venues that hold a [...]
Name: Luke Church Experience: Over 12 years Carp Angling Favourite Lake: St Johns – Linear Fisheries All-Time Best Bait: CC Moore Northern Specials My Number One Rig Is: Zig Rig Weirdest Thing You’ve Seen a Carp Do? Chase a duck in a small bay until the duck decided enough was enough and flew away – [...]
Over the last couple of years I have been targeting a large gravel pit, which calls for fishing at extreme range at certain times of the year. I had been happy with my 12lb Pro (Carp) for a lot of the time; but as time progressed and I found that I had to fish more [...]
After the loss of a decent fish during mid summer, I was keen to continue on the lake as much as my time would allow. The big one in the lake had come out in early June, and by now we were into August, and I felt that it could well be out again at [...]
Rig mechanics is a simple subject really! You don’t have to be an astrophysicist or brain surgeon to tie a rig that will catch a carp! After all, through a simple process of experimentation and tinkering it’s easily possible to create rigs that will adequately perform specific tasks in relation to how they sit on [...]
Experience: 28 years as a carp angler fishing a number of difficult venues Favourite lake: Longfield Road Lake All-time best bait…Essential B5 My number one rig is…Hinged stiff rig with 16mm pop up Weirdest thing you’ve seen a carp do? Play head tennis with free baits before deciding they were safe. Is there such a [...]
A lot of my angling involves short productive sessions after work or at weekends on waters, that truth be known, are not that hard due to stocking levels as long as you get your location right and present a bait they want to eat in a manner that the fish will find acceptable. Typically, these [...]
With the warm and rather late summer we seem to be having this year, I would imagine a lot of venues have suffered with bad weed problems of one sort or another. Certainly the waters I’ve fished have been particularly weedy and given me a little to think about in terms of both presentation and [...]
I love all types of carp angling, the sport is so diverse, but I especially like the lakes that are generally over-looked because they are low stocked, with an unknown quantity of carp and difficult to fish due to topography and lake bed make up; for example weed and deep silt! Also getting to swims [...]
Small Changes That Make A BIG Difference by Tom Oliver I recently had a week booked off work and had planned a trip to my southern syndicate lake with the hope of getting amongst some of the larger residents as well as filming a few pieces for Gardner Tackle. I arrived at the lake on [...]
I’m a great fan of the Hinged Stiff Rig. I’ve been using it for many years now with very good results. It’s just one of those rigs that quite simply catches carp, so when Lewis at Gardner sent me some new hook link material to try for the boom section of the rig I was [...]
Name: Tom Oliver Experience: Nine years out and out carp fishing but around twenty years fishing in total. I now work as a full time angling coach. Favourite lake: Current Southern Syndicate. All-time best bait… Maggots. My number one rig is… Solid PVA Bag’s. Weirdest thing you’ve seen a carp do? I once saw a [...]
The venue With so many big carp day ticket venues dotted around the country, the modern day carp angler has become spoilt for choice. Catching a big day ticket carp is no walk in the park; most are heavily pressured and have seen almost everything. Although difficult, there are a few things to help you [...]
I can count on one hand the amount of times I go fishing for carp off the top in a season. Here in the south west opportunities are limited for larger fish due to the size of most of the reservoirs where they live. Trying to surface fish for a handful of carp that live [...]
There are often situations that arise whilst carp fishing when we have to decide whether to use a pop up or a bottom bait. As with most methods there are many different theories on both the success and downside to using either or method. I know of carp anglers who use pop ups all of [...]
Gardner’s marketing guru on stars of the future, time bandits, not being able to see and his fear of cows. Yes, cows… In your youthful days were you rubbing shoulders with any of the big names of the future? Doing my apprenticeship in Bushy Park there were a lot of up and coming super keen [...]
Despite good intentions to fish throughout the winter, I just didn’t have the desire to put myself through the weather we just had so instead, decided to keep an eye on the lake over the cold months and see if it was worth doing a bit. Before the cold snap kicked in at the back [...]
Long range angling can certainly be a demanding task often pushing the tackle to its limits. Added to this the need to keep the end tackle as inconspicuous as possible it is certainly pretty challenging. For many years now I have been searching for the ultimate shock leader. For several years I used the trusty [...]
