Short Sessions 'Thoughts, Feelings, Tactics'

In this blog post I'd like to share my thoughts and feelings about fishing for carp on short sessions, I'm going to include material from a few different trips I've been on. I haven't done any night fishing for a long time now, I haven't felt the need. I know that there are certain lakes and even certain fish that feed at night, it has been said that the big girls are known to feed confidently under the cover of darkness. Many moons ago before I had my first twenty I'd be out on the bank for 4 days and 4 nights dreaming of the monsters that were lurking in the muddy waters that stood before me. When I get the calling I'm sure I'll get back under the stars soon enough, but for the time being, days and shorter sessions are doing me well.

The Barrow 'A Must For The Mobile Angler'

One thing that has become really important to me now more than ever is staying mobile, in the past I'd get all my kit set up, bed-chair, kettle, Bivvy-table, the lot, plonk myself down behind my rods all day and stay firmly rooted to my spot staring at my motionless swingers even though it was clear fish were very obviously showing and feeding in other areas of the lake.

Nowadays I have all my bare essentials next to me and everything else is on my barrow so if I see signs of fish elsewhere and it's possible to move onto them, then I will, this can change a potential blank into a result. Another thing is not being afraid to experiment in all areas, 'you don't know until you try' is a firm mantra I keep in my mind when the days seem slow.

There are a few things that I have started to do to help me get steady results on a lot of the waters I fish. First and foremost it's bait application, working with Starmer I have the luxury of being able to get hold of a fair amount of bait, at the end and during each session I throw groups of ten boilies around certain areas of the water, most of them being where I haven't caught before, or near underwater features that I find using a marker float. 

When I go home I keep in mind that the carp will be chomping on the bait between sessions and start to identify it as a safe and regular food source. Also if fishing two rods I'll find a spot I like the look of, I call this 'my third rod spot', through out the day I'll trickle bait on to it and then later on during the session I will cast to it, this can produce a quick take especially if some fish have found the bait and have been feeding on it undisturbed during the day.

4ft Shelf Dropping Steadily Down To 9ft

The obvious place to fish in the swim above is the far margin, I've steadily been baiting this area on and off for weeks and it produced a 26IB and 22IB common for me. It goes to show that seeking out and concentrating on underwater features can really pay off. 

One tactic that I have been experimenting with lately and have been incorporating into my margin fishing is something I call 'burying the bait, I have two approaches that I use, I started thinking about this years ago in one way or another. The first example is perfect for margin fishing but I wouldn't recommend it for distance fishing because I doubt it would stay intact for the cast. It's simply moulding your ground bait mix around the hook bait.

Stage 1 

Stage 2

I've been sticking to fairly dry mixes, I've tested all of them in the margin and I've come up with something that seems to work very well as it breaks down. I use Starmers 'Carp Chum', 'Carp Red' 'Green Lipped Mussel Pellets' and the 'White Green Lipped Mussel Method mix'. I make sure the 'Red' and the 'Chum' are mixed tightly and then I add the Mussel mix dry. I have found by doing this when the mixture enters the water the 'Red' and the 'Chum' settle and start to bubble and slowly dissolve whilst the 'Green Lipped Mussel' separates and creates a white cloud which works as a great attracter. As the mix breaks down your hook bait is sitting directly in the middle of a mini feast. I've caught a lot of carp using this in my margin fishing, it seems to trip them up.

18IB Common Caught On 'Burying The Bait'

The second example of this is very different and will probably come across as ludicrous to some who read it but bear with me. Many years ago I use to fish a lake called Scarlets, it was a hard lake because the silt was terrible, you would cast your lead into it and literally have your rod bent double to retrieve the rig. In silt and weed I use helicopters and pop ups, occasionally favoring the chod. 

I have never been a fan of the 'lead clip system' there's something about it that I don't get on with, I know thousands of carp get caught on it everyday but I favor an inline presentation, it's said that in-lines can pull your bait into silt and depending on how they land, crimp your hook link. I beg to differ, I feel if you feather you cast correctly then you can get the inline lead to land perfectly, I love fishing a stiff hook link tied with a 'figure of eight' knot on the swivel, combining these two elements and feathering the cast the hook-link throws itself forward landing perfectly.

