Angling Lines Blog

Reader’s Query: Malvoisine Tips

Gareth — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:09:53 +0000

alan smith wrote:
I am taking my son with me to Malvoisine and was interested to find out if the fish are not all caught by fishing to the far bank as he`s not the best caster in the world and was hoping to bait an open water area no more than 40 metres out for him. Any advice no bait boat available.
Hi Alan,
Thanks for your message. Malvoisine is a large water and has so far received very little pressure. There is a good head of fish; previous groups have had over 100 fish in a week.
While the far margin is a good spot, and in some areas of the lake it is not very far away, Shaun Harrison had a good number of his fish fishing at around the range you are suggesting.
The lake was drained last winter and a number of the nuisance species removed, however I would go easy on the particles initially until you get an idea of how many bream etc are left in the lake. During our trip, before the netting they were a real nuisance when particles were introduced. The technique then was boilies over boilies fished at comfortable catapult range. This technique was very successful for Shaun, particularly with his Quest boilies, which proved far more productive than other brands.
I would therefore suggest you employ the same tactics, ie: pick a suitable target on the far margin and bait at catapult range with boilies. You might try particles and pellets on one rod to start with to see if it produces more takes…
Hope this helps,
Regards, Gareth

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Reader’s Query: Malvoisine Tips

Tags: advice, angling, bait, bank, boilies, carp, Carp Fishing, Carp Fishing Tips, caster, fish, fishing, france, french, head, holidays, Malvoisine, margin, number, pressure, queries, Query, Quest, range, tackle, target, technique, techniques, venues, water, watercraft

Don’t just sit and wait.

Gareth — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:02:27 +0000

by Gareth Watkins

During the long hot summer days, and we, it seems are heading for a long hot summer, with temperatures soaring to over 35 degrees this week, sitting behind a set of rods waiting for it to happen is more likely than not to end up in a blank session. You may well pick up the odd cruising fish, or get action at night, but with night hours now at their shortest, the time span is at its minimum at this time of the year.
So what is the answer?
Well to do what most anglers new to the sport don’t even consider…Go and find the fish! Using one’s eyes is an aspect of carping many seem to over look.

During the hot weather the fish will most likely be cruising on or near the surface, or holed up under over hanging branches, or in various covered areas. A little bit of searching and one can regularly find groups of fish, many apt to take a bait if presented correctly. I witnessed this at Gigantica, just last week, when carp angling nomad Jake Langley-Hobbs, on his European Carp fishing adventure, stopped in and used just this technique to winkle out a few carp.
As well as a bit of stealth, a good pair of Polaroid sunglasses are essential. Technique can be of your own choosing, I prefer a float, but a light lead or free-lined bait are other effective options. The technique does take some patience, but can often be far more exciting than classic static techniques, as fish coming into the edge can often be seen taking a bait.
Careful baiting, with pellets, particles or broken boilies needs to be done little and often and a cast ,as with floater fishing, only attempted when there are fish feeding on these free offerings. In coloured water this could be bubbling, but in clear water one can see the fish stirring the bottom sending clouds from the lake bed.
The beauty of this approach is that it can be used on any size lake. The margins are always the largest feature on any water, so you can nearly always find the fish in the edge somewhere on a lake. Likely looking areas can be fed over a day or so and inspected regularly to see if fish have found the freebies.

So if you are struggling to get a take sitting behind straight rods, try a bit of stalking…..

Cheers
Gareth

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Don’t just sit and wait.

Tags: adventure, angling, approach, bait, Careful, carp, Carp Fishing News, Carp Fishing Tips, carping, cast, edge, fishing, float, france, french, Gigantica, holidays, look, night, nomad, option, patience, Polaroid, Reviews, sessions, stealth, summer, tackle, venues, water, week

