borntofish

Why do we say a bait blows, I have been using the same bait for close on twenty years in the same water and I still land fish. I do try new baits some are better or I land bigger fish on certain baits I keep and breed Koi for a hobby and it is harder to change the diet of the koi onto a new type of food, to say change from pellets that float to pellets that sink. Surly once you have got fish onto your bait it should not have to change. I read things like I used to catch fish with bread now I have to use boilies. I just want to get the feeling of the forum on this. Roger

Hi Polly, I have a smilar problem this side, the good rains filled most waters so we are sitting with waters ful of grass. What i have done is I take a fixed rig clip for the weight but it is at the bottom of the rig, I then put a rubber ball then a swivel with the hook link another rubber ball. with the rubber balls I can control the height of the rig if the fish runs and tit does not slip the weight for some reason, then the hook on the swivel slides down to the weight. I have found the takes are slower but the hooks are good. I put a ball of bait around the weight. I also look for the tunnels that the carp make to get in and out of the weeds. Born to fish

Hi, The method feeder or a ball just around a weight is just about the only way, carp are fished for here is SA, I think all you have to do is work out a mix, A very good one starts with maize well cooked then put through a mincer, then you can add whatever comes to mind if you want to. Casting should pose no problem, I am not going to say the distances than average anglers cast what we call mielie boms, but 60 meters is not a prblem, just take a bucket full of feed to the water and cast away, this does two things gets feed in the water and you get casting practice. You can even add a flavour to the mix just before you cast. Born to fish

newt, The dams I am fishing are all resavoirs, but yes its an idea. I have just started to do competition fishing again, so i am targeting smaller fish this season. Also fishing a lot closer, the casting has been a pain but slowly getting up to speed again, man do you get spoilt using a canoe. Born to fish

My feeling for what it is worth here, is firstly the force that a carp ejects with, the hook point is going to prick it anyway. The weight of the line is heavy enough to set the hook and using a fee running weight will not matter. also the alarms indicate much sooner.

Hi Larry, Hre is SA glugging is done a lot of the time, I buy what is called a plain boilie, mainly because it contains no fish meal, then I pick them with a boilie needle, I will leave them in a flavour for up to two hours. Here we can get a camo weight that has a sort of rough coating so I will often dip the weight, hook link and all. if use this type of lead make sure the clip will throw the lead. hre my feeling is no1 with a rough weight it can damge the fish and also throwing the lead when fighting leads to less damage on the mouth.

Hi All, Well I think my problem is solved, I fished a competition this weekend and my pen pal was using lead core, he was two fish up before i changed over. As a result we ended up forth. My two best runs and bigger fish we on a free running rig with a slack line so yes the ideas worked. Thanks guys

Dough baits are very popular here in SA, the "deegie" must account for 90% of fish landed. it is used mostly in conjuction with dips. This gives the angler many choices and can change flavours very quickly. it is used mostly for speed fishing where quantity not quality is the main aim. I know the bait has been used here for at twenty odd years I have been fishing, I have never seen any ill effects, still thousands use it to-day. It is not used by the session carp anglers. we are to preoccupied with boilies. Born to fish

Thanks chaps, I have never used back leads, so yes the info will help. The water i fish is about the hardest water in SA, but the dam holds the biggest fish. It has clear water, and just about every type of swim you can think of, from weeds and reeds to open water, rocks muddy areas. It is fun to fish there even if more often than not you come up with a blank. I have got hold of some back leads I will put them in the tackle box, I will give it a try no harm done I suppose. Thanks again

To me it must be the hair rig, but maybe the internet, because now carpers the world over can talk to each other.

here I will have to make a scenario I suppose, last week I fished a very hard water, two of my reels I have braid as a main line, the other reel mono. The only rod i landed a fish on was the mono, using a free running rig, on both the braid rods i used a fixed rig. one chap at the water suggested i use back lead. I have never used back leads so hence the question. The water i fish is massive, and goes from 1m to 32m pretty quickly. i have mapped the swim I fish so i know I am fishing a ledge at 8m. Any help???

You are correct about the Koi stuff but it has to be used under controlled conditions, so is actually useless for carp. About the best you can do for a fish is to use a saline solution, this will kill most parasites and help with the healing of small wounds. Carp rub up against all sorts of things so your "anti septic" is not going to do that much good except make you feel better.