The Figure Of Eight Knot On My Stiff Rigs

In Scarlets there was a 28IB mirror that hadn't seen the bank in about 4 years, the owner had a written record of its weight and date of capture, I put so much time into the lake, there use to be a fair amount of action but through the years it slowed up. I think that was due to a lot of fish being taken, it was one of those venues where the front gate was open 24 hours a day. The owner said that the carp became illusive but I think it was more the fact that they weren't in there anymore.... Anyway I wanted this 28IB mirror real bad. I decided that I was going to use a 2 1/2 inline lead with a really short hook-link fished in the really deep silty areas, I wanted to bury the bait. 

For this to work best you need to be 100% accurate with your free offerings. My theory was where I cast my rig deep into the silt I would bait up directly on top of it, as we know carp dig and steam through the bottom when they feed, my viewpoint was if a carp came across my baited spot it would kick the bottom up feeding on my free offerings and in doing so exposing my bottom bait that had theoretically been pulled deeper into the silt. 

All the rig components would be buried so there would be nothing for them to spook off. One early morning at around 5:30am I had a break through, whilst I was just about to take a swig of coffee the water erupted like a bloody volcano and my right hand rod tore off like nothing I'd ever seen before. I rushed up spilling my coffee and lent back into the fish, it was steaming off heading for the snags around the island, I was running along the bank trying to gain control. The fish started ploughing through the snags, half way through the fight the fish surfaced and it was the 28IB mirror, we knew this because of the distinctive scaling it had on its back and tail, I couldn't believe it. As the fish was racing down the side of the island the branches and snags were creaking and snapping, all of a sudden...... ping ! the line snapped. I couldn't believe it, I stood there just staring at the water, the angler who was up from me who had just set up packed up and went home because he had been targeting that fish for ages, after the realism of the situation sunk in I decided to pack up and go home as well, I was gutted.

The positive side of it was the fact my unorthodox presentation had worked but at the time it wasn't much consolation. I know it sounds odd but burying your hook bait in the silt fished under free offerings could trick the most wary carp into taking your hook bait. 

The next subject I'd like to briefly cover is 'casting to showing fish', now this took me a while to cotton on to. I had tried this in the past with very little success, there were days where I found I was just casting all over the place not leaving the bait anywhere long enough for a take. I put a rule in place that I'd only cast to showing fish if they were in or around the swim I was fishing. I use a simple but effective method for this, it's call a 'PVA pyramid' presentation. It's simply putting 5 boilies in your PVA funnel web system in the shape of a pyramid, I tie the PVA very tight so the boilies exploded all around the hook bait once the PVA has melted down.
 

My PVA Pyramids

I always mix it up a little bit, sometimes with chops and whole boilies, I believe this makes it harder for the carp to distinguish between the hook bait. 

Mixed PVA Pyramids

Just because the carp are jumping doesn't necessarily mean that they're feeding but if you've had very little action during the day, casting to a jumping fish can produce an opportunist take. Below are a few fish I've caught by casting to a jumping carp.

She's A Spotless Beauty

10 Minutes After The Cast

She Fell For My Pyramid Presentation

It shows that casting to jumping fish can pay off, but it's worth noting that if you truly feel confident in the traps you set sometimes it's best to sit on your hands and wait, there are many reasons why carp jump clear of the water, it doesn't always mean they're on the feed.

One last method I'd like to include is 'using the lake bottom to your advantage'. When possible I've gotten into the habit of reaching down into the margin and taken a big handful of the bottom you can learn a lot from this. I know that lake bottoms vary, taking into account gravel bars, silt pockets, weedy areas. A fair few waters I fish have clay bottoms so I use a very simple tactic to give me a sneaky edge. I simply rub the clay along my hook link and over my lead and tubing, this colors the whole rig allowing it to blend into the lake bed making it very had to detect, yesterday on a session I moved onto some feeding fish and had two takes in twenty minutes, I felt 'using the lake bottom to my advantage' played a big part in this.  

