After a gruelling three months of concentrating most of my efforts on a river campaign, I have managed to fit in three short overnighters on my syndicate water. These have been short twelve hour sessions, which have led to some good results using a range of Gardner terminal tackle, CC Moore baits, good old trusty [...]
Last week I had a call from my mate Chris ‘Tinca’ Taylor, asking if I fancied a couple of days piking on Chew Valley Reservoir. Chris has offered me a place several times over the last few years and I have had to turn him down due to work pressure. This time was going to [...]
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 [...]
I have been having some very good success during the last month whilst predator fishing on the River Thames in my boat. I love the autumn on the Thames for perch fishing and my favoured style to target the species is to trot with sliding float tackle and a small live bait on the hook. [...]
There is one rig that I have found extremely successful when targeting perch on both still and running water and that’s a simple float paternoster rig. Being simple in design (as are many of my rigs) I hope you will be able to get as much pleasure from it as I have. I recommend a [...]
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 favour a fairly simplistic approach when targeting barbel but by adding a few little tweaks and thought, simple rigs can help trick even the biggest and wariest of fish. All of my barbel fishing revolves around using a running lead set-up, with the idea of keeping as much of the line around the rig [...]
I’ve just come back from a 48 hour session on Linear Fisheries Hardwick and Smiths. I started the session by having a good look around and with there only being one angler on the whole lake, I was spoilt for choice. I had a good look around Smiths Pool and saw very little activity in [...]
I started a 72 hour session on the Small Lake, which I hadn't fished it in a while. I set-up in a swim called gravelly, an area I have great confidence as I have yet to blank in it. I had feel around with a bare 3oz distance lead on my spod rod to find [...]
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 [...]
Hi, I’m John Holloway. I work as an agent for Gardner Tackle, Richworth Baits and a small wholesaler. I’m your average weekend angler (trying to be a good one) and have my highs and lows for success. Most of my customers have become pals over the years. Last April I was on a call to [...]
I turned up to my second home Hardwick and Smiths at linear fisheries to find a fair few anglers on Hardwick side of the lake. With only one angler on the Smiths side of the lake, it soon became apparent why so many anglers were favouring Hardwick end. After standing in one of the middle [...]
Recently I booked sometime off work, in belief my new syndicate was to open, but this was not to be due to on-going legal reasons with the lease. With this throwing a spanner in the works, I decided to re-join the water I concentrated most of my winter carping last year, where I managed seven [...]
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 [...]
The day passed with no more action as the temperatures got to 33.C, we caught up on some much needed sleep. I planned to have a shower around 6pm, so before this I was going to repeat the baiting program that had worked so well the previous night. I mixed the bait together leaving out [...]
I was due to make my fourth visit to Sky Lake’s in France and I knew what I needed to achieve this year, I had to catch myself a fifty. The lake is around 14 acres in size and has got a little weed present, this however is not much of an issue. As I [...]
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 [...]
This summer I have been fishing my syndicate water quite hard whilst I have had the time, fishing 4-5 nights per week while on my school holidays. I kicked off my summer in style by catching one of my most wanted target fish, Fingers, at a spawned out weight of 29lb 6oz. I continued my [...]
It seems that a lot of the waters that I have been concentrating on lately just seem to be getting busier and busier, with more and more anglers turning up by the week. As I’m not one for simply settling into a swim that's left after the weekend rush, without any decent angling options, I [...]
