Langold Lake Grand Open

Hi Folks,

I'd like to take this time to invite you to fish a mini series which is currently getting organised at Langold Lake.

It will be fished as a mini series with two qualifiers moving onto a winner takes all final.

The road to the final is as follows;

The cost to enter is £30 per man. With additional small pools on the qualifying days. In essence all an angler has to do is compete with 3 men on each qualifier to enter the final, so if your not an out and out match men, its not impossible for you to get to the final at all.

I've split the qualifiers up into sections to give every angler a better chance to get to the final. So if one area of the lake isn't performing,your all in the same boat so no matter what, it'll be a fair match for all.

I've also split the qualifiers up into Pole and Rod and line, this will test all anglers thus allowing everyone the chance at qualifying with there preferred method. Truly allowing the all round anglers to shine.

Its going to be a great opportunity for forty anglers to compete on a natural circuit for a nice size of money.

So fella's whats stopping you?

Down to the rules.

Nothing over the top at all. Here's a short and sensible evaluation of the rules.

1. No Blood worm or Joker.
2. Pole limit of 14.5m
3. On the pole days a 1 kilo of bait allowance is allowed to be pre-baited into the peg in the allowance of time you have to set up (So before the match starts).
4. All matches are as follows; draw at 8:30 start at 10:00 - finish at 4 with a rolling weigh in.
5. No Spodding.
6. Landing nets must be used on fish above 5oz.

Grange Caravan Park Open - Blyton 5th March

Well its time for another open over at Blyton...

Obviously i have been doing well the past few months over here and i'd be targeting the big roach again with hopefully the added bonus carp somewhere along the lines.

For starters i drew the end peg on the far right of the lake. I wasn't going to change my approach for today even though i got an end peg which normally means feeder work on this venue.

I decided to set up a handful of pole lines and just as a back up a simple feeder rod rig.

First rig:

Line 1 (3m to Hand)
As i always use for this, the to hand rig was to be .5 Colmic goldie tied to .11 direct to a size 16 drennan silver fish maggot. (As usual a big float for a big bolt effect, put this to a double 4 elastic and your sorted).

I also tied 3 spares up of the above rig, Mainly because when fishing to hand is a fish drops off at the last second of swing, the line carries the momentum and tangles round, you can combat it a little by whipping your top 2 forward but it rarely stops it.

Line 2 (Pole Method)
I know its still at bit early but one day i'm not going to set this up and then wish i had! So it may as well be up and waiting just in case! I've now moved to using the Browning Kobra flat methods as i feel there a lot better build quality then the Preston ones and a fraction of the price!

Line 3 (Feeder Line)
I was just going to set up an everyday feeder set up, you all know by now i never use a method on the rod and this is no different. Just an ordinary Drennan Groundbait feeder with a short tail!

Bait wise

As you can see, my bait was pretty much maggots, maggots and more maggots. A mixture of maggots with turmeric, dead reds and ordinary live reds, i'd be looking to spray around 2 - 5 dead maggots every fish and looking to use the top up balls like last week every 3 or 4 fish. I'd also be looking to fish the least bait on the hook as possible while still getting bites, in other words i want to try and get away with a single red on a 16 or even a 14 if possible, to create a higher more fish - bite ratio.

Time to get in...


Well it was time for the all in, i started my swim off by chucking in 2 very large balls of just ground bait, its important to create a wide spread area when fishing for silvers to attract the maximum amount of fish in your peg as possible. I started on the 3m like and was almost instantly into the roach. It didn't seem to be going as quickly as the previous week though, maybe a fish every 5 minutes or so....


11:00

The first hour had passed and it was starting to pick up, i was getting the roach up to around the 1lb mark so a pretty good stamp of fish in anyone's book. I decided to stay on this line and just keep a gently trickle of bait going in.


13:00


A couple of hours later i was still on the same line but the fish were getting pretty small. I decided to keep at it, as long as i were keeping fishing entering the net then that's good enough for me. I didn't notice any one getting any carp so there was no point coming off this line. Every ounce counts!