Reel Them In

Gareth — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:22:44 +0000

by Gareth Watkins
I think most carpers will agree cooking on the bank is a pain in the proverbial… It’s bad enough, if you can’t get your car to the peg, just walking your gear round, without dealing with bags of tins, pasta & water, stoves, pans, plates, etc..
For those who have been carping a while and have read the great Rod H’s works you’ll know that the pub and the local Indian were all part and parcel of the fun and enjoyment of a good carp session. They just couldn’t miss the pub!! Or the meal afterwards no matter what water they were on.
To catch fish, you just have to be fishing in the right place at the right time, but this doesn’t necessarily mean sitting it out without a break.
So my advice for those on a carp session to France is to forget the chore of cooking and find yourself a nice little local restaurant or café. Most rural French towns and villages will have one and often a good meal will cost as little as 10 Euros. So you can quite literally eat out every day for less than a food package on a lot of lakes.
I was first introduced to this idea by Shaun Harrison when we shot the Remy video a couple of years ago. Come 11:30 am in came the rods and a group of scruffy carp anglers made themselves as presentable as possible before heading off to a local restaurant, in this case near the close by Lac d’Orient called the “L’Orée d’Orient”, which as it happens and by pure coincidence, was another haunt of Mr. Hutchinson when he was fishing at Orient. There are even photos of him on the wall. Here we were able to enjoy a reasonabley priced meal and a beer or wine in a very civilised manner.

Not only does this habit of eating out mean you get well fed on proper French cuisine, but it has a number of other benefits:
1. It rests your swim, which if you bait up before leaving should see fish already on your freebies when you return. The lack of lines in the water often means the carp raise their guard a bit.
2. Secondly it means you are fresh well fed and can concentrate on the job in hand rather than dirty pans, and smelly stoves.
3. It means you can cut down drastically on the gear you take a long, slimming it down to tea and coffee making kit and a few basic utensils…
4. You get to see a bit of France and take in the French atmosphere… I’ve lost count of the number of angler I see turn up to a French lake, with a group of English mates, be greeted by and English bailiff, eat English food and not set foot off the venue for seven days. What a great Continental experience.

What we then usually did for the evening was get some yummy French baguettes, some paté and cheese, a bottle of wine (Note: Wine here is the same as beer in England ie: A Bottle of wine = Several bottles of wine) Another Hutchy reference for the initiated!!
So there you have it: Reel them in!!
When you come back all you have to do is cast them out and wait for the bobbins to fly. Yes Shaun H can do that too….
Cheers
Gareth

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Reel Them In

Tags: angling, beer, bottle, break, café, carp, Carp Fishing News, Carp Fishing Tips, carping, chore, cooking, enjoyment, food, france, french, holidays, meal, Mr. Hutchinson, Orient, pasta, pub, restaurant, rod, session

Reader’s Query: Grass Carp

Gareth — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:44:43 +0000

Good query over on teh Quest Baites blog on Grass carp, that I’ve posted on here:
Philip Parker wrote:
I will be tackling a venue that contains a good head of large grass carp. The lake itself is quite shallow 3′-4′ and around nine acres in size. Can anyone offer some advice on trying to catch them. Of all the fish I’ve caught this one has eluded me. Surface baits are not an option at this venue. Any advice would be well received and appreciated.

Gareth Watkins replies:
Hi Philip,
Grass carp are lovely looking fish and a strange species as they are not easy to target. They will get caught on boilies, but this is more often than not in a water that has little or no weed. In my experience on heavily weeded waters they very rarely get caught at all.
Being basically plant eaters the best way to go about attracting them to your swim is with a plant based bait. I have found maize and sweet corn to be very good in this respect. If you put down a large bed of these particles you have a fair chance you’ll get the fish move on to it.
Over this I would suggest a popped up bait a few centimetres off the bottom. While they will pick bottom baits up this is not their natural feeding habit so you’ll mostly likely get more takes on popped up maize, for example.
They are very fragile fish that don’t fight that hard until you get them close to or on the bank. I often think that until you try to net them they don’t even realise they’ve been hooked.
Once close to the net though they often go balisitic and can wipe all your other rods out. On the back they are also very lively and need to be treated with care. They will often lose scales and get red on the flanks as the thrash around. I would say keep them wet, do you weighing and photos as fast as you can and get them back in the water. Under no circumstances sack them.
Hope this helps
Gareth

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Reader’s Query: Grass Carp

Tags: angling, bait, carp, Carp Fishing Tips, corn, fish, fishing, france, grass, maize, news, particles, plant, queries, Query, sack, tackle, techniques, water, weed

