Hi Folks,
Sorry about the delay on the results been very busy! I've decided to pick 2 winners. I had loads of entries thus not everyone can win. But for the people who did enter i thank you for that and i will be doing a summer comp too!:).
So...(drum roles)......
The winners of the Christmas competition are....
Paul Murphy and Dean Gascoigne.
Thanks for all the Entrants and dont forget to keep checking back for more articles and More competitions in the 2012:).
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Thursday, 22 December 2011
Merry Christmas
Well apart from a few back dated posts i need to do i wont be doing much on here throughout the Christmas period, but remember there is still a few days to get your competition entry in! Remember its open to every single person out there and thanks for all the entries so far! I wont personally be picking them to be unbiased i will be picking 10 and then passing them on to a third party to pick the winner for me just so no cheating goes on!
Again all you have to do to enter is just send me an email me Fish4thought@instruction.com and write a short paragraph stating why you think you would benefit from a days free tuition. If you haven't seen the competition just look below this post).
I'll announce the winner on the 27th:).
Merry Christmas!
Again all you have to do to enter is just send me an email me Fish4thought@instruction.com and write a short paragraph stating why you think you would benefit from a days free tuition. If you haven't seen the competition just look below this post).
I'll announce the winner on the 27th:).
Merry Christmas!
Thursday, 15 December 2011
Fish4Thought Christmas Competition!
So its that time of year again. Time for a Christmas competition!
This year, I've decided to put my self up as the prize. A days fishing tuition with me at the famous Hallcroft fishing complex on a date to be mutually agreed (Normally £100-£150).
It will be a full day of you learning whatever method and what ever tactic you want or just generally brushing up or fine tuning! Totally free!
To Enter simply email me @ Fish4Thought@Instruction.com with a short paragraph of why you would like a free days tuition with me and why you think it will benefit you. Anyone is welcome to join no matter what you ability. The competition will be open till Christmas eve and i will announce the winner in the new year!
Good luck!
Nathan @ Fish4thought
Monday, 12 December 2011
FP1's review @ Hallcroft, Reed Pool.
In my opinion. It isn't the best time of year to try a pellet really especially with the last night frost! Even more so as i hate fishing them @ the best of times,but if its a hard time to catch then surely its time to try something new?
The FP1's are courtesy of http://www.talkangling.co.uk/ who at present are the only distributor of this brand.
Well when i received them i could instantly smell the aroma, thats before opening the packet! They come in several sizes, flavours and colours and are packed in very secure jars, capable of fitting the biggest of sausage fingers in them. The pellets are covered in oil, I'd imagine this helps the life time of the pellet and increases it as well as helping preserve flavour and adding to attractant once in the water.
You get a decent choice to suit!
They are in 4,6 or 8mm sizes, with 60ml of product per jar along with the top secret FP1 formula flavor incorporated into the oil based glug that is on the pellets.
Pink Monster - monster crab flavour
Natural Brown - fishmeal flavour
Mello Yellow - corn steeped scopex flavour
Candy White - sweet halibut flavour (Which i must say is my favourite).
The FP1 pellets are of the best quality ingredients and base mix wise. The texture is like something amongst the marsh mellow family and i myself have never really fished with anything like this, as i am a die hard paste man in the summer, but i was impressed! I couldn't see anyone having problems with this flying off on the strike or ship in, even with a finer gauge hook. All in all its a quality bait in my eyes so far and the price tag of £5.50 doesn't seem a lot considering it can keep for a long while and be used for many sessions. I also would be willing to bet that it would be very good for Commercial Carp and Silvers a like. I'd see it performing very well for Ide or even Roach up in the water.
So enough of the talk, to the fishing!
Well, as i didn't really know the bait, i chose to take it to a venue i know very well, Hallcroft. I chose the reed pool which i know very well and i chose peg 22. I wanted to set up 4 lines, 2 x Margin lines and 2 x 8m lines both with alternating Choppy and Caster and Fp1 lines.
