Anglers Profile

Friday 06.02.2010. As me and Luke hayes were spose to be going to do a 24hour at linears fishery, Left my house at 5am and on my way to pick luke up..when i got to lukes we quickly loaded his gear onto my van and made our way to Linears, leavin lukes at 5.30Am after traveling about 1 hour and 30 mins we stoped in the services to meet up with 1 of the other boys Chris. which then we stoped had a quick cup of coffee and a bacon roll.. so then on our way about hour later we got there.. ad a walk around oxlease no pegs available so then we decidied to go have a look at hunts corner same again packed out.. so then we jumped back in our vans and made our way over to manor and st johns which at that point wen we arrived there we knew we were in trouble as iv never seen it so busy.. not 1 peg available on manor. so we decided to go have a look at st johns same again packed but with the od peg here and there, but after speakin to this guy he told us that there was a pike match on the day after so then from that point we knew that is not happening and decided to give whelford a ring to see if it was busy there, once i phoned and spoke 2 rose she said theress 6 on, so we decided to go there instead. so on our way to whelford pools when we arrived and had a walk around the lake, me and luke decided to fish the 2 pegs on the top part of the lake by the point as chris decided to fish where the lake is split and theres a small chanel where the fish can move into both parts of the lake.. so after choosing our pegs we went and got our gear after a hour or two we were all set up and fishing, i was trying out my new grange bait and luke was fishing with cell and fusion. after feeding the tree lined far margin with chopes i got my 1st rod ouit there, my rig was a safe zone clay leeda with a korda iq d rig hook link with a 2 oz pear lead, my 2nd rod was in the centre of the lake where i fed a small bit of partiblend on a patch of silt where i used a safe zone leada silt with a 2 oz pear lead and a 6 inch amnesia hooklink with a size 8 wide gape, so for about 2 hours nothing atall happening on the whole lake just 1 fella catching, so just b4 11pm i brought the rod from the far margin and rebaitied with a 14m grange boilie with a piece of plastic yellow corn, also put a cheesy tuna stick on with it and got it back out there. then i had my last cupa of the nite and decided to get my head down.. and then 3am in the morning i was awaken by the sound of my lovely delkim lol screaming run, gets out of the bivvy with out my boots on ( feet were soakin ) strikes into the fish, and yes hes on =, felt a good fish with after playing the fish 10 minutes later he was in the net wieghing 20lb 6oz well chuffed :)  after taking a few photos i rebaited and got the bait back out there, woke up about 8 the following morning makes my way over to luke to see if he fancied a cupa. after our tea and biscuits chris come around for a chat with me then all the sudden lukes alarm scramed off, looked over and there he was rod in the air playing a fish, makes my way over and watched luke while hes playing the fish, after a good fight the fish was in the net wieghing a stunning 21lb 4oz... pucka.. at that time we were both very happy that we both baged a nice 20lber each great 24 hours.. unfortunatly chris didnt have any luck but still enjoyed a 24 hours fishing at whelford.. cheers tight lines!

Rite hermit heres ur recipe lol.

you can eitha buy it ready made mate but it all adds up. wot i do i buy a 25kilo sack and prapare it all my self wot i do. i cook all my hemp up ready for the nxt day when i go fishing, so then wen i wake up the nxt day just b4 i go say i got 5k ill add 3quaters of chillie powder which u get in tesco, asda etc 99p. so i add 3quaters of it into my 5k of henp then i ad a tup of crushed mixed chillies same again 99p then i add a whole 900gram bag of rock salt, stir it all up and let it all soak then wen ur at ur fishing destination and ur ready to put ur feed out it would av absorbed all the flavours into the hemp.. quality bit of bait i use it as my spod mix but also adds choped boilies corn/maize and a few tins of tuna, always in brine. and also some ground bait, 

hope it works for you!