Reader’s Query: Spawning

Gareth — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:28:54 +0000

Robert Fisher wrote:
Please could you tell me the average spaning dates in France.
Hi Robert
This is a very difficult question to reply to as there are so many factors involved. Much depends on the depth of the lake, the amount of sun it recieves and other factors that might effect water temperature such as springs, river inlets etc…
As a general rule carp are unliekly to spawn before mid May, but the period can extend into June or even July on deeper more shaded gravel pits.
On particularly cool summers the fish might not spawn properly at all, indeed if this happens on a number of consequtive years it can even lead to fish deaths.
To plan an early season trip to avoid spawning then is not that easy and will vary even on the same lake from one year to the next..
However, on a trip to Les Vinçons a few yers back I arrived during intense spawning and blanked for 48 hours. Then we had a thunder storm and in the next 24 hours I landed 48 carp most on just one rod so intense was the action.

Best Regards
Gareth

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Reader’s Query: Spawning

Tags: action, angling, carp, Carp Fishing, Carp Fishing Tips, depth, fish, fishing, france, french, holidays, July, June, lake, May, number, period, queries, Query, question, rod, rule, season, Spawning, sun, temperature, trip, venues, water

Reader’s Query: Margot Catfish

bridget — Thu, 07 May 2009 08:12:43 +0000

Paul Cottingham wrote:
Hello.
My good friend and i are going to Margot for a week fishing June the 13th, I would like to know whats the best bait and method to fish for catfish, as this is the species i am looking forward to catching. i was hoping to use halibuts, luncheon meat and pellets ..but am worried that possion chats will eat it before the catfish.
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your query. Margot does indeed have a fantastic head of big fish including big catfish and the mandarin cats, which are gorgeous fish.
Your method on the whole looks to be fine, but let me just underline a few points that are worth bearing in mind.
Tackle: You should be ok with a 3lb carp rod and carp sized reel to tackle the cats in this lake. I would recommend a good mono line, Berkley big Game or Daiwa Sensor in say 15lb. Your hook link is important and needs to be abrasion resistant. There are a few good catfish hooklinks out there. We used 80lb Dyneema in Spain for instance. Hooks need to be strong and sharp. A heavy wire pattern in a size 1 or 1/0 should be fine.
Bait: I think your best bet is the Halibut Pellet route. These have proven their worth on the Ebro, and during a video shoot with Ron Woodward a couple of years ago proved they work equally as well in stillwaters. As to the poisson-chats, May is usually an early period for them; they won’t have bred yet and are not really active until mid summer. The owner nets his venue every year to remove as many as possible so I doubt you’ll have much of an issue with these fish. I would avoid Luncheon meat as it is too susceptible to being eaten by other species that won’t give you a run and simply leave your line baitless very quickly.
Finally I would suggest you take a glaziers glove to land the fish and a very large unhooking mat. If you hook a fish much over 40lb you’ll struggle to get it in a carp landing net. A glove means you can grab it by the lower jaw and drag it onto the mat. Assistance from a friend is useful here, and it is really not as hard as it may appear.
The banks are not too fish friendly on Margot so as I say a large mat will be a must.
I hope these tips see you get a few cats on the bank.
Regards
Gareth

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Reader’s Query: Margot Catfish

Tags: abrasion, angling, bait, Berkley, carp, Carp Fishing Tips, catfish, Dyneema, Ebro, fishing, france, french, glove, halibut, holidays, Hooks, Line, mandarin, Margot, meat, pattern, pellet, possion, queries, reel, Sensor, summer, tackle, venues

Springtime Success in France

Gareth — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:44:17 +0000

Top French carp angler Bruno Médou has just sent us a report from his latest trip to the central ‘Morvan’ region of France, and area rich in carp waters and renowned for the large fish that populate its waters.
The region is heavily forested with a large variety of pines, and as Bruno says it gives it a Canadian feel. The beauty of the setting contributed immensely of the pleasure of his trip.
Bruno had the good fortune to spend his trip on three different waters, which had never seen carp anglers before, and was fortunate to bank specimens on all three over the magical 15kg mark (33lb).