For my Margin rig i chose my classic.....
Rig 1 (FP1) Margin - Colmic Goldie .2g 3.5lb - 2.2lb hook length (Powerline) to a Preston PR24 18. Fished 2 inch over depth just after the marginal shelf (3ft). Also found a very nice inlet of water coming from the canal pond.
Rig 2 (Worm) Margin - Colmic Goldie .2g 3.5lb - 2.2lb hook length (Powerline) to a a 16 Drennan Silver Pellet. Fished 3 inch over depth just after the marginal shelf (3ft).
Rig 3 (FP1) 8m - Preston PB22 .5g 3.5lb - 1.8lb hook length (Powerline) to a Preston PR24 18. Fished 3 inch over depth about a metre past the edge of the slop. Fished in around 5ft of water.
Rig 4 (Worm) 8m - Preston PB22 .5g 3.5lb - 1.8lb hook length (Powerline) to a Preston PR24 18. Fished 4 inch over depth about a metre past the edge of the slop. Fished in around 5ft of water.
All above were going to be fished with the Preston 11h elastic.
All lines were going to see the same amount of bait which was, very little. I decided to do everything negatively in order to have a good show and a fair fight between the two baits. I got everything sorted and just put a small cup of absolute chop on the worm lines with 30% caster. The FP1 however, i decided to go for my ground bait recipe, as i was treating this like a match, its no good targeting the carp, so i was fully intent on going for the Bream and Chub. I decided to make a few TINY balls of a sweet mix i made up to suit the sweetness of the Candy FP1 and just gave both the swims a tiny taste of it. Also with the margin rig intended on serving them some free dead reds just as an insurance policy.
The PR24 is an ideal hook if your not targeting anything to big...
I decided to start on the 8m line first with the worm rig. Nothing was really showing. I tend to only give it 15 minutes until i try another line when i am fishing for everything that swims, so that said, i went onto the margin worm rig, to which i didn't get a sign.
So were talking about an hour without a fish. I re topped up my worm swims and left to go onto the FP1, As i noticed there were a few swirl from the silvers. I put it in just to the right of the inflow of water....
Well i gave it a little longer, mainly because i was very confident in the white mello pellet, always thought white pellets were brilliant baits in the winter, just never really gave them much attention, but it worked....
The chub fight very well indeed for their size and if your not careful they'll still take you into the snags, the first fish of the day...
The chub were still there despite the hour or so fishing the opposite margin. The best thing about chub is you can tell what they have been eating!
Obviously been having some of my sweet dead reds then!
Evaluation,
Well all in all it was a very good day. It was a good result for the FP1's on the day. Its hard to tell what would of been the better bait as i know i didn't really put all the effort in on the worm line today. For the FP1's, i do hold a lot of confidence in them, especially the white candy pellet. Time will tell how well they go on different venues etc. I'm certainly going to try them on my mid and up in the water lines throughout next year and i reckon I'll have very good results. It certainly helped me get the better quality chub out on a not so good day.
I'd say the FP1's account for 70% of my estimated 30lb weight of just chub. IF your in the market for a new bait, i would definitely try these.
If you wish to try the FP1's simply visit http://www.talkangling.co.uk/ and check the products section or simply Click Here.
Sunday, 11 December 2011
Drennan Groundbait Feeders
Well as you'll more than likely know, i use these for 99.9% of my feeder fishing. So i thought I'd give you a quick review.
Well, its a basic feeder, but very tough. It has minimal holes in it and you can limit em even more just be using some tape. They are available in sizes from 12g to 80g! So covers everything. It has a power gum boom which will prevent you having 'crack offs' while casting as well as being constructed with better than average plastics!
All in all there isn't much you can say about them, but for me they are the best on the market and they very rarely get broken!
Nate @ Fish4Thought
All in all there isn't much you can say about them, but for me they are the best on the market and they very rarely get broken!
