larsagi2010

What about Cudmore for a venue. On Tara Lake? Loads of silvers/tench, specimen Carp/Perch and specimen Cats/Pike all in one water?!

A much as I agree with this, a lot of people in the NW have no Carp available naturally, which is why so many mud puddles pop up. My local river produces loads of silvers throughout the whole year, and big bream/barbel/chub are a regular catch. Carp are present but due to being highly nomadic you can find you only catch one of every 1 of several sessions making it frustrating. Also Pike/Perch are present and go to good sizes in the local River. I think unless a commercial has good stocks of Carp in around here you would find very few people on the bank.... The only exception would probably be the older anglers or disabled anglers who prefer the Carp park to be inches from the water for obvious reasons.

I have set myself a tough year ahead. My Primary goals are to catch a few species I have never caught, including a couple of ornamentals. 1. Wells Catish 2. Grass Carp 3. Grayling 4. Golden Tench 5. Koi Carp Also I have set myself a few secondary targets. 1. A river Dee Carp 2. A Pike Over 15lb 3. A Carp Over 25lb 4. A Tench Over 6lb 5. A Perch Over 3lb 6. Bream over 6lb I have plenty of waters which hold these fish, so as long as I put the time in I should be fine. I think the hardest will be the 3lb+ Perch, 6lb+ Tench, and also catching a Golden Tench. Carp should be easy, just bait and play the numbers game, should get one eventually and have loads of fun in the process.

Ok so after a whole season of Carp fishing and the occasional float/maggot feeder session I have decided to head for some Pike tommorow. My venue.... The local River Dee of course! Water is slightly up due to the rainfall but that shouldn't be a problem. Although a very experienced angler, the Pike are where my experience runs out big time. I have done Lure fishing in the past and banked a Pike around 5lb, but the River which I have never caught a Pike from hold monsters of 20+!!! Plenty of jacks also of course. I am going with a friend and I have ensured I have all the correct gear. If I could run through this gear could anyone please mention anything I may have overlooked. 1. Un-hooking Mat 2. Forceps 3. Trebles for my deadbaits (Barbless due to my inexperience) 4. Mackerel (Frozen) 5. Pliars (Long nosed) 6. Long wire cutters 7. Landing Net My plan is to cast two deadbaits out on a running ledger rig close in (Margin) near some overhanging trees or other obvious feature. Both will be bite alarmed with a swinger to ensure my attention is caught as soon as a bite develops. Line is 30lb Mono (Snaggy area) fitted on baitrunners. Trace is (I believe 20lb) so should be accurate. I am also taking a telescopic Pike rod with some traces and lures/spinners just in-case the Pike are not climbing the lines as a back-up option. Any recommendations as I am incredibly new to Pike fishing would be highly appreciated. I have read up about handling and care of Pike, Also I read its best to promptly reel your line until you feel the weight of the pike just before lifting into it. (Not say the lords prayer like some people suggest!) and this should result in good hookholds that are not deeply hooked..... Anything else that may make me (Or the pike) have a better day tommorow?

Ok, I am familiar with Pike fishing in stillwaters/canals but rivers is something I am relatively new to. Even more so with my river which is a little different to most. The area I fish has a weir. Daily the tide comes up on the lower side of the weir which stands at 3.2m but on the odd occasion it spills over the weir and into the main part with tides of up to 5.2m! As you can imagine during these times the river is immensely affected and its not uncommon to see logs the size of cars travelling at about 20+mph upstream. With this tide comes a fair bit of saltwater, from experience when the salt washes up the Carp ect: don't feed at all. Only when the colour drops out the water and the salt flows back out do they feed. Would Pike still feed during this time? I fish the upper side of the weir, I am still unsure if the fish ''stop feeding'' or if they simply move right upstream to where the salt drops out? But one thing I know is fishing is incredibly bad after a bad tide, in the summer even the millions of fry you see vanish somewhere? Any tips for if the fish are likely there, or move upstream or in particular if Pike would still feed would be much appreciated. I wont actually fish the aggressive tides, but in the middle of them as no ledger is big enough to hold bottom during the turbulance.