13:30 


Well, i hooked my first carp and it didn't take long to shoot off, but with the balanced tackle it seemed to calm down and come in alright, without any drama anyway!...

As long as you take your time with them, they'll come in when you want em too....

14:30

Well we were into the last hour and i'd been catching roach most of the day with the one bonus carp. The roach were still coming in to the turmeric reds and i was happy with that. It did start to slow down towards 14:45 but it soon started up again with another bonus carp...

A little bit larger than the first this took me right up to time so it was to be my last fish, not a bad carp really on the gear which has been fished with today. Would of gone around 5lb.

The match ended and after the weigh in, it was to be my win again....55lb this week:)

Very pleased with my performance today, only criticism is that i may of over fed at the start. I broke my own rule to be fair. I don't normally feed until i start catching fish but i presumed there would of been fish already waiting. It wasn't costly but it could of been!

Thats it from me for now:)

Nathan@ Fish4Thought

Langold Lake Open 4th of March

Hi Folks,

Well, this was another extremely hard day at the lake and the weather wasn't going to help at all!

Went to to the draw and got one of my favorite pegs on the venue, number 39 (The little lilies - or were). I like this area of the lake as its got a lot of options, its not to shallow nor is it to deep and you generally will always get the fish in this area no matter what time of year.

The Peg

I'd only be setting my feeder rod up today as generally its only a feeder fishing area, though it can be productive for tench and bream on the waggler, but only on the night's and evening sessions.

Yellow Marker - This is basically were the little set of lilies appear. This can be a very good feature to fish to or slight off them in the evenings in the summer months!

Red Marker - This would be my line for the day. Its probably around 50 - 60 yard chuck and is the deepest area of the peg. Its a position to try first and adjust to suit if you get any liners.

Green Marker - This marker indicates a section of still water. If i were struggling i'd certainly give this ago. Still or should i say flat water is typically warmer, so if you can chuck to or on the edge of this area you can possible get your self an edge.

Blue Marker - I wouldn't normally even attempt this line but on the day i saw a few nice carp jumping about early on in the match!

I wouldn't be trying the island or the still water areas today as i didn't have access to longer rods until a few days ago! Its around about 100 yard chuck and i would of struggled with my 10 footer!


The Bait

I'd opted for the same mix i use throughout the year which is Bream 3000 from sensas. I believe its one of the best bream ground baits on the market and mixed 50/50 with brown crumb can get great results indeed. I've also been experimenting with a certain additive to my groundbait's for the last couple of weeks and i'm pretty sure its making a difference, especially at the lake or it could just be luck? I dont tend to put any particles into my mix at this time of the year so its just purely the crumb and the ground bait.

I'd be fishing with red maggots in variety's of live and dead, as well as different additives i'm currently testing.

10:00

The all in. No rushing just get it in the right place first time. I generally don't feed a lot of bait before i see fish. So for the first 5 minutes i cast in every minute or so with just a medium drennan ground bait feeder, just to get a littler introductory bed of bait down there.

I'll only introduce more when i see or get signs of fish.

12:00

Well, the weather really turned for me about 11/12 ish! It was absolutely terrible. I have never been to cold when fishing in my life! I'd set up with the wind coming right round my side and it then started to rain and even snow!

I did half a couple of decent skimmers in the net by now though!

14:00

Now we were into the last couple of hours left of the match and i hadn't really seen anyone get anything yet so i was on my way to another win, so i thought. I'd now started to really struggle getting the bait were i wanted it. I'd lost a few feeders pushing the casts to much as i had a really strong head wind, so i wasn't fishing in the placed i wanted to!


16:00


Well the shout for time came and it couldn't of come sooner! I'd been sat on the bank in the rain, snow and horrible wind with no body else to talk to as everyone else were on the other side.

I'd no idea what other people had got and how they'd gotten on so i was looking forward to the weight in. As i looked a cross i was shocked to see just 2 anglers left on the lake from starting numbers of around 15. I was even more shocked when i saw the other 2 remaining fellas get there nets in!!