 

2nd session on morgans I’m laying on my bed watching the ducks swim around in the moonlight when in the corner of my eye I see my green stow twitch then nothing , I’m alert that there could be an imminent bite on its way 5 minutes of staring at my rods perched on the pod and nothing else has happened. I start to relax again when suddenly the alarm screams into life the stow swings down having dropped of the line, I throw my sleeping bag back and jump of my bed ,in an instant I’m on the rod and hear the bait runner clicking away . the moment I lift and bend into the fish I feel the weight .............. hold on ill leave it just there and go back a few hours. I pulled onto the motorway on the way to work and suddenly remember I forgot to pick up my water container, it will be a 14 mile round trip to turn round at the next junction and go back and get it, no worries ill ring a friend who hasn’t left for work yet and ask him to drop his into me to borrow. I ring my friend and he says yes he will drop it into my work if he gets a job in the area. Job done I’m on track again. I pull up outside work looking forward to a quick Monday in work then an overnight on Morgan’s in Newport. As I enter work I realise I didn’t get a cup no problem I have my cup in work i can take problem 2 sorted. now they say it comes in 3s and guess what it does I then remember I didn’t pick my pans or kettle up (I know it’s unforgivable) oh well one of the drivers in work is about to pass my house so a quick call to the in-laws and my pans are picked up for me and soon in my possession, problem 3 and final problem solved. the day drags unbelievably slow then at 4 o’clock the water bottle (2 4 pint milk bottles as my friend didn’t get a job near my work are placed in the car. my car looks fairly empty to normal sessions then I realise the big gap is where my bed normally sits oh damn now I have a 34 mile round trip to go get it, luckily the boss feels sorry for me and lets me slip away an hour early to get it. finally I get to the lake load the barrow walk round to see both first choice swims taken oh well back up swim is into a bay with know body else in so I’m still confident. Jonathan comes round as I’m setting and shows me a few likely looking areas so I cast ( not very well I hasten to add) and I’ve missed the spot (lliswerry is all margins so I haven’t cast a rod in a few months) a few attempts later and my chod is out with an 18mm live system air ball pop up tied on and I’m fishing. second rod is again cast poorly towards another likely looking area when Jonathan takes my rig and walks it around the far side and drops my rig in for me both rods are set on the pod line fed out till there both semi slack and stows fitted. Finally the 3rd rod is cast 1st time with a 14mm live system glugged dumbbell tipped with half a 14mm pink northern special and a smallish bag of live system stick mix with some milikmin pellets. All 3 rods are now ready with that I’m left to finish sorting my sorry state of a swim out. Chickentikka massalla cooked and demolished coffee drank I’m all set phone call to the missus complete and I’m in the bag by 9 o’clock. Not long after the liners started all on the left hand rod cast to the far margin to my left. Nothing worth getting up for so I have another coffee and eat a packet of biscuits. trying to sleep proved useless as evey 20 mins or so another line bite alerted me. this is where I’ll continue from the top ..................... as l lifted into the first run of the session I felt the weight of what could only be described as nothing that’s right bugger all on the end. wind in check the rig fresh pva bag re cast and within 10 mins I’m laying back in bed I’m going to cut it short the same rod did the same thing another 2 times so I changed the rig to a kd rig with a long hair tied onto a size 8 korda kurve shank this time the bait was a 15mm live system bottom bait with a whole 12mm pink northern special and a pva bag of live stick mix. this time after setting the rod up I got the throwing stick out and put twenty boillies in the general area the first few landed in the trees on the far bank but once id got the range they all landed fairly close to the spot so I was happy my first Morgan’s carp was surely about to grace the bank wasn’t it? Loads of liners later finally it ripped away and I struck into thin air again. What was going on was it swan mussels or small fish not getting the hook in their mouth? I guess I’ll never know. the rest of the session was un eventful apart from landing a and photographing a small mirror for Sam and watching him loose another within minutes going to end their hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it tight lines regards justin cook