Nate @ Fish4Thought
Peg 101 - Langold Lake - Peg 47
Continuing with the Peg 101....
I decided to fish peg 47 today. It was really windy and i went with my gut that the fish had moved further up from off of the wall and its typically pegs 1-5 and pegs 50 - 44 that produce the goods this late in the year
I was really keen to try the waggler on these pegs but i was going to start on the feeder. They offer good cover (angler wise) but the depth is disappointment at around 4 ft for about 30 yards. I opted to ball in a good amount of bait on the waggler, i wanted to fish it at around 20m or so out so it would just be before and after a the weed bed which would normally be there in the warmer months. So its effectively a clear channel all year round and i see this as a typical paroling ground for the bigger specimens and the roach. Its fairly easy to find the channel with a heavy plummet.
Plumming up:
Don't be one of these people that use an SSG on the hook for plummeting a waggler. You want the biggest plummet you can get with the ethos of covering more area, though i wouldn't suggest using the flat plummets which are about now a days as these don't sink directly. What i suggest you do for plummeting is stick to the same length, but try different angles. Just reel a foot of a time and wait. If your rig stops and feels as though your in a snag, it'll most likely be a ledge. So let it go slack slowly and just see how much it drops if anyway, then click that area up put before clipping pull a section of about a yard or so off of the reel. Then cast to 2 and 10 o clock directions but at the same length and range. If you get the 'snag' effect still its most likely a ledge or from history or my plumbing it can easily be a long pipe, but either way its a feature and you have taken away all possibility of it being a snag as you can plumb it for the length of your peg.
Baiting up.
I knew what i was going to use for bait....Caster, Worm and dead reds.
So i found a nice channel at around the 25 yards area. Once i found that i then left my plummet on, cast out and just seen how the tow effected my float. This is also a good time to bait up, as i was feeding with balls (Babies heads) a marker comes in handy. I reckon 2 balls would do it for kick starting the swim off. My mix mainly contains the same ground bait ingredients what ever the time of year, whatever the weather. This is 50/50 with Bream or Roach 3000 with brown crumb and chopped worm and caster. If you want to go the way of the Roach 3000 though, its a good idea to soak it first thing in the morning as with it being mainly roach specific you do get some mid water and surface particles within it. So don't say i didn't warn ya:).
Its pretty important to make sure you give your ground bait a good riddle. I don't bother so much when i am balling in, but when its going in the feeder it needs to be soft and fluffy!
A couple of riddles and its sorted!
The Tackle;
The Waggler;
I tend to use my 14ft Drennan Silver fish rod for the majority of my bream and natural lake fishing. Its a light rod but if capable of taking lines up to 6lb, but i only ever use 4lb maxima anyway. I prefer the length of a 14ft rod on Natural venues just for the amount of snags that are commonly knocking about and the sheer amount of close in debris, with a 14fter it helps just angle the fish up that much quicker. My end tackle consisted of a very fine, cane tipped waggler which over all would take 2 AAA, i like to secure the float with 2 BB's and then have the remainder in No.8's or 6's as a grouped up show 6 inches away from the hook. If i am looking to cast further at range i would simple just spread them weight out a little. Hook and hook length would be my usual for this time of year, .9 Silstar Match winner to an 18 B511 (barbed). I wanted to pretty much catch anything that swims with this approach so i opted for just 2 reds on the hook, with the idea of switch to worm if it was difficult or i wanted something @ a better stamp. I also wanted to keep the perch away so i chose to feed plenty of caster in my balling mix (around 30% to worm). I set this line up so i was around 6 inch over depth.