As it turned out i was the only person in the match to catch anything!! That's a definite first for me

The weight turned out just below the 8lb mark with a small tench added to that in the last ten minutes.

I reckon the next match will fish a lot better now we know were the bream are. That's half the struggle with shoal fish. If anyone would like to attend any of the matches your are very welcome. Just email me on the above address and i'll give you directions.

Catch you later.

Nathan @ Fish4thought

Grange Caravan Park Open - Blyton 27th

Hey!

Well its that time again, another open at the grange. I fully intended just to go for the roach this time and my rigs reflected that. No matter what peg.

9m Bottom line: Colmic Goldie in .4, in conjunction with .11 - .10 tied to 16 Silver fish Maggot and i was going to fish this in around 4-5 feet of water. This would be a deck line and would be getting the cannon ball treatment with a mixture of dead tumeric maggots and 50/50 roach 3000 and brown crumb. Bait wise i'd be looking at 2 red maggots.

3m to hand line: Colmic Goldie in .5, in conjunction with .11 - .10 tied to 14 Silver fish Maggot and i was going to fish this in around 2-3 feet of water. This would be a deck line and adjustable to up in the water if it suits. I'd want to get the fish coming in frequently but not to many at a time so i'd put into action...

Balls like this will keep the fish coming in one after another. I'd be looking to plop one of these in every 2nd fish.

On top of my pole line i also put the bomb rod up just as insurance, but i wasn't in the mind set that i was going to use it.

As soon as the all in went i chucked 4 decent sized balls into my 9m swim but starts on the 3-4m swim.

***Now you may notice above that i'm using a heavy float for shallow water? Bet your thinking IDIOT. Well no, i'd always reccomend an over weight float for fishing to hand as generally you've got alot of slack line above that water so you want as much as a bolt as you can get, and these tear shaped floats do the trip nicely in the bigger sizes!***

I was straight into roach, decent ones at that! As i say above. i kept trying to plop a small top up ball in every couple of fish and as a result one was in every minute. I was getting a decent weight together within the first house and even had a decent perch AGAIN.

It really was coming to life in front of my feet. The fish were going made for my bait, and i couldn't keep the float in without striking for over 10 seconds. The roach wasn't small either, i bet i had a good few encroaching to around 2lb.

I was fishing to hand with a double 4 elastics and what happens? Carp! 3 times in a row! They wasn't particularly big (Around 2lb) but they gave a good fight on the light tackle.

I'd been catching all day, so sadly not many pictures...But here's the end result...

 41lb of Roach and 6lb of Carp...

A bit of my match winning bag.

I truly believe that the reason i was 30lb clear of second places was just the speed and the amount of bait i was feeding, i believe the other guys were fishing far to far out and were waiting for the carp for far to long. Big fish wont stay in your swim unless there is something interesting to go at. If there's a small amount of feed they wont bother if other fish are there, this includes roach. By the end of the match i'd gone through....

All that was full when i arrived! Apart from the buck obviously.

• 4 Pints of Dead Maggots (Tumeric)
• 2 Pints of Pellets.
• 5 Kilo's of GroundBait.
• 1 Pint of Live Reds.

My personnal tips for fishing to hand on a short pole would be:

• Use a Bigger hook 14 would be ideal for double maggot.
• Use a Light elastic.
• Use a heavy float and experiment with shotting patterns. I'd rather pic the biggies up off the bottom that the smaller ones mid water so the bulk shotting 3 inch from the hooked worked for me today. (Something to think about).
• Get your fishing in a couple at a time by using the small top up balls. Its easier to control and you wont spook so many away.
• You want you hook to come to the bottom of whatever section your holding, so adjust length of line to suit.
• Use grease to make the line between float and pole, float. You don't want this to sink.
• If your having difficulty hitting bits. Even after you've tried moving your shot down and shallowing up, trip some Amnesia Memory free money as the line between pole and float.

Well thats about it!