Myself and another 4 of my mates all organised to go fishing on sat 26th we all organised to go and give lake 5 a crack at Celtic lakes, but unfortunatly the lake was froozen. so we all met at 10am at my mate simons house ( Carpfarther ) so we were all there and began 2 make our way to white springs fishery in ponadullaise, just be 4 we arrived we stoped at the spar to get a few things, but 1 off the boys carried on, and with in 5 minutes i gets a call saying the lakes are froozen here. so wen i got there i drove around and had a look to see if theres any thing available as we were all actious to fish, but unfortunate there was nothing, so i drove ova to the pit as it was no 1 on it and thought rite i got an idea, so drove bk up to the club house and asked vince ( the owner ) if i can take the boat down to the pit and brake all the ice, the pit fits 6 anglers so that was perfect for the 6 of us. so all 6 off us went down to the pit put the boat out and started smashing away... 4 hours later we were finally done all nackered lol, Then we all took 5 b4 we set up with a nice cold drink and a fag for some.. finally set up we could get fishing, myself took the bait boat out and fed 1 area with a little hemp then tied all new hooklinks 1 with a s inch hybrid stif with size 8 long shank, 2nd rod same again but with size 12 hook. 3rd rod 5 inch korda 20lb iq soft usin a d rig.  bait: on rod 1 was using a 14m dynamite shrimp n prawn white pop up, rod2 10m pop up, 3rd rod secret bait from john lilly 10m bottoms. so while the rods were in it was quite quiet for most off the day and as we were all avin a chat with a bottle of stella, all of the sudden u could here simon ( the carpfarther ) alarm screemin off which resulted in a nice 8lb common.. then bout half hour later we all hit the sack and at 2am while i was snuggled up my 3rd rod was screaming jump out off my sleepin bag put my boots on run to my rod and struck into a fish which didn seem that big, finally wen it was in the net and took it to the unhookin mate it was a nice little 5lb common, so i put the fish bk rebaited, casted bk out, bk in the sleepin bag as the weather conditions were terrible, then 4.20 am i was awoken again by the same rod which resulted in a 10lb common, same again rebaited, bk in the bag. then all of the sudden i woke up it was lite the time was 9am so brought all 3 rods in and changed all three rods to the 10m john lilly bottoms which resulted in my catch of the 2 commons i had. so finally casted my 3rd rod out and with in an hour my 1st rod screamed off another commen bout 5lb, so then rebaited casted out close to the island, put the bk lead on put the rod into the rest put my bobin on, walkin bk to my bivvy with in 2 minutes off being in the water the alarm scream which resulted in a 7lb mirror.  Going into the last hour i heres a alarm screaming of lookes over 1 of the other bois luke was in nice mirror bout 9lb which he had it on mainline cell tiped with fake corn, he also lost 1. good 24hrs fishing i thought for having to break the ice and every thing.. ill update u all on our nxt trip..
Tight Lines!

Well following the prolonged winter snap on Thursday 13/1/11  I went and looked round a couple of lakes round Peterborough. The first one being Lovells, where I hadn't been before. There are 2 lakes, a match lake (rather like a stretch of river probably 150mtrs long by 30 mtrs wide and I was advised 12' deep) and a more conventional carp lake which was still frozen at the road end. There were 4 people fishing in 2 groups on the match lake all on the same side, none had caught or had any indication of fish. One of the guys and his girlfriend had fished overnight. Interestingly they were of the opinion the carp lake was better for catching carp while the second group had the opinion that the match lake was better and had bigger carp in since they had been moved accross by people when caught from the carp lake. No fish were showing anywhere so it looked interesting but not great odds for catching.

I then dropped by my favourite lake near Peterborough, there was no one fishing but the wind was blowing from the SW straight down the lake and in the short time I was there I saw 2 carp top. One quite large near the car park and another over in my favourite swim. There were also a number of smaller fish topping. Decision made, fish the favourite lake.
 I turned up on Friday morning and saw a carp top again in my favourite swim so that made swim choice straight forward. I fired out around 30 to 40 boilies of the two sorts I'm currently using,  along the far bank and proceeded to set my rods up, casting out as they were made up. I had 2 rods out (different boilies on each rod) and was setting up the 3rd in between having a coffee when the first rod was off! Joy of joys this looked good, a 12lb common after approximately 45 minutes.