The Feeder;
The rods i use for the feeder differ dramatically for the type of fish and the time of year on which i plan to use them. When i can get away with it i love to use my little silstar 10ft match picker. Unfortunately it was blowing a gale today so i couldn't really use it! I had to use my Preston 11' 6" carbonactive, which isn't a bad rod at all. I'm just not overly keen on using it anymore as its action is a little floppy for my liking. End tackle was a good old fashioned drennan themsley style g/bait feeder just on a standard running rig, but with a tiny bit of rig putty around a ft above it just to give it that 'bolt' effect but still remaining a running rig with the feeder able to drop off on the slightest bit of pressure. End tackle was above, i like to use .11 Silstar on the feeder though, it doesn't get that many pig tails with it then. I always like to start a session using around a 14 inch tail with the feeder but i have done it up to around 6ft before!
I wouldn't normally consider setting up a waggler on the pegs which i fished today, well i would, but i only ever fish the waggler late on or even on a night session in this area. I made a judgement call to fish the waggler first, something i would never do. Its something i teach people NOT to do when looking for a peg, you should not have any preconceived ideas of what you want to fish until you see the lake/venue but i already knew i wanted to fish the waggler on an area people rarely did.
To the fishing!
So as i mentioned above, i starting my swim off by balling in when i were plumbing. This gives a good marker but i tried to create an area of around 2 m2. I also gave two casts with the large version of the g/bait feeder just to kick start it. After that, i decided to go straight on the waggler.
Top tip! When your setting up. Cast your feeder in EMPTY and WITHOUT A HOOK LENGTH to where you intend to fish, leave it there and watch your tip for ten minutes. It'll show you if your too far out if you getting many liners!
Well, i started on the waggler and it wasn't long before i were getting small indications. After about 5 minutes and a few twitches i decided to almost totally submerge the float and just leave about 10mm above the water line and i also just went to 3 inches over depth. This resulted in the obvious - my float going straight under and into a roach, followed by a great deal more too!
I kept topping up with golf ball sizes balled every half hour of so, but i too kept scattering some caster around the area, to if nothing else just keep the perch at bay.
I was averaging around a roach every other cast. Its always difficult to hit the fast bites at range, especially on a windy day, i couldn't get away with anymore of the depth as it would just run through the peg too fast. It went dead at around 12 o clock so i then tried the feeder. Pretty much the same response but the stamp were much smaller. So i chucked another babies head in on my waggler line and then just waited until i could see liners on my feeder line.
Top Tip! If your fishing at range, and are fishing waggler and feeder, try to get a feeder line so when in the water your feeder line cuts through the edge of your swim. Look for liners and its a good indication that its time to shift!
Well pretty much 10 minutes after the ball i saw a couple of indications so i decided to go back on the waggler. Same again, just into roach! Just staying on the 2 dead reds seemed to be paying off.
With bites often and a continuous belt of fish rolling in. Roach from 1 - 8oz and a few bream up to around 5lb. The rod handled them superbly, not one fish bumped. I think a lot of peoplego over gunned they don't realize they can play the fish till its shattered, especially on a pleasure session.
I decided to call it a day when i started getting soaked through, didnt use that much bait so it'll save for another day. Just goes to show that you should think out of the box even if it does make you look a right twirp from time to time!
My catch around 30lbs maybe a little more if i am feeling generous!..................
Sorry about the quality! Bit hard when your by ya self!:).
Cheers!
Nathan @ Fish4thought
I decided to fish peg 47 today. It was really windy and i went with my gut that the fish had moved further up from off of the wall and its typically pegs 1-5 and pegs 50 - 44 that produce the goods this late in the year
I was really keen to try the waggler on these pegs but i was going to start on the feeder. They offer good cover (angler wise) but the depth is disappointment at around 4 ft for about 30 yards. I opted to ball in a good amount of bait on the waggler, i wanted to fish it at around 20m or so out so it would just be before and after a the weed bed which would normally be there in the warmer months. So its effectively a clear channel all year round and i see this as a typical paroling ground for the bigger specimens and the roach. Its fairly easy to find the channel with a heavy plummet.