Not a long post but you should get a very good idea on how to fish to hand if your struggling.

Catch you later.

Nate@Fish4thought.

Langold Lake 26th Feb open match

Alright folks,

Well i attended my first match at Langold lake for a while this weekend just gone. Pleased i got back on it though as it brings you back down to earth from the 100lb bags on commercials.

Well, to start off i drew peg 49. Which is right on the end of the swimming pier. I wasn't looking forward to that at all. Next time i'm down i'll get a picture for you, its a long pier no more than a mtr wide and drops to around 10-12 feet of water! Well, as soon as i put my rod bag down and got the feeder rod out that went straight in :(, just fortunate enough that the feeder got caught on the roost so i could get it back!

My plan of attack before i had drawn was just the feeder at say 40 - 50 yards (this will suffice on most of the pegs) but i drew a peg which could well be decent on the pole so i decided to set that up too.

Rig wise i opted for:

Feeder rod, (10ft) 4lb maxima - 2ft of  0.10 tied off to a 18 B510 with a small but heavy drennan ground bait feeder. 

Pole line,  10-11ft deep .11 - .09 tied off to a 20 B510 in conjunction with a 1g Preston PB22 with the bulk of the shot 6 inch from the hook.

And bait wise....

I'd had alot left over from previous days so i had alot of choice. My main items for trial were (In this order)...

1. Maggots
2. Dead Maggots
3. Dead Maggots with Tumeric
4. Worms and Caster

My plan was to feed light until i'd found the fish, as no one was really sure where about's the bream would be. So as soon as the all in went vocal, i decided to go straight on the feeder. 

The tip didn't move so much! 

Infact, by the first hour and half i'd cast in a few times and couldn't even buy a bite, but it wasn't just my area - everyone was struggling.

I decided to give the pole a bash and for the next half an hour just didn't see anything. I believe when times are hard in fishing it pays to be inpatient especially for bream on a day match. After all you have to find em..(Unless your planning heavy baiting!!).

I decided to have a chuck around with a bomb with 3 Dead Maggots smothered in Tumeric. as i was the last peg on my section, i section to cast up the lake and maybe find a bit of shallow water. so i cast around 50 yards (around about 3/4 pegs up from me and left it for a while....Or i intended too! The tip went straight round and the fish just darted for the margins, fortunately the wind was in my favour and the fish began to come straight to me and to my surprise it was a small tench...

Well, for the rest of the match i never had a single bite. I couldn't see anyone else getting ANYTHING apart from the guy next to me who managed to get a perch. I noticed a few people packing up and i couldn't figure out why?? If its fishing hard then surely its easier to win as you only need one decent fish! 

Throughout the day i started to have trouble from all the debris floating down from the shallows....Its a real pain sometimes but it shouldn't bother you to much if you know what your doing..

Top Tip 

If you start to get floating debris...

Instead of whipping it up and down and disturbing your tip...

Which intern will cut or vibrate the debris away.

The last couple of hours of the match were rather tense for me. I thought i'd won it with that tench but wasn't sure and just wanted time to be called. The last two hours really dragged but i still didn't see anyone else get anything.

Time was called anyway,....

Top 3 were....

Nathan Johnson - 2lb 1oz

Ian Burnet - 1lb 13oz

Mark Woodcock - 13oz

It was a very hard day! Not much shown at all, pretty lucky to get that tench really. Just proves what an advantage an end peg actually is! I'll put it down to the weather and the pressure for the lack of fish showing, but i was still pretty surprised to see a tench this time in the year!

I'll be back there next Sunday, think it'll be my local haunt for the next couple of week!

Catch ya later.

Ice:(

Hi Folks,

Just to let everyone know i wont be taking any Tuition bookings for the next 4 weeks, just a measure to make sure the weather sorts it self out as i have had to cancel a conciderable amount of sessions because of the ice which have just now been rebooked and dated. This doesnt effect any of the competition winners dates.


On the good side, the offer for 2 days for £170 is still open for the whole of March and ends at the beginning of April, I have 8 days left at present.