 Get Your Hands Dirty

 

Coat The Rig Components

There are many more approaches that I put into practice when fishing shorter sessions, I'm sure they'll be covered at a later date, only today when I was out on one of my regular lakes I came up with another idea and approach that could work really well, I'm going to work with it for a little while before I spill the beans, I'm feeling confident though, it involves getting your hands dirty again.

Now I've got to get blogging about some recent sessions, I'm a little behind, get out there and catch some fish, let me know how you get on.

See you on the bank sometime..........

Rugby Lake "Finding The Key"

Every so often a water comes along that really catches the imagination, for me Rugby is one of those lakes. It's in a woodland surrounded by trees, it has long reed beds and lovely overhanging branches and bushes. After some marker work I have found it to be very deep in places with a few really interesting little drop offs and channels. The water contains a lot weed and can make presenting a bait some what of a challenge. It has a very impressive stock, with the rumour of five fish in the thirty pound bracket with lots of fish in the twenties.

Rugby

I do rotate a fair few waters but over the past months I have made the decision to focus my efforts on Rugby. It hasn't really been a kind water to me, I always manage to get at least one bite most sessions but something nearly always happens that prevents me from landing the fish. If I fish near the reeds they always seem to manage to get in them or bury themselves in the weed beds, last winter I managed a real nice looking twenty pound mirror. There was a part of me that always felt like it was more luck than judgement. 

A Room With A View

Once settling on the water, watching and really thinking about how I was going to wire myself into the lakes workings. I decided to eliminate a few things before I started my time on the place. Firstly I was going to avoid the far margins and any of the obvious features, all of these spots get continually hammered and through the years I am positive the carp, at least some of them have wised up. I believe when a fish is caught enough off of a certain spot, it could be very reluctant to continue feeding there. 

There's a metaphor in life that has always interested me and I feel it walks hand in hand with a specific fishing approach - "You can spend your whole life looking to the horizon for solutions, when more times than not the answer is right under your nose". When I think of the amount of times I have incorporated this in to my angling, it's spooky. The amount of good fish I have had out of the near side margins greatly outweighs fish I have had from visible features. 

With all this fresh in my mind I thought fishing underneath my rods tips might just be the answer. The beauty of Rugby is that in some swims it drops off down to a really good depth less than a rod length out. So in theory there is a possible patrol route right under your nose. For this approach to work I would have to set my rods up so they didn't hang over the margin and from arriving at the water I had to be very quiet from the moment of setting up, being silent was something I felt was going to help this approach work. Silence is something some anglers overlook.

Sometimes when I am out fishing it really surprises me how loud other anglers talk, sometimes I can hear guys so clearly and they are fishing way up the other end of the lake. If I can hear them, I am pretty sure the carp can to, learning to be quiet is a discipline, it is ironic really, I have spent my whole life making a huge amount of noise with my drums, angling for me is such a polar opposite. 

Regarding rigs, in the past I had been using long running helicopters, replacing the back bead with PVA cord and making sure the bait sank slowly and was perfectly balanced. After having a think I decided to try something a little different, I took the concept of the Withy Pool rig and combined it with the chod. I got a lot of stick from people when I posted this specific rig up on my Facebook feed. I didn't really understand all the animosity, the great thing about angling is that you can try and experiment with whatever you want to. Once you understand the basics and basis of rig design, it can open up a whole new world of creativity.

My Chosen Rig

As you can see with the rig above, the silicone is long and when it sits up it creates a 'claw' type presentation. The micro swivel on the hook allows the bait to rotate 360 degrees, this means that whatever direction the fish come from, the hook can spin and nail them. Because Rugby is weedy I don't want to spend ages trying to find clear spots, I am confident that this rig will present efficiently over pretty much any lake bed, I wouldn't use it on gravel though. The hook link material is Krystons Snakeskin, it's stripped back to just under the silicone tubing, the hook length itself is very long. On the cast I will wrap a PVA nugget round the hook, this ensures that once the lead has settled, the hook link will stay suspended in mid water, once the nugget dissolves the rig will flutter down and perch on whatever is beneath it. 