Plumming up:
Don't be one of these people that use an SSG on the hook for plummeting a waggler. You want the biggest plummet you can get with the ethos of covering more area, though i wouldn't suggest using the flat plummets which are about now a days as these don't sink directly. What i suggest you do for plummeting is stick to the same length, but try different angles. Just reel a foot of a time and wait. If your rig stops and feels as though your in a snag, it'll most likely be a ledge. So let it go slack slowly and just see how much it drops if anyway, then click that area up put before clipping pull a section of about a yard or so off of the reel. Then cast to 2 and 10 o clock directions but at the same length and range. If you get the 'snag' effect still its most likely a ledge or from history or my plumbing it can easily be a long pipe, but either way its a feature and you have taken away all possibility of it being a snag as you can plumb it for the length of your peg.
Baiting up.
I knew what i was going to use for bait....Caster, Worm and dead reds.
So i found a nice channel at around the 25 yards area. Once i found that i then left my plummet on, cast out and just seen how the tow effected my float. This is also a good time to bait up, as i was feeding with balls (Babies heads) a marker comes in handy. I reckon 2 balls would do it for kick starting the swim off. My mix mainly contains the same ground bait ingredients what ever the time of year, whatever the weather. This is 50/50 with Bream or Roach 3000 with brown crumb and chopped worm and caster. If you want to go the way of the Roach 3000 though, its a good idea to soak it first thing in the morning as with it being mainly roach specific you do get some mid water and surface particles within it. So don't say i didn't warn ya:).
Its pretty important to make sure you give your ground bait a good riddle. I don't bother so much when i am balling in, but when its going in the feeder it needs to be soft and fluffy!
A couple of riddles and its sorted!
The Tackle;
The Waggler;
I tend to use my 14ft Drennan Silver fish rod for the majority of my bream and natural lake fishing. Its a light rod but if capable of taking lines up to 6lb, but i only ever use 4lb maxima anyway. I prefer the length of a 14ft rod on Natural venues just for the amount of snags that are commonly knocking about and the sheer amount of close in debris, with a 14fter it helps just angle the fish up that much quicker. My end tackle consisted of a very fine, cane tipped waggler which over all would take 2 AAA, i like to secure the float with 2 BB's and then have the remainder in No.8's or 6's as a grouped up show 6 inches away from the hook. If i am looking to cast further at range i would simple just spread them weight out a little. Hook and hook length would be my usual for this time of year, .9 Silstar Match winner to an 18 B511 (barbed). I wanted to pretty much catch anything that swims with this approach so i opted for just 2 reds on the hook, with the idea of switch to worm if it was difficult or i wanted something @ a better stamp. I also wanted to keep the perch away so i chose to feed plenty of caster in my balling mix (around 30% to worm). I set this line up so i was around 6 inch over depth.
The Feeder;
The rods i use for the feeder differ dramatically for the type of fish and the time of year on which i plan to use them. When i can get away with it i love to use my little silstar 10ft match picker. Unfortunately it was blowing a gale today so i couldn't really use it! I had to use my Preston 11' 6" carbonactive, which isn't a bad rod at all. I'm just not overly keen on using it anymore as its action is a little floppy for my liking. End tackle was a good old fashioned drennan themsley style g/bait feeder just on a standard running rig, but with a tiny bit of rig putty around a ft above it just to give it that 'bolt' effect but still remaining a running rig with the feeder able to drop off on the slightest bit of pressure. End tackle was above, i like to use .11 Silstar on the feeder though, it doesn't get that many pig tails with it then. I always like to start a session using around a 14 inch tail with the feeder but i have done it up to around 6ft before!
I wouldn't normally consider setting up a waggler on the pegs which i fished today, well i would, but i only ever fish the waggler late on or even on a night session in this area. I made a judgement call to fish the waggler first, something i would never do. Its something i teach people NOT to do when looking for a peg, you should not have any preconceived ideas of what you want to fish until you see the lake/venue but i already knew i wanted to fish the waggler on an area people rarely did.