Thanks,

Nathan

Grange Caravan Park Open - Blyton

Hi Folks,

Just a report on my recent match, not been being much of late and havn't done much apart from Section wins and Placing for the past couple of weeks so here's a full match report with an excellent out come.

First of all i drew peg two:

Firstly,

After i seen the peg i drew i decided on my lines, which were to be a 6m and 11m Pole line's and 30 - 40 Yard feeder/Bomb lines. The red squares i will get to later on;). I'd also fixed up a little Pole-method style rig just in case.

In a bit more detail:

6m Line: Colmic Goldie .2 put right down to the tip, on .11 with a hook length being .10, i'm targeting lots and lots of roach and fishing to hand so i wanted a good few feet off of the tip of my pole and a nice big hook (Drennan Silver Fish maggot 16)  which is going to be fish on single maggot. I'm looking for a nice flat area for this rig with the ethos of fishing dead depth with a spread shotting pattern. The area i was fishing was 3ft deep. I was only really expection roach and the odd small carp today so i opted for a 9h Elastic.

11m: Colmic Goldie .2 put right down to the tip, on .11 with a hook length being .10, i'm targeting lots and lots of roach with this rig too so still using a nice big hook  (Drennan Silver Fish maggot 16)  which is going to be fish on single maggot. I'm looking to fish mid water on this rig and spreading maggots every minute or so in minimal numbers. I decided on a hollow 6 elastic for this line as its rare you get the carp shallow in the summer months never mind the winter!

30-40 Yard Bomb/feeder line: I like to alternate between these two lines. I'll start off on the bomb, if i get bites i know i dont need bait, if i dont then i simple soak a couple of pellets and chuck em in a drennan g/bait feeder. Hook wise i'd be going from 3 dead reds to maybe trying corn a few times. I'll start on the longer line, if i get liners i pull back, this gives me more opportunity to explore the water. You have to be careful when fishing at range on this venue as the ledges can be very sharp and often it dramatically changes. See below....

As you see above, the ledges are very steep in places, so its important to get beyond the last one unless you like losing feeders. The edges can also be quarried stone like granite or similar so are very sharp. There's none of this rod to the side business with the carp here, its up in the air all the way to get them up and beyond the ledges. The pile of rocks between the first pegs is the PoleMethod line during the summer months. This feature is on every peg and you look to positioning your box just before or after them and just fish the top two. The arrows measure the actual ledge size and not the depth, So if you have a look at the ledge and compare it to the body of water, in some areas of the lake you can have spots upto 16-20ft.

The Pole Method Line: Generally i only use this off of a top two here. Its mainly a big fish system that i use BUT it'll catch the bigger fish in any species. You cant get much simpler than the rig i chose today. It consists of a stiff direct line .15 power line to a 16 B911, and the feeder needs to be free running. All i used today were two soft shots to stop the feeder from going over the hook. Its all that's needed for today. If i were expecting plenty of fish, i'd just simply do the exact same, but tie the hook length to a swivel with a bead over it, but today, this will suffice nicely.

Thats the simplest way of doing this method, its just import to go direct and use a stiff mono line with soft shot. Like i say if i were expecting a rushed day of carp i'd simply from the shot for swivel. That way it gives me a fast option of changing hook lengths quickly. For this method, i never use a method mould, its abit pointless, as your only under arm swinging it out, you dont need it to be aerodynamic. I'll be using soaked pellets today, but for major match weights i'd use a mix of swimstim and condensed milt mixed very sloppy, just enough to hold it on the feeder until it hits the water then BOOM it explodes. I also like to position my top two low to the water (Busy times touching the deck!) and to around 10-11 o'clock.....

You want a slight angle because you really want to use a soft set elastic, i find 11 and 13h ideal for this venues, but you still want abit of a bolt effect, which is why the angles a good idea.

So lets get started then!