An accomplished photographer Bruno has sent us a series of beautiful photos. See Slideshow below:

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Springtime Success in France

Tags: angler, angling, area, bait, beauty, boilies, carp, Carp Fishing News, Carp Fishing Tips, fish, fishing, fortune, france, french, Morvan, news, photographer, pleasure, report, sessions, Slideshow, springtime, success, trip, variety, venues

Reader’s Query: Line and Leaders

Gareth — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:16:16 +0000

Mike Burt wrote:
I’m a reasonably experienced angler but new to dedicated carping and very
confused about lines, braid, shock leaders, hook lengths etc. I have all the tackle but am not sure what line to put on the reel. What I really need is a configuration of the type of lines from my reel to the hook. Sorry if this seems basic but any help would be appreciated.
Hi Mike,
A basic question ‘Yes’ but one that I’m sure many new comers to carping get wrong or don’t ask. Like many specialist branches it has evolved over the years and can be confusing…First off I’d pay a trip to my local tackle shop and get the right gear. They will explain what you need and how to use it. Secondly search around the net and you’ll find lots of help on line.
Braid: This is an alternative to nylon as a main line on the reel. It has no stretch, so transmits the entire feel to the angler as well as more power and control while playing a fish. However, it also is far less forgiving than nylon when the fish is under the rods and hook pulls to less experienced anglers are common. In the wrong hands it can also be dangerous to the fish, hence it is banned on many waters. If you should cast into a tree or get snagged, it can often be impossible to pull for a break.
Nylon: This is the preferred main line of most carp anglers including myself. You’ll want to chose a good reliable brand such as Berkley Big Game, Nash Bullet or Diawa Sensor. I like 12lb or 15lb breaking strain depending on the place I’m fishing and the size of the carp expected.
Shock Leaders: As a beginner I’d say you’re unlikely to need these in the immediate future. A shock leader is a stronger piece of line usually around 25-50lb and made of braid to help take up the force of a cast when you are using fine main lines (10lb for example) in order to fish a longer range. It also requires a certain technique to make it worthwhile.
Hooklinks: This is the last piece with the hook attached, usually by a knotless knot. There are many hooklink materials on the market, but I prefer the coated braids such as Kryston Snakebite.
So to resume this is what I do. Fill up your reel with 12-15lb nylon. Use some of the end tackle made by companies like Korda and Nash to get the most effective presentation and hooking system. Choose a good hooklink material and check out some of the books or website of simple but effective rigs. Et Voilà that’s the best way to set up your end tackle. My advice is to keep things simple. Don’t go in for the over complicated rigs and set up that often only work in the imagination of the inventors. A standard hair rig with a safety clip will see you catch fish.
Regards
Gareth

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Reader’s Query: Line and Leaders

Tags: abrasion, angling, bait, beginner, braid, carp, Carp Fishing Tips, carping, cast, check, diameter, distance, fishing, hook, hooklink, knot, leader, Line, material, nylon, reel, Reels, rig, shock, spool, strain, strength, stretch, tackle, Tapered

Readers Query: French carp off the Surface

Gareth — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:11:46 +0000

Simon Rooney wrote: Could you please find out for me if the fish at hideaway feed off the surface as I have found out that some lakes in France don’t.
thankyou
Simon Rooney

Hi Simon,

Generally speaking peole have the impression that carp don’t take of the surface in France. This is of course rubbish. However this idea means that very few people try…. those that do may give it a go but soon get discouraged and give up.

On most waters it takes time for the fish to get switched on to a floating bait and recognise it as food. It will therefore take some perseverance from your part at Hideaway to get them going on floaters…. To my knowledge no one has taken fish off the top there, but this doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
I would suggest that you take some floating pellets (to my mind far better than dog biscuits) and when you find some fish on the surface you feed continually until they start to take them…I’d use a small pop up as the hook bait as it is far easier to put on a hook than either pellets or biscuits

If you persist I reackon on this type of water it will work….most people will site happily all week with a boilie out, but how many continue all week with a floater out…

Check out these videos with Shaun Harrison on floater fishing:

Floater fising Part 1

Floater Fishing Part 2

Regards

Gareth.