To the fishing!
So as i mentioned above, i starting my swim off by balling in when i were plumbing. This gives a good marker but i tried to create an area of around 2 m2. I also gave two casts with the large version of the g/bait feeder just to kick start it. After that, i decided to go straight on the waggler.
Top tip! When your setting up. Cast your feeder in EMPTY and WITHOUT A HOOK LENGTH to where you intend to fish, leave it there and watch your tip for ten minutes. It'll show you if your too far out if you getting many liners!
Well, i started on the waggler and it wasn't long before i were getting small indications. After about 5 minutes and a few twitches i decided to almost totally submerge the float and just leave about 10mm above the water line and i also just went to 3 inches over depth. This resulted in the obvious - my float going straight under and into a roach, followed by a great deal more too!
I kept topping up with golf ball sizes balled every half hour of so, but i too kept scattering some caster around the area, to if nothing else just keep the perch at bay.
I was averaging around a roach every other cast. Its always difficult to hit the fast bites at range, especially on a windy day, i couldn't get away with anymore of the depth as it would just run through the peg too fast. It went dead at around 12 o clock so i then tried the feeder. Pretty much the same response but the stamp were much smaller. So i chucked another babies head in on my waggler line and then just waited until i could see liners on my feeder line.
Top Tip! If your fishing at range, and are fishing waggler and feeder, try to get a feeder line so when in the water your feeder line cuts through the edge of your swim. Look for liners and its a good indication that its time to shift!
Well pretty much 10 minutes after the ball i saw a couple of indications so i decided to go back on the waggler. Same again, just into roach! Just staying on the 2 dead reds seemed to be paying off.
With bites often and a continuous belt of fish rolling in. Roach from 1 - 8oz and a few bream up to around 5lb. The rod handled them superbly, not one fish bumped. I think a lot of peoplego over gunned they don't realize they can play the fish till its shattered, especially on a pleasure session.
I decided to call it a day when i started getting soaked through, didnt use that much bait so it'll save for another day. Just goes to show that you should think out of the box even if it does make you look a right twirp from time to time!
My catch around 30lbs maybe a little more if i am feeling generous!..................
Sorry about the quality! Bit hard when your by ya self!:).
Cheers!
Nathan @ Fish4thought
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Loversall Practice session
Hi Folks,
So as you may know, I have decided to have a look else where for my matches now. Just for the winter though. I had a few in mind but i have chosen a couple. My old haunt wetlands and a fairly new venue called Loversall Lakes.
I decided to go for a Trip to Loversall today. Just try to it out as i haven't fished it before. On first sights of the venue i really did like what i was seeing. It is a fairly new venue (around 3 years) and i was expecting to see it slightly more established but it was still in the first phase of vegetation establishment, but i still gave it a go!
I chose to fish a peg which had the end of an island infront of it.
Pretty much a dead-cert to have a good line to fish to on this peg. I opted to set up a Margin, 6m, 11m and 16m line 16m line was basically to the island but i set up a bomb and feeder rod too. Bomb rod was a insurance policy with just .6 bottom on which would have been fished with a B510 20 with a single red.
Plumbing up i shipped out a feet at a time just to try and find the odd ledge but there just wasnt on that i could find. It was constructed as a bowl and the margins were only around 5 inch deep so that was out of the question. I did decide to fish a line at the deepest part of the bed (Around 7m), a line to the island (Bottom of the shelf around 15m) and the last on to the island more or less flush with it (16m).
My Rigs were as follows:
7m line: I only had around 4ft depth here. So i opted to TRY and start off with a .3 PB22 onto .11 with .8 hook length finished off with an 18 B911. This was going to be fished as close to dead depth as i could manage with dead reds. (Feeding 2mm pellets). Shotting pattern was just a bulk of shot around 5 inch away from the hook. I wanted to try some bait i had been given to field test which is a new pellet currently coming into the market called "FP1" (£5.50) courtesy of www.Talkangling.co.uk so i decided to use this line to do so - So i made a duplicate rig with a PR24 16.