The 3rd rod was set up with a PVA bag and a fluoro pop up, fishing this over to the left of the other 2 rods. Probably an hour later I had a drop back bite and a 2lb bream fairly hooked in the mouth, so that was a first, a bream on a fluoro pop up.  Far better than nothing I thought and at least the rig was working. I later fired out another 2o to 30 boilies in case I could entice some more carp. A number of anglers had started walking round the lake deciding whether to fish on the Saturday.  In addition a further 3 anglers came to fish over night, one fished on the far bank at the top end of the lake, while 2 chaps set up to my left together with one of those huge bivies. It looked large enough to have a 50" LCD TV in. There were also another couple of guys who were having a look around and were going to bait up for tomorrow.
At this point the LH rod with the fluoro pop up,  had another  drop back bite and I thought another bream but the fish proceeded to put up a better fight than most bream do. My new friends were now watching quite interestedly, with quite a bit of banter as to what the fish was. It turned out to be another bream but this time foul hooked in the pectoral fin, well it did give a good fight! Fortunately I was able to unhook it without using the landing net.
Perhaps 45 minutes later I had another drop bite yet again on the PVA bag/ fluoro rod. Thinking bream again I started to play the fish back but again it started to fight quite well, which caused some discussion as to what it was. It turned out to be a larger bream around the 4lb mark fairly hooked, obviously it must have thought it was a carp! Not too later I packed away just as the weather turned with a quite heavy shower. Not too bad a day for around 5 hours fishing!

Well on my 3^rd trip to the new water, I succeeded in catching a carp! My 2^nd trip despite lots of confidence for success in catching a carp by not using sweetcorn/ spodmix and only using boilies; had been a failure primarily due to the fish spawning. I had however prevented a blank by giving in with only a few hours to go and using the dreaded sweetcorn on the inside rod which had given me a 4lb bream.

 

Friday and Saturday the weather had been heavy rain, putting me off fishing Friday night and nearly succeeding in putting me off Saturday night. However determination and a slight break in the rain saw me at the new water around 5pm. There was another chap fishing there who advised me that the largest carp a 36lb one had come out that morning, hurrah! I had a look around trying to spot the carp but was unable to see them anywhere and consequently settled on the NE end swim, since the slight wind was blowing from the SW. I started getting my 3 rods set up first, always liking to get fishing before setting up bivvies etc! I did however pay the penalty for this with bit of a soaking from a shower. Get bivvy set up!

 

My plan of attack was the same as my second visit with a predominantly boilie only approach. Two rods fished to the far bank one with a 15mm boilie over a scattering of 15mm boilies, hookbait being a pop up (due to the weed) and the second rod having a 20mm boilie with a cork core to give it a more neutral buoyancy fished over a scattering of 20mm boilies. The 3^rd rod was fished on the inside line with peperami as hookbait, over  tiger nuts and peperami. My previous visit I had fished tiger nuts on the inside line. Not long after this the other chap fishing the water called me over to take a photograph of a carp he had caught, quite a nice 18lb 6oz common. Interestingly caught on tiger nuts!

 

The remainder of the evening passed quite quickly, sorting out the bivvy and moving gear into it to avoid the showers with some line-bites on the right hand rod. The night was spent with numerous line bites having me leaping up in anticipation of a run developing. Around 5am I woke up and checked the baits, since I get a bit neurotic about them being tangled up or not fishing properly, and then recast back out. The rods being clipped up to prevent me from going into the far bank while landing reasonably close to some bushes. Unfortunately the second rod seemed to have come unclipped and I consequently put the terminal tackle smack into a bush on the far bank. Arggh! I walked round hoping I might be able to free it, only to discover this was a pointless exercise. Fortunately a boat was moored in the next peg and after bailing out the accumulated rainwater, I was able to paddle over and recover the terminal gear from out of the branches. Back into bivvie for some sleep.

 

Around 8am I decided I needed to change something since the fish were plainly moving around, yet weren’t taking my baits. I switched the bait on the right hand rod from the Nash squid boilie to a Scopex barrel boilie and threw around 25 freebies around the hookbait area. Around 9am I remember thinking that it was looking like no carp again and I would have to resort to fishing sweetcorn again for a bream or tench, when the right hand rod with the Scopex screamed off. I picked up the rod and was immediately in! The carp veered off to the left, before being turned, then seemed to come in more tamely until about half way back when it decided it was no longer coming in quietly and fought like mad until netted. Success! Was I pleased, the fish was a common of 17.25lb and had broke my duck for carp on this water.

