As the Easter holidays were coming up I was preparing for my trip to France for a week at St Leonards lakes. I visited the venue last year and had a great time including catching two forties, so I was keen to return at the same time this year. After a six hour ferry journey [...]
Having received my new Farnham Angling Society ticket I couldn’t wait to get to the lake and look around the water that I planned to concentrate on. Upon arriving I strolled around and spoke to a few of the anglers; many of them had been fishing on the Farnham ticket for several years and they [...]
Well, where do I start? I suppose with my desire to break my crucian carp pb, which from last year stood at 3lb 7oz. A good fish in it’s own right, but I knew the lake in question held bigger and I was confident if I caught them at the right time, I would be [...]
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 [...]
Bit and particle fishing is a successful summer method and whether incorporating it as a short session stalking method or part of session fishing, it’s a tactic that should never be ignored. My favourite ‘bit fishing’ rig is one that was shown to me by edge fishing supremo ‘Little Jon’ Coxhead and it is a [...]
For my own style of short ‘hit & run’ sessions, with little or no preparation prior to the day, I favour a ‘chuck it anywhere’ pop up rig! My favourite rig uses our 25Ib Vigilante as the hook link combined with the awesome Covert Longshank Mugga hook. Recently I have been using this combination successfully [...]
The last weekend of April saw us taking an early day on the Thursday to travel to Kent for our BCAC qualifier that was to be held at Orchard Place Farm in Kent. Myself and fishing partner Graham Mabey were joined by our good friend Martin Hancock for the weekend as he had kindly offered [...]
Like most of you out there having endured one of the slowest winters on record it was a great relief when finally by mid April the sun finally decided to make an appearance and spring kicked in at last. Most of the waters throughout the country have been slow to start as water temperatures remained [...]
For years I’ve questioned why I put myself through winter carp fishing. Yet, as so many have discovered, the positives can far outweigh the negatives. The banks are quieter, the fish are in tip-top condition, and then, probably the greatest lure of all is the pure satisfaction when we beat the odds and a plan [...]
I left you last time at the start of what I thought was a new adventure on a new syndicate. Having looked into it further and having spent some time on the lake it became apparent that the fish just weren't in there. I also found out the place had been hammered by otters and [...]
The simple approach will nearly always catch you fish, but now and again we may come up against particularly tricky fish. In reality they aren’t hard to hook because they are super intelligent - far from it in fact! Normally it’s just because of the way the fish are feeding on the bait. Quite often [...]
The development of specialist high memory hooklink materials like ‘Trip Wire’ revolutionised the use of early stiff rigs, and enabled the Hinged Stiff Rig to evolve from being a good rig into an AWESOME one! Using Trip Wire enables a curve to be set into the hook section - meaning it will always aggressively twist [...]
It was a bit of a surprise when my new syndicate ticket came through the door a few weeks ago. A quick look at Google maps revealed that my journey would be a hundred and ten miles which is nothing compared to what many angler’s do week in, week out in search of some good [...]
As the weather finally started to warm up, I headed to my local lake called Lakeside for a quick twenty four hour session. I set up in a swim called ‘the beach’ and flicked one rod down the margins in front of some rushes. This is a good area and I had heard it had [...]
Carp are a bit like people in a great many senses. You get all types of shapes and sizes, with different characters, appetites and feeding habits. What this means is there isn’t a single magical rig that will trip up every carp, in the same way as there isn’t single wonder bait that every carp [...]
I decided to fish a local water as I had only twenty four hours available and after the torment of fishing the big fish waters up until now, I fancied getting the confidence boost I needed. I pulled into the car park of the Cefyn Mably complex and was greeted by the owner who was [...]
Throughout the year carp spend a lot of time away from the lake bed, either swimming around sunbathing, or searching out mid water sources of natural food. They will happily feast on emerging insects like Caddis and May Fly or filter feed in clouds of daphnia. These invertebrates make up a large proportion of the [...]
March is always a funny month as the daytime can feel like summer with mild temperatures and the sun’s rays beating down, then come nightfall it is as if someone has flicked the switch back to winter! However for those willing to brave the conditions some fantastic fish can be caught and lots of big [...]
Towards the end of 2012 I was doing a lot of fishing, and catching really well. During the start of 2013 I have been a bit “burnt out” and not really had the desire to go fishing, what with the cold weather and the amount of assignments set in college, wetting a line has been [...]
1. Snags and reed beds are always worth checking as carp will be visiting these areas once they wake up so always keep a close eye on these areas of the lake. 2. Temperature plays a huge part at this time of year as the weather can be somewhat inconsistent. Even short spells of high [...]