Hey! We are off to Hampton Springs tommorow to hit the specimen lake (Folly) Although I have been to Hampton before I have only fished Alice Springs and Rock Pool, both of which produced me some nice Carp to 10lb 6oz. My personal best stands at 16lb so I am really eager to try and beat this tommorow. My normal tactics are a Preston flat in-line method feeder pressed with soaked expander pellets. Hookbait is normally a single grain of corn on a short 3-4 inch hooklength. This seems to pull out plenty of Carp, but as we all know every water is different. Does anyone have any recommendations for folly lake? What areas to fish on the lake, what kind of range, and also info about rigs/baits ect: would be highly appreciated! Also, what species reside in this lake? Carp I am aware of, I believe there is a handful of large Barbel, but other than that I am clueless! Best regards, Dan

I spotted these in the tackle shop a couple of days ago, even had a good sniff in the tub! The look absolutely awesome, but I chose the 50/50's instead

Hey! We are off to Hampton Springs tommorow to hit the specimen lake (Folly) Although I have been to Hampton before I have only fished Alice Springs and Rock Pool, both of which produced me some nice Carp to 10lb 6oz. My personal best stands at 16lb so I am really eager to try and beat this tommorow. My normal tactics are a Preston flat in-line method feeder pressed with soaked expander pellets. Hookbait is normally a single grain of corn on a short 3-4 inch hooklength. This seems to pull out plenty of Carp, but as we all know every water is different. Does anyone have any recommendations for folly lake? What areas to fish on the lake, what kind of range, and also info about rigs/baits ect: would be highly appreciated! Best regards, Dan

I have witnessed inexperienced anglers purchasing shop made hair rigs, then purchasing boilies which are too big for the hook on the rig. As they don't know how to make their own hair rigs they pretty much bend the hook point out slightly making it more exposed rather than being hid underneath the boilie.

You were not by any chance sitting in a swim blanking while watching the Carpy next to you pulling out good Carp using a chod rig and rig putty were you???

A local tackle shopwould normally get you going on closest places, and species ect: possibly even top methods/baits. I often just telephone a tackle shop in the area and go from there

Do you have any local canals you could visit? I have quite a few different free waters such as the canal/river and various ponds which I can fish, all of which are only a £2 return bus journey away. I just take minimal gear, and often my 3 kids who are 8months old, 2 years old and 4 years old with me.... Its a bit of a handful at times, but a nice cheap day out.

Fantastic, thanks for the response! We have found that most often the bites seem to slow right down to a near stop after 11pm (Except for the eels!). This confused me as the section of river is extremely busy with boats during the day, I always felt the boats would scare the fish off and when it goes quiet at night (It goes silent) the Carp would emerge from the shadows and feed heavily... Maybe the Carp are using the boats to their advantage and prefer the silt and disturbance in the water? Nevertheless the Bream and Hybrids are about in the evening so the Carp certainly cant be far. I will try more fruity flavours tommorow night and also perhaps try changing some of the feeding we are doing. We have tried fishing it dry (No bait other than hook) which was great for roach. Tried fishing it and feeding moderately around the hookbaits, which got more eels/bream involved. Yesterday we pre-baited heavily at 2pm and fished it from 6pm until about 3am and the bites were slower than ever (Maybe we overfed?) I guess its just a case experimenting and persevering with the swims/conditions/baits ect:

I am currently making my own boilies. I purchased various flavours from Tesco's home baking aisle.... Orange, Strawberry.... and one of them was ''Peppermint!'' I will make some of them tonight and let you know how I get on, the orange worked well so lets see if the Peppermint out-catches it

Ok, so recently I have been targeting the River Dee for its magical Carp. Its not like most places where its stuffed to the brim with the buggers, in fact its quite the opposite! Although these Carp may not be common as such, they are generally pretty big (up to 33lb fish have been pulled out this year alone) A few questions I have are: Do Bream and Carp generally feed together, because we have come across some 6-7lb Bream. I was always led to believe that if the Bream feed there, Carp would certainly patrol also, and possibly around the same times.... Also what baits would you recommend? I have been using Boilies as a primary bait, but I have to use 15mm or 20mm as I am getting plagued with my most hated species ever... THE EEL! In fact on Corn/Maggot and even 10mm boilie I have had 28 of the things over just 4-5 hours. Is there any way to deter the eels? Should I just pre-bait with hemp/boilies or something instead of groundbait and other things... Although the eels put up an excellent fight in the higher lb ranges I am getting driven to insanity with them! Any help would be much appreciated!

Looks like a really good camera for the money mate. Personally I take pictures of the fish in the net if I am on my own, or get the other half or friend to take a picture of me holding the fish if they are present. The flip screen feature and remote however are fantastic! This is my current fishing camera: It cost me £80 new, it take some messing with the settings ect: but it does deliver some pretty good pictures, especially of the landscape shots of the venues. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41M1BllDK-L.jpg

I am not sure on the seat box in question. However, if you are selling an old one please let me know as I have been needing one for some time, just never found time to go and search for one.

Some say white has the added attraction of being more visible (I would tend to agree) However some also say that brown bread looks a little more natural in a water and doesn't tend to stick out as an anglers bait. I also read once that Carp can actually to a degree detect the nutritional value of porous foods before deciding to eat them (Boilies are a good example as the fish can allegedly detect the high protein in them and this is partially the reason they are such a successful bait) If this is the case the Carp in theory should hands down prefer brown bread as White has little to no nutritional value, brown bread however has a lot more protein and other goodies inside it. Saying that I have had carp take imitation bread which smells strongly of rubber..... Maybe its curiosity? Maybe there was another Carp nearby, it looked like a food the Carp is familiar with, and therefore he wanted to eat it before others got the chance? (Competition factor?) little tricky to say to be honest but....If a Carp comes across your Brown roll in the water and he is in a feeding mood he will certainly take it regardless of colour in my opinion.