The match started and i decided to go straight for my 11m. Its always been a favorable silver fish line on this pond so why not! I was only in seconds and was into the roach, every minute or so getting a pull, then while playing the fish introducing more maggots every time just to give them confidence immediately after catching one.

After about 45 minutes the size of the roach was really going down and i'd started to miss alot of the bites even with a big hook. I decided to try the deck line @ 6m.

Which shortly followed this decent perch!...

Followed by even more roach:).

Eventually all my pole lines went dead, its fairly normally for this venue while targeting the roach. It seems to fish brilliant up until around 12 o clock then they go off the feed. I decided to try to target some carp on the bomb. I'd never actually tried it here as its very deep and its also pretty violent on the bottom (See previous diagram) but it was worth a go on the triple dead red.

Well, it went better than i'd expected, i started off feeding nothing and was starting to roach again just on the bomb. As soon as i knew there were fish there i began to introduce some feed. I really work on my own ethos of not introducing bait until I've located fish, this stops you having little piles of bait all over and with a bomb, just means just can explore loads more. I began to introduce some soaks 2mm pellets in a Drennan G/bait feeder every now and again. The feeder had a 25g weight on it so i didn't have to fill it up to cast out everytime.

Eventually i got a right wrap round on the tip....

It gave an odd 'Noding' fight, i thought it was a bream but it turned out to be a 5lb carp!

Once the fish were present, i being to introduce more feed but still very little. After the carp it was back on to the roach, i had a feeling the numbers of roach were bullying the odd carp which were present out of the swim so....This is were the red dot comes in! Its a very good idea to just go to the left or right by 2-6ft of your established swim sometimes and that's exactly what i did... Followed by another 3 consecutive carp this one being the biggest of the other 3...

 And the smallest!

It didn't end up being a bad day to be honest. I'd made a mistake the night before by leaving my landing net and handle at home! My own fault, i've just replaced all my luggage and with all the bits i put away i'd forgotten one of the most important items, but luckily my mate had a spare one.

It ended great for me, I ended up winning with 15lb of Carp and 27lb of roach.

Its a really good roach venue this, i'd urge anyone who wants a change just to go on it for a day. The small opens are £10 but a day ticket is only £4 and you can go wrong with that.

That's it from me, I'm fishing the canal for the first time in a while at the weekend (Pleasure fishing) so i'll get a post up with that at some point. 

Nathan 

@Fish4Thought

Tap Vs Pond

I've read from many sources aswell as noticing this new found "Posh fisherman" trend going around that people are using more and more house hold things to mix Groundbaits and pastes. I've never understood why people mix ground bait at home and even so why they insist on using boiling water for Paste and Groundbait. I mean understandable if it has any particles in which float or even bird seed, but i've never understood people who mix plain Paste & Groundbait at home and heres why...

Much like making a cup of coffee, you probably think it's much better to use hot or warm water when mixing your groundbait. Personally I've found that using cold water makes a much more consistent mix, especially if you're turning it into paste. Ingredients wise, groundbait consists of an insoluble base that provides bulk but doesn't dissolve in water and various soluble fish attractants, proteins, amino acids, fish meal etc. which dissolve in water. Everyone knows from experience that the warmer the water is ,the quicker and better things dissolve. The thing about groundbait is it already comes perfectly mixed! The quicker and more of the soluble parts of it we dissolve in the water the more you separate them. You may think this isn't a problem because the absorbent bulk soaks up the water with the soluble attractants with it. While true this also means it takes them out of the bulk quicker aswell and as your warm water cools down it gets denser and slower to dissolve attractants so your mix ends up alot less even. Basically, cold water helps keep the mix consistent by staying at the same temperture throughout the entire mix dissolving the dissolvable parts much slower and keeping your mix alot more inline with how it was before you added water. Thus giving your a better texture.

 

So what about using cold water from home rather than what from the lake?

Another thing about using tap water is, tapwater has got about 1.5ppm of chlorine in it and anything over 0.003ppm stresses fish and damages their gills. Obviously chucking groundbait in made with tapwater isn't going to kill a fish, but it may effect its confidence in feeding if its irritated.