How The Rig Sits

View From The Top

The hook I am using for this rig is a Size 8 Nash Fang Twister, the silicone tubing is ESP, the stops are from ACE tackle and the micro swivel is made by Fox. Below is a short demonstration of how a PVA nugget pauses the decent of the rig. The more balanced your hook bait is, the slower it will drop through the water. Doing this allows the lead to settle nicely before the hook bait comes to settle, ensuring that you are giving it the best chance to present properly.

Rig Demo On Entry To The Water

Moving onto the subject of bait, I have been mixing it up a little, baits that have delivered me bites have been Starmers Garlic Sausage, Tangerine Fish, Banana Cream and Honey Nectar. Because winter is starting to set in I'm going to scale down on the amount of bait that I introduce. This time of the year I go for 'maximum attraction', making sure that the solid items that carp can pick up are at a minimum. 

Instead of using beds of boilies I favour fast dissolving pellets and method mixes. Because the carp aren't feeding as much as they were earlier in the year, using this approach can really help produce. Method mixes and pellets breakdown leaving a nice scent on the lake bed, I believe this helps to draw the carp into the area. If there are only a few solid food items then it ups your chances of getting a pick up. If I am pre-baiting a spot then I will use boilie crumb, again, the reason for this is because I don't want to fill them up. I really want to try to keep them active and feeding.

I have a very strong belief that carp feed all the way through the winter but it's just for shorter periods of time. That's what makes location and bait application so important, also during the winter I rarely take my eyes of the water, some days it's as if no carp are in the lake, other days they might give themselves away with the odd bit of bubbling, or the smallest of shows, more times than not the water will tell you everything you need to know, you just have to be listening.

One approach that I often use when I am fishing close in is something I call 'burying the bait', I have covered this in an older blog post. For those that may not of read it I will explain it again. One of the great advantages of fishing close in is the fact that you can be so precise with your baiting. 'Burying the bait' is an approach that I wouldn't recommend for fishing at distance. It's a very simple method of moulding a ground bait or method mix ball around you hook-bait.

I have been using Starmers Green Lipped Mussel method mix with some ground up boilies thrown in, to this I will add some salmon oil and a few whole boilies so my actual hook-bait doesn't stand out to much. The mix itself is relatively stiff, I want it to be solid enough to grip to the bait on entry to the water and on the landing. I find that it slowly breaks down giving off a nice level attraction, once it's fully broken down the pop up just rears its head above the mix. Before casting out I throw a few handfuls of boilie crumb over my spot.

Boilie Crumb Selection

Ground Up For Maximum Attraction

Getting The Mix Right

Mould The Mix Into A Small Circle

Place The Rig On Top

Roll Into A Ball 'Burying The Bait'

As you can see by the above pictures, it's a very simple process, you can make the finished ball as big or small as you see fit. I opt for a larger size because I feel it drops to the bottom at a good rate, I need this for my chosen spot because it's a good 9ft deep, there can be advantages to it breaking down before landing, the spread of the mix would no doubt cover a large area. The firmer the mix the longer it will take to breakdown. You can get as creative as you want regarding what you include in your mix, in the past I have combined Starmers 'Carp Red' ground-bait, tuna, anchovies, anchovy paste, 10mm boilies, crushed sardines, the list is endless.

The rig I use to fish this particular method is a simple pop up presentation, I make sure the boilie is nice and balanced so when the carp come in and start hovering, my bait flies up into it's mouth easily. With all my pop up rigs, I like the bait to be touching the hook, I don't opt for any free movement when using a popped up bait.

Burying The Bait Pop Up Rig

View From Above

Anyway, that's enough of my waffle, I think I have pretty much covered my main approaches, I am looking forward to getting stuck in on Rugby. I know it's going to be a ball breaker but it's fishing lakes like this that makes me feel my angling is heading in the right direction. I know that my catch rate is going to drop but I also know that when I do get a fish, it's going to be something pretty special. I'm looking forward to sharing this new journey with you all.