With it being the top section I would guess that angles came into play. For example if you put a certain amount of force onto a rod (With the line coming from the rod at a 45 degree angle) you will find that the rod absorbs the force pretty much all the way through the rod. Also the drag is able to work pretty effectively at this point if set correctly. Try making that angle more acute like 25-30 degrees and you will discover that instead of the rod taking the force its pretty much all on the last 1ft of rod (Kinda goes like a ''U'' shape) And you will discover the drag which is set the same as the previous test fails to work hardly at all (If at all).... Its common with end section breakages... Large fish or current in play, the rod is 11-12ft long.... The fish is shooting everywhere and all of a sudden the rod is pointed out towards the opposite bank, and the fish is under your feet.... The rod takes a huge amount of force in one small section of it. I personally have never snapped a rod while playing a fish. I have cycled and had them go into my spokes, also caught them on trees above me.... Once while Pike fishing I got snagged on the bottom, pulled up and it snapped near the handle.... Never from a fish though

I placed some fake luncheon meat and fake bread into some scopex overnight to absorb the flavour, by morning they had turned into slime in the bottom of the tub. Is seems tome varieties are designed to degrade after so many hours in water.

Interesting you put that as I was using double corn on a hair rig and getting hardly any bites. I have used this rig for some time now and its always done amazing, but in recent weeks it really seemed to slow down with its effectiveness. Anyhow, mid session I managed to lose my baiting needle What could I do??? Well I simply snipped off the hair and went for a single grain straight on the size 10 hook.... Bingo, I landed a fish a cast right until the end of the session.... A single grain of corn direct on the hook HUGELY improved my fishing.... Weird, but worth a try!

Passion for and take up a lot of fishing time Perch Carp Tench Enjoy and do a little Pike Barbel Chub Aspirational list - those I wish I fished for more Tench Bream Koi Not much interest Roach Eel Bleak Dace Zander Catfish Ide

Wow! Thanks for the responses guys I agree, it does seem quite strange how there is a 2-ish hour window between low/high water. I have found another website though which gives the exact same times? I compared them with some other rivers and they also matched (The other rivers had a more normal tidal flow to them) The only thing I can think of is the weir has something to do with it. The Weir sits very high so the tide would probably only top it at peak times and affect the higher part of the river for a shorter time? Last time I went the flow was going downstream, then in seconds it started going backwards! next thing I know the water was coming up the bank at a rate of 1-2 ft a min! The tides certainly seems a little beyond normal on that stretch. I know there is a Canoeing club which operate close to the swim I have chosen, it may be worth having a word with them as I am sure they will be up to date with all of the info I am using size 12 Animal hooks, got my maggots yesterday, and my groundbait! Sure you havn't saw my blueprints I will defo try and plan my sessions when the tide is coming in Not at all mate, looks like some quality info also! I will dig out my feeders shortly and see what I have got in my shed, I am sure I have a reel of Braid also somewhere. Here is my chosen fishing spot. Under the bridge on the other side though where its more overgrown. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ll...160.78,,0,12.61 This is the weir just before it starts running backwards with thick muddy water! http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=The+Gr...,14.84&z=18

Ok, so I am considering going to the River Dee fishing tommorow. I have been down there a few times in the past but the tide seems to either make or break my fishing! The first time I went the water was pretty much still (Like a lake) and I had loads of large Perch and the fishing was incredibly good. I fish just above a weir and the river is very wide/deep. However last time I went the weir was actually going backwards and the current was so strong even a 45g feeder was taken like 100m upstream before it even hit the bottom... Basically impossible to fish. Tommorow I am feeder fishing and float fishing. What baits/tips would you recommend for river fishing? There are Carp, Perch, Tench, Roach and Barbel in good numbers in that stretch. Also can anyone explain this?? Tue 28 Jun LW HW LW HW 07:57 09:55 20:17 22:22 2.4 m 2.6 m I am going anywhere between the hours of 3.30pm-4.00pm and leaving between 6pm and 7pm. Are the tides likely to be insane at these times? lol

I would strongly recommend grabbing some maggots for the first session. It will enable you to catch anything in the swim and give you a good idea of whats coming out. Plus unlike bread ect: you should find the bait will stay on the hook much longer, especially if considering feeder fishing (Which works great on every canal I have tried) I would always recommend fishing the margin on either side. If the canal has concrete/metal sides it can be worth fishing literally 4-6'' from the bank as Large Perch love this area