Budgie, Yes I used to belong to a lot of forums a few years ago, made the mistake of getting into discussions about things I new nothing about, the traditional way of angling here in SA is not very fish friendly, so a lot of lobbing is going on to have rules changed and make the angling more fish friendly. What has happend is that the specimin anglers now have thier own rules and do things like most in the UK and the others carry on thier way.

Rob, yes Bloemhof is big, I know a lot of chaps from the UK have fished there with yes the same complaint. The fishing has improved somewhat, a lot of small fish have been netted out. Cats are stll a pest, any boilie with fishmeal in goes to the cats. I think the problem is going to be accomadation, so a big water will have to be used, but they still have some time to sort out a suitable venue.

I'd lay odds that even though we both do pretty well with meilie bom/packbait tactics and even though you will see posts talking about the benefits of 'doing something a bit different' on pressured carp waters, that about zero folks will want to try either of them. I think that traditionalist may be the operative word here. :D Newt, I can tell you from my own experiance that it is hard to change, it took me two years to except hair rigs/ Specimin fishing as a whole and to trust them, I mean here you are at the water and you are trying something new and the guy in the swim next to you is catching fish, then you soon change back. I think baiting up is important, and using the pack bait method is quick and easy, I have tried spodding, catapults even had a few goes with a boilie stick (fun and games) yes it has its uses but nowhere as quick. Using pack baits I can get the bait and ground bait to where I want, I think the trap set has proved itself over and over. I will also say this, we are lucky no pressure on the fish, so why change. I have fished this method for forty years so why change, most of the time with the same baits. I know some guys from the UK did fish here and took some of our stuff back, the reports I got back is they made a killing on the waters they fished but they ran out of stuff. I still send some stuff to one chap in the UK, he uses it. He in turn sends me stuff, where I live it is 150Km to the nearest tackle shop that stocks boilies and any stuff I need to make rigs. The local tackle shop only stocks the stuff for the "traditional south african fishing". Born to fish Forced to work

I always soak my mix, high amount of yellow maize, and a mix that the local co op makes up and sells as garden bird feed, this contains a lot of small seeds for at least 36 hours, then put it through the mincer, i then add chick peas, maple peas, peanuts, the peanuts I always test that when pessed between the finger and thumb they fall apart. I will then put it all in the micro wave for twenty mins. At the water i add hemp seed. The sweetner i use is Stevia a natural sweetner. This is very powerful stuff so I only add it at the micro stage.

Newt, The venue is still being sorted out I think, but my guess is Bloemhof dam. The South African Chapionship was held the and a lot of carp were landed, with minimum interferance from the cats. The average catch was nearly 200 kgs for the 72 hour period, that is two anglers on a peg. All fish had to weigh more than 1.5 kgs. We have a few actually quite a few mixes here one you can buy at the tackle shop and is made or put together just using water at the venue. I prefer my own mix that contains a lot of seads and nice things to keep the carp busy in the swim, yes I still put one line in with maize on, one with a boilie, we can now get boilies that do not contain fish meal so the cats are not so inclined to pick the baits up. The Tiger nuts, have these things changed the fishing over here, man every mag you read, tiger nuts, every catch reported tiger nuts, every tackle shop ad tiger nuts. Well I suppose while they are woking and yes they work well why not. Borntofish Forced to work

Hi, maybe this is going to cause some rumptions but rig tubing is used mainly black, line aliner rig on the hook, all this now we worry about the colour of the weight???

Hi newt, yes on this side of the ocean maize balls work and work well. i think the secret is in the mixing once you have got it right, you gain confidence in it. remember for years it was the only why we fished here, so most of our tactics are formed around this idea. The method as i think it is called in the UK, not sure how popular it is there, but as we call it meilie boms, it was for years the only why everybody fished. Boilies, specialised fishing or what ever you want to call it has only started to really catch on this side, even more so now that the 2008 world chapionship is to be held on this side of the world. Born to fish Forced to work

Hi, reading the posts about sun and things I must fish in the most sunlight of all I use trilene big game 12 pound. The water I fish has fish well above 40lb never had a problem. Bornto fish Forced to work

Hi All, Looking forward to some healthy discussions, been reading the old posts and yes learnt a few things. It is autum this side so yes for me the start of hopefully a sucsseful winter with the carp. Born to fish forced to work