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Readers Query: French carp off the Surface

Tags: angling, bait, carp, Carp Fishing Tips, fish, fishing, Floater, food, france, french, holidays, hook, perseverance, pop, queries, Query, venues

How to: Effecive Zig Rigs

Gareth — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 09:52:20 +0000

Following on from my article on early season tactics and zig rigs. Here is an article by Ian Gemson from Smart Carping on how to set up a Zig rig.

by Ian Gemson

The Zig-Rig a simple method for fishing bait mid water that has accounted for many large carp.
The Zig-Rig allows a buoyant bait to be fished from the lakebed (legered) at any set depth from a couple of inches above the lakebed right up to the water’s surface. This allows the angler to be able to present the hook bait at the depth at which the carp are either cruising or more importantly feeding.
The Zig-Rig can be used in many situations where hook bait presentation at certain depths is critical, like on the surface during hot weather, or as another example, just above light weed where normal hook bait may become hidden within the weed. Other uses may be sub-surface where carp maybe cruising, say a couple of feet below the surface, or even sub-surface where wildfowl may become a nuisance.
My preferred Zig-Rig setup is a 8lb Drennan double stretch mono hook length tied to a buffer bead setup in a running rig style,, which is fished on the lakebed (legered) and setup with a bite-alarm and indicator as you would normally.
The Zig-Rig is a tremendous rig which is very easy to setup however it is often overlooked in the carping fraternity.

Despite this the rig is not without its problems. Casting out a Zig-Rig with a short hook length of a couple of feet isn’t too much of a problem, however casting a hook length of 12ft or more can be a real problem. There are various different ways in which to cast out such a long hook length I prefer to lay the hook length in a line behind me as I prepare to cast out, some people prefer to coil up the hook link in a bucket which is carefully place on the bank-side, behi

nd me, before casting out. The hook length unravels during the cast leaving the bucket cleanly on the bank side

Tackle

	1. Korda size 10 or 12 Wide gape hooks or equivalents
	2. Small Korda Pear swivel lead 3. Korda Size 8 swivel 4. Korda shok bead 5. Korda safe zone anti tangle sleeve
	6. Gardner PVA foam nuggets
	7. Drennan double strength hook lenght braking strain to suit the lake conditions
	8. Size 4 pole elastice to act as a line marker

The Method

	Step 1: Cut enough hook length for the depth or rig you want to make and tie a small loop in the end for the bait. make sure the loop is smaller than the size of the pop up bait you intend to use.
	Step 2: Form a normal knotless knot making sure the hair is a short as possible. The bait needs to be postioned as close as possible to the back of the hook.
	Step 3: Using a fine baiting needle, thread your chosen pop up onto the hair. You can see how close the bait is the the shank of the hook.
	Step 4: Thread the Korda Safe zone anti tangle sleeve onto the hook length and then using a palomar knot tie the Korda size 8 swivel to the hooklength.
	Step 5: Slide the Korda swivel pear lead onto your mainline.
	Step 6: Now slide the Korda Shok bead on to the main line as well.
	Step 7: Tie the main line to the Korda size 8 swivel and pull the swivel into the bead the lead/ hook length setup should now look like this. Note how the Korda Safe zone anti tangle sleeve holds the hook length away from the lead minimising tangles and protecting the hook length.
	Step 8: Cut a nugget of Gardner PVA foam in half.
	Step 9: With one halve of the PVA nugget cut it 3/4 of the way through.
	Step 10: Now place the hook and the pop up into the slot cut in the Gardner PVA nugget. Wet the slot and close the nugget around the hook. This ensures the rig casts well without tangling and the PVA give extra bouyancy to the pop up for a few moments after the cast.
	Step 11: If you are casting to a specific spot, a hole in the weed or you are spodding a soupy cloudy mixture over you zig rigs it is important to ensure you are as accurate as possible. To take the guess work out of this a simple marker placed upon your line when the rig is cast into postion will ensure you are always on the right spot. Using a small amount of size 4 pole elastic tie a 3 turn grinner knot (Marker knot) onto your mainline.
	Step 12: Light actioned carp rods preferably with a through action (players rod) are the required to cushion the the hook hold plus the very light hook lenght. Make sure your reel line is not to heavy a breaking strain and is in balance with the breaking strain of the hook lenght, as to high a breaking strain will cause you to loose lots of fish.

Roll on the long hot summer days when the carp are feeding in the upper layers of the water, totally ignoring you bottom baits. Get on the Zigs and start catchting those huge summer carp.

Tight Lines,
Smart Carping Limited

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How to: Effecive Zig Rigs

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