Reel Life

[The Flying Tench]

I was reading the EA magazine and was surprised or puzzled by a few points in an article by Ian Welch.

 

p4 'Carp can be suckers for floating baits and, providing you are quiet, you can get them eating out of your hand.'

 

Is he being literal?

 

p5 'Use artificial baits. Rubber corn, maggots and casters avoid the attentions of smaller fish.'

 

Interesting, but surprising. It suggests the smaller fish are wiser than the biggies. Or else the smaller fish are more influenced by smell?

[Ken L]

p4 'Carp can be suckers for floating baits and, providing you are quiet, you can get them eating out of your hand.'

 

Is he being literal?

Well I'm not sure but I've done that many times when i was a kid. Just lye down on a stage, feed 'em up and get confident and just feed them by hand.

 

p5 'Use artificial baits. Rubber corn, maggots and casters avoid the attentions of smaller fish.'

 

Interesting, but surprising. It suggests the smaller fish are wiser than the biggies. Or else the smaller fish are more influenced by smell?

 

I think he's refering to the baits not being erroded away by constant pecking by little roach, shimmers and other silver fish.

[Leon Roskilly]

I used to work closeto the Barbican in London.

 

Within the Barbican is a fairly large lake holding many big carp, koi and goldfish, as well as rudd and roach.

 

Lunchtime I would share my sandwiches with the carp which would go into a feeding frenzy, just like gathering pigeons.

 

Not only were they taking bits of bread from my hand and sucking at my fingers, they were climbing over the backs of each other to do so!

[Andy Macfarlane]

I had much the same experience at Lightwater Valley, Yorkshire a few years ago. They have a boating pond, which is absolutely stuffed with Carp of several different varieties. During the day there's no fishing allowed but the pond is a hive of activity, with boats, people, noisy kids, attendants and the background noise from the rides themselves. The Carp sat round the edges of the pond, waiting to be fed like dogs. If they could drool, I'm pretty sure they would have.

Now these fish are tamer than tame. They patiently wait for you to hand them anything edible and being a funpark, that could be anything from an apple core to a burger bun and they don't seem to refuse anything either. Bread thrown in for the ducks, is quickly sucked off the surface. Honestly, it's a mêlée. You'd think this nonchalance would be their downfall once you get a rod out, wouldn't you? I did....

At 7pm. the funpark closes, the boats are taken in and the pond is open to anglers, who, being as bright as myself, imagined tussling with these brutes, some of which must have been pushing 30lbs.

I am not kidding when I say it was like a switch had been flipped. The carp, which only 10 mins earlier were jostling for position to get the best freebies, disappeared out of sight and promptly stopped feeding.

There were about 6 of us on the pond, trying everything from floating crust, to boilies, to cheese, to tinned sweetcorn.....allsorts. Could we catch anything? Could we hell.....

[ridgeacre]

The music had stopped, they thought everybody had gone home

[Steve Burke]

Peggy and I have also had carp eating out of our hands. In this case it was crisps at Furnace Pond, the former record perch venue. This was heavilly fished, but also heavilly stocked with lots of carp. Unfortunately, by the time I heard about the perch I couldn't get a syndicate ticket!

 

As for smaller fish being more influenced by smell I'd suggest it's the other way around. On the Carp Lake at Wingham sweetcorn got me mainly small carp. All of my big ones came to flavoured maggots. I suspect that the sweetcorn was highly visible, whilst the maggots were located by smell even though they had buried themselves in the weed/bottom.

Edited April 28, 2006 by Steve Burke

[The Flying Tench]

Thanks for fascinating replies re the carp eating out of your hand. I must say it would feel pretty treacherous to feed a carp out of your hand like a pet and then catch him that evening!

 

I'm still puzzled about the artificial maggots etc not attracting the smaller fish. Small fish can easily eat maggots, artificial or real. No-one has quite said whether this is confirmed by their experience.

[Andy Macfarlane]

I have to admit, it wasn't my idea of fishing but I was visiting cousins for a weekend and I had a rod in the car, so I thought I'd give it a bash for a couple of hours. In a way, I'm glad I didn't catch any, for the very reason you described.

[Dick Dastardly]

On the subject of Reel Life I had my copy come today.Most years I see it purely as a waste of our licence money but must admit that I thought this years was quite good.

 

The comprehensive guide to venues in my area was excellent.

[Leon Roskilly]

Thanks for fascinating replies re the carp eating out of your hand. I must say it would feel pretty treacherous to feed a carp out of your hand like a pet and then catch him that evening!

 

 

That's probably the main reason that I don't fish for carp.

 

Having kept them when I was younger in tanks and fish ponds, and hand fed them, to me it would be like hunting domestic animals instead of wild creatures.

 

I just don't have the desire to fish for them.