My way with the floating feeder - Grange Park (Golf Club)

Alright Folks,

Had a good few days free this week so decided to give the grange a bash seen as though the weather was picking up and the carp would be up in the water:).

Now its by far a new method, but i like to think they come and go. You can purchase no end of different type but i prefer to make my own. All i use is a cheap cage feeder or just get some mesh and simply wedge poly into it (but no further than half way).

Something like this...

The idea i go with, is that you want the bait to stick into the feeder so your quarry basically attack it. For this by far the best base to mix with is pure brown crumb, its got a good stodgey thickness to it sticks to anything. I simply just add other items like slow sinking pellets etc. I also either match this so 3-5 reds on a hook and fish 4-5 inch deep, or simply put a floating bait on. The results vary to which bait your choose but i finds as the day goes on, better results are from a floating bait. A sinking bait in my opinions is optimized when i'm chucking to a far bank or feature. 

You'll see on the picture that i have extended the feeder with groundbait and sloped it off a little. This is basically a cast aid. You will be surprised how far your can chuck one of these!

How i actually fish this method is simple, i have 2 ways. First of all, i don't watch the tip, nor do i strike when the feeder goes under or moves. I simply watch the slack line at the end of the rod or wait for my drag to go, whilst still keeping the rod at a good angle. This way, your sure to not cause any unnecessary disturbance to the water by striking constantly!

You can pretty much relax with this method.  

Some good tips for this method in my opinion are;

• Use a long rod - Mainly i like using a longer rod just because it keeps the feeder up at a good angle off the survive and doesn't cause to much splash on the retrieve. (14ft)
• Light lines - You don't need massive line strengths 4lb can land pretty much anything.
• Use a stiff hook length and change it often, if you do it right, your hooks will bet batter and your line with constantly be under tension so change your links often.
• Don't feel the need to chuck in the same place all the time. Often chucking 5 ft to the left or right will land a bonus fish.
• Don't chase the fish. Don't cast to showing fish. They will come.

Nathan

@Fish4Thought.

Welcome to Clumber Park - The Secrets 2006 Part 1 Marking and Swim Selection.

Welcome to Clumber Park..

Now, Folks, this isn't going to be an article of Secrets of the lake, its going to be my own view and how i had great success on what i find to be, one of the hardest day ticket water in the area.

Its not a huge secret anymore that Clumber Park has a good head of sizable carp to its name, but that doesn't stop the lads on site trying.

I can remember when i first took on the idea of tackling Clumber Park. I walked around endless times with a friend weeks before the start of the season and the place was teeming with carp from 10lb - 30lb just basking in the son.

It was to be the start of a full year of day and evening sessions for me. I couldn't wait to get started. At the start i had a friend doing the campaign with me. We sort of set out to feed an area and fish over it, sort of let the fish come to us way of doing things. So we just kept looking for signs of fish during the closed season and made our decisions from that point on.

Now rightly or wrongly, i made the decision to marker up in the closed season, call it.....Immature lack of patience. How ever, this did give me some very good information about the lake, i'm not going to go into the Specifics about marking out a lake etc as I've gone over this before, but the keys points at Clumber to think about when marking up are.

• Try not to use Distance leads, a flat lead is almost the perfect shape. If you do use a pear or distance lead and cast onto silt. It'll add about 2-3 ft onto your depth. 
• Use a buoyant float. I've always liked the Nash Weedy Marker float range. 
• Spend a day or as much time as possible on any individual swim. Its better to have Knowledge of those key areas rather than go blind.
• Mark it all out and do doodles as accurately as possible.

If you get it right and spend time, you'll get something that resembles a tidier version than this;

And the other end....

Its also good to measure the distance. If you have not done this before then its pretty simple. Simply get a good distance rod. Century NG for instance, longer the better, so i'd go for the 13ft 50mm Ring versions. Get some 8-10lb line on the reel with a shock leader of 20lb braid. and put this to a 3-4oz lead and that's it sorted. Simply cast in and retrieve counting the turns and your sorted. Measure what a turn is and multiply and your have a near perfect distance recorded.

Again, i record all my finding on paper.

• A - 46m 
• B - 62m
• C - 112m
• D - 124m
• E - 173m
• F - 131m

There are reasons for this this, if you can accurately judge the distance then its going to give you a realistic idea for when you require the use of a Spod.

Check in tomorrow for Part 2 where i will be covering swim and bait selection.

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.