15m line: As above but as i was fishing further out i decided to go to a .5PB22 rather than the smaller one. I was going to use this line to fish choppy too. So i opted for a bulk of No.8 shot with 2 x No.10's used as droppers - last one 3 inch away from the hook.
16m line: When i plumbed this line up i only had around 2 ft, i wasn't really sure to bother or not but i decided just in case it was best. As i didn't really know the venue at all. I opted for my classic shallow choice of the Colmic Goldie .2g which is ideal for far bank and margin situations. Same spec line and hook above. I was going to try to fish choppy on this line. But left the idea open to try any bait on it. Especially the FP1's. So i tied a duplicate as above, again with a PR24 16.
I planned on fishing all the above with 9h as i wasn't sure what i was going to get at all!
Bomb line: I did set this up mainly on the thought of fishing over the 16m line with a single larger bait on or single red, dependent on what my first bites came out with. Fishing a tiny bomb. Around the size of an SSG shot on my super light Silstar Match Picker. This was more insurance than anything.
Feeder line: Nothing fancy, tiny themsley ground bait feeder with a small tail of around 1.5ft. Which was going to be fishing with choppy just to the edge of the island with a 50/50 mix of Bream 3000 and Brown crumb.. Again this would be treated as a back up.
So it was time to fish!
I started off with a mix of 2m and 4m sizes pellets. (Venues pellets) - but coated in my own special stuff:). Never use cups this time of year, as i think it encourages you to feed to much so a TINY kinder type cup was used. One cup only. Straight out to the marker @ 7m. I decided to start the day off just fishing double dead red and waiting to see what came out.
Well after around 20 minutes i hadn't had a slight indication at all! I decided to feed the peg again then switch to my 15m line. Going as the same rule again with just a small pop of bait (Demolished worms,. just like soup with 30% caster (to keep the perch away!). I fished the rig with 2 small pieces of worm.
It wasn't long before i was into a small carp (around a 1lb) followed by around 10 more within the space of an hour or so. I didn't to bag up today. I just wanted to see what all the difference line were like so i decided to go on to 15m. Unfortunately by the time this came around the wind was pretty much Gale force! So i decided to go to my 6m line.
I gave it 5 minutes on the dead reds, but i just couldnt get anything to produce. So feed a little more of my mix then opted to fish the 5m FP1 in the Mello Flavour (Nice and Sweet!).
After about ten minutes i started to get a few knocks. Then it went shooting under! result was a nice 3lb mirror. After around an hour of so they started to role in after not so much time. Around 5 minutes a fish which is pretty good for this time of the year so the FP1 made a difference for me.
Well i reckon id have got around 25lb of carp. Obviously this was only my first visit and was gained by using two methods only. I'm pleased i tried the FP1's today though and i'll be doing a full review on them Tomorrow at the Grange in Scunthorpe.
Check in on monday for a full FP1 Review!:).
Cheers!
Nate@Fish4Thought
So as you may know, I have decided to have a look else where for my matches now. Just for the winter though. I had a few in mind but i have chosen a couple. My old haunt wetlands and a fairly new venue called Loversall Lakes.
I decided to go for a Trip to Loversall today. Just try to it out as i haven't fished it before. On first sights of the venue i really did like what i was seeing. It is a fairly new venue (around 3 years) and i was expecting to see it slightly more established but it was still in the first phase of vegetation establishment, but i still gave it a go!
I chose to fish a peg which had the end of an island infront of it.
Pretty much a dead-cert to have a good line to fish to on this peg. I opted to set up a Margin, 6m, 11m and 16m line 16m line was basically to the island but i set up a bomb and feeder rod too. Bomb rod was a insurance policy with just .6 bottom on which would have been fished with a B510 20 with a single red.