A few things for you to think about...

Nathan
@ Fish4Thought

Barbed Vs Barbless!!!

Lets get one thing straight here, I fully support using Barbless on all the venues which enforce the rule, I'm just trying to open a couple a people minds who may use Barbless on venue they don't strictly have to, like a lot of naturals.

What are the pros and cons of using barbless hooks when fishing? There seem to be three major schools of thought regarding barbless hooks, though most people most likely fall somewhere between the three.
Let's first define a barbless hook. This is simply a hook that has no backward facing barbs on it to retain the fish on the hook once they strike it. In short, it is nothing more than a curved piece of metal that is sharpened at one point.

The first group:

"Barbless hooks cause less damage to the fish than Barbed". 

They have a good point, and in truth, i'm willing to guess that 50% of fisherman who use both styles of hooks, take the same amount of time to dislodge them as they do with a barbless. No doubt causing a rip to the lip. For those fishermen, a hook without a barb not only allows them to release the fish with minimal damage, but it also provides more sport when catching the fish since it is harder to bring them in, ...Theres a but...

When you do use barbless hooks, whilst being a lot better for the fish when landed and actually unhooking and its even easier to shed when snapped off, its still not as healthy for the fish as a barbed one. Why? Well put simple its able to move around a hell of a lot more than a barbed hook, a simple test on a bit of foam can show you this. Get some foam, hook both types of hooks into the foam, make sure they are both the same type and shape. Then just give then an equal amount of force and see what happens, in 90% of the times i tried it the barbless hook actually makes a large circle when the barbed hook hardly did anything. Why? Because the barb holds it in place - Thus not dislodging the lip and causing holes a round fishes lips or even removing them all together. Thats probably why 50% of Specimen fisheries use a rule that your ONLY ALLOWED to use barbed hooks.

The Second Group:

"I dont like using Barbed hooks because if i get broken off then the fish wont as easily shed the hook".

I touched upon this in the above paragraph and in fairness its probably one of the main reason people have banned and/or dont use Barbed hooks, But just how long do you think a match hook could last in water?

Some tests have shown that varnished hooks (bronze, blue, etc.) and nickel or gold hooks, which are most common in freshwater, will break down (defined as being well corroded, brittle, and unusable though not totally decomposed), in two to three weeks of freshwater immersion, compared with 48 to 54 hours in saltwater. Some would estimate it would decrease the strength to around 10% of the original conditioned hook, so how long do you think that would actually last realistically?

The Third Group:

"I loose alot of fish when i use Barbless Hooks"

On many parts this can be true,especially when fishing for silvers or small fish as the tension isn't always there. A couple of ideas to stop this are:

1. Keep you light tight at all times.
2. Try to fish to hand if you can.
3. Try to swing as many fish as you can.
4. Try to use the heaviest elastic you can, its not always a good idea fishing with light elastics as as soon as you pull into the fish there is a second or so when the bungee effect picks the fish up and then loses all tension on the line.

Well folks, theres a few things to think about, as i say at the start of this post i totally support barbless hooks but i'm not narrow minded in thinking thats the only way and i think some people haven't got the grasp of why they are band at alot of places.

Thats it from me,

Nathan

@Fish4Thought

My commercial Bomb rig...

Hi Folks,

I've seen alot of different ways and methods of fishing the bomb (Layout wise), none i am particular a fan of. I''m guesstimating that most people have the view of having a simple running ledger rig? Well not me.

In today's angling, one of the major and main concerns of any rigs is 'fish safety', although i totally agree with this 100% i think people have forgotten the very basic 'fixed rig' on venues which allow it. People have forgotten that the very method of applying a much smaller hook length than the mainline on a feeder/bomb approach is just as safe as any running or completely free rig.

I'll invite you to have an open mind viewing the below rig before any opinions are based, as its the rig i use 99% of the time when fishing the bomb.


This is all you need....