Plumbing up i shipped out a feet at a time just to try and find the odd ledge but there just wasnt on that i could find. It was constructed as a bowl and the margins were only around 5 inch deep so that was out of the question. I did decide to fish a line at the deepest part of the bed (Around 7m), a line to the island (Bottom of the shelf around 15m) and the last on to the island more or less flush with it (16m).
My Rigs were as follows:
7m line: I only had around 4ft depth here. So i opted to TRY and start off with a .3 PB22 onto .11 with .8 hook length finished off with an 18 B911. This was going to be fished as close to dead depth as i could manage with dead reds. (Feeding 2mm pellets). Shotting pattern was just a bulk of shot around 5 inch away from the hook. I wanted to try some bait i had been given to field test which is a new pellet currently coming into the market called "FP1" (£5.50) courtesy of www.Talkangling.co.uk so i decided to use this line to do so - So i made a duplicate rig with a PR24 16.
15m line: As above but as i was fishing further out i decided to go to a .5PB22 rather than the smaller one. I was going to use this line to fish choppy too. So i opted for a bulk of No.8 shot with 2 x No.10's used as droppers - last one 3 inch away from the hook.
16m line: When i plumbed this line up i only had around 2 ft, i wasn't really sure to bother or not but i decided just in case it was best. As i didn't really know the venue at all. I opted for my classic shallow choice of the Colmic Goldie .2g which is ideal for far bank and margin situations. Same spec line and hook above. I was going to try to fish choppy on this line. But left the idea open to try any bait on it. Especially the FP1's. So i tied a duplicate as above, again with a PR24 16.
I planned on fishing all the above with 9h as i wasn't sure what i was going to get at all!
Bomb line: I did set this up mainly on the thought of fishing over the 16m line with a single larger bait on or single red, dependent on what my first bites came out with. Fishing a tiny bomb. Around the size of an SSG shot on my super light Silstar Match Picker. This was more insurance than anything.
Feeder line: Nothing fancy, tiny themsley ground bait feeder with a small tail of around 1.5ft. Which was going to be fishing with choppy just to the edge of the island with a 50/50 mix of Bream 3000 and Brown crumb.. Again this would be treated as a back up.
So it was time to fish!
I started off with a mix of 2m and 4m sizes pellets. (Venues pellets) - but coated in my own special stuff:). Never use cups this time of year, as i think it encourages you to feed to much so a TINY kinder type cup was used. One cup only. Straight out to the marker @ 7m. I decided to start the day off just fishing double dead red and waiting to see what came out.
Well after around 20 minutes i hadn't had a slight indication at all! I decided to feed the peg again then switch to my 15m line. Going as the same rule again with just a small pop of bait (Demolished worms,. just like soup with 30% caster (to keep the perch away!). I fished the rig with 2 small pieces of worm.
It wasn't long before i was into a small carp (around a 1lb) followed by around 10 more within the space of an hour or so. I didn't to bag up today. I just wanted to see what all the difference line were like so i decided to go on to 15m. Unfortunately by the time this came around the wind was pretty much Gale force! So i decided to go to my 6m line.
I gave it 5 minutes on the dead reds, but i just couldnt get anything to produce. So feed a little more of my mix then opted to fish the 5m FP1 in the Mello Flavour (Nice and Sweet!).
After about ten minutes i started to get a few knocks. Then it went shooting under! result was a nice 3lb mirror. After around an hour of so they started to role in after not so much time. Around 5 minutes a fish which is pretty good for this time of the year so the FP1 made a difference for me.
Well i reckon id have got around 25lb of carp. Obviously this was only my first visit and was gained by using two methods only. I'm pleased i tried the FP1's today though and i'll be doing a full review on them Tomorrow at the Grange in Scunthorpe.
Check in on monday for a full FP1 Review!:).
Cheers!
Nate@Fish4Thought