 First, get a length of small mono, i'd recommend about 12oz- 1.2lb something along that region. Go heavier if you want to cast further - think along the lines of .3lb for every 10 yards. Then tie a loop around an inch long, no more than 2 inches! Clip of the remainder and give it a steam over a kettle. (This'll help straighten it out and keep it straight!).

 Next, simply thread it through your chosen weight of bomb and pull the loop through its self until you form a boom or bungee style loop. I use a range so i cant tell you what i'd prefer its totally weather and tactic dependent but i'd say 1/2oz is something that's very versatile.

 It should be pretty much the same as this. I'd also then tie the smallest loop on the very end of the loop.

 Next, get the snap swivel, with your main line tie a knot (any spec will do, i tend to flow towards a grinner knot) onto the smaller snap end of your swivel, once you have done that, get your hook-length, which should have the smallest loop you can tie on the end of it and insert it into the larger snap gate. The larger snap gate will also be housing the bomb, attached via the small loop.

You should end up with something looking like this. Its a very good rig. Not only have you got the assurance of the lower strength line attaching the bomb to the rig, but you also have the common sense route of using a lower strength hook link. Its a very good Fixed/Semi fixed rig for all bomb users. It is pretty impossible to tangle the rig too.

The key to this rig is the fixed paternoster whilst being more 'Fishery' and 'socially' correct, it is still a fixed rig and you have the benefits of feeling every bite for all its potential - it allows the fish to drop the bomb after a short time if you do get snapped off. I would also suggest that when fishing this method that you real back a a full turn on your real as soon as you cast in, thus allowing the rig to sit perfectly.

Give it a try with 2 dead reds over a small PVA pouch of Pellets this winter:).

Nathan
@ Fish4Thought.

Dreaming of the past - Part 1, Sycamore lakes.

Every year i go to Sycamore lakes for the 'Festival'.

Its one of the best places i have ever been and its just up my street in angling performance and tactics. Its a proper 5m paste line venue for me.

My main lines for attacking this venue are:

5/6m Paste line (NO feed): Rig wise i tend to use a direct line from tip to hook of around the 9lb area, tied to a 10 Middy or Animal with the choice of float being the PB22 usual for my paste fishing. I'd then top this off with 13 or 15h elastic softly set on a puller and expect to be fishing this line at the very end ledge, being around 5-6ft deep. I'd be looking at just feeding the paste which is on the hook and no loose feed as such would be introduced to the swim.

Margin Paste line: As usual i'd be 'filling' this in all day. I'd say i'd introduce about 2 kilos of pellets before got round to fishing it. Rig wise i tend to use a direct line from tip to hook of around the 10lb area, tied to a 10 Middy or Animal with the choice of float being the PB22 usual for my paste fishing. I'd then top this off with 15 or 17h elastic. I'd be looking to fish ON the first ledge in around 2 ft of water. I'd also look to be going up the elastic ladder to 16 solid or 19h due to the size of fish normally increasing as the day goes on.

As you've guessed, the matches are dominated heavily with carp. There is however a nice stock of silvers in the road side pond which can be a pest if they get on the paste!.....

There is some good lumps in the lakes, so you really do need to be careful. If you've drawn/fish next to a tree, you should be ready to rag the carp out as soon as its contacted....

Put it in....

P

 We're in to one!

 You need to keep pulling on it. Dont worry about your pole or your end tackle, if your using a balanced set up it shouldn't bother it one bit - but if you don't pull 'em out - YOU WILL lose the fish.

 It doesn't take long to get 'em out of the snags as long as your hard with them, then your free to play the fish on your top two.

 Nearly there! Once the head pops up don't let it go down again!

..and its in the bag!

I use a Z9 for all my fishing including the margins, if your a bit unnerved by that, Browning have a very good and cost effective range of margin poles for all prices brackets and angling abilities. 

If you like here's pretty much a story of pictures for you to feast your eyes on - Courtesy of Katie Hughes Photography...

DONT ASK about the last picture, dont know what that face is all about lol.

Nathan @ Fish4Thought