 

Certainly shows never give up, and for my money also shows that it always worth changing something if not catching.

 

bait:   mainline new grange
rigs:    lead clip with lead to drop (clay) left rod

            weed camo inline in dark brown with weed camo                         leader in bay margin  middle rod

           drop of inline on the chanal margin right rod 
pond :  morgens pond in newport
swim:  the point

lately iv been fishing on a sunday and monday night to avoid the weekend madness of lines coming from every possable swim and so far this year its been playing to my advantage iv had a few fish even when people are having trouble to get a bleep on the alarm.

i was unable to fish sunday night because i couldnt get hold of bait untill monday but that wasnt a problem for me im happy to do just a 24hour if i must and with all the bait that had gone in over the weekend i was more than comfertable knowing plenty of bait had gone in the water

so i made my way around and set up on the point, the point swim gave me the most sptions in all situations if the fish were to be held up in the chanal on the right side of the point i could put a rod on them if they were up at the far end i could put one to them and if the fish were in the bay on my left (which they were)  i could get a rod on them so me being me i choose the bay because the fish were moving in mass in the bay and do all year round but I just had that gut feeling that putting a rod on the edge of the dead pads would be the key and with in no more than 30 mins the rod was of (to my total suprise.....) i was playing it in and giving it no room for line because of the dead lilly pads but i pulled the hook out, as it got dark i sorted my other 2 rods out and made some choices because at least 5 spots were looking amazing for 2 rods so i choose the far margin in the bay and the far margin in the channel 

along comes 11pm my new bite time for what ever reason and the rod in the chanal margin went it was a bream that got tangled around my back lead???? dont ask it confused me to..... i had the rod back out for no more than 1 min and it went again but i could tell what it was. It was my best friend mister bream so now by this point iv had 2 bream n iv lost a carp and im thinking to my self " this is gunna be rough night" i got the rod back out got into the sleeping back n the same rod goes of but it was ripping away, it was a carp no doubt i played it for a good while but i got it to the edge of the net and the hook pulled i was getting paniced i was changing my rig after each fish to keep the hook sharp but i was still pulling out ... this was a big problem... i changed the hook pattern over and all the fish i hooked in the chanal margine after that lose were landed but they were all singles where as the fish i lost was a easy double so i was happy but still dissapointed by the fact i was on 4 small carp n lost 2 decent ones 

sunlight came and the rod in the bay went of but before i could hit into it the fish had droped the rig. i had allso moved the rod out of the chanal margin and put it by some submerged tyers in the pond (which is a death trap for rigs i might add)  but the carp will hold up next to it in the day in the early year so a rod went on that and after an hour off it went and THANK GOD !!! IT WAS A DOUBLE !!! a lovely  14lb 6oz mirror  just as i put this fish back the left hand rod in the bay went of but i again pulled the hook out on it which was a shame but i wasnt extreamly botherd as i had caught 5 carp and the other 2 boys on the laake with me unfortunatly blanked that night 

have you ever sat on the bank in the clod night of day with ice hanging from your nose.Well why not try birdseye fish fingers made with 100% cod you"ll love them 

PART 1

Team AP Top 5 Tips for catching carp all around the year.
Team AP has been carp fishing for over 100 years with age combined and one thing it has always had to take into consideration is all round hard working baits that are going to guarantee success for a day session of 2 hours to a week session.

There are many different ways to present bait these days, whether you use pva stringers or stick mix, you may like to use the kick-ass! Hook baits you may be one to go off the top with the original bread and dog biscuits, at the end of the day it’s what floats your boat and gets the fish on the bank is what matters.

Team AP have never had the selfish streak that many other anglers may have on the touchy subject on the bank revolving on the dreaded question "what bait you using m8?" some anglers do not like to discuss their bait or methods as they mentally think if someone else knows there tricks it will reduce catch rates for themselves, this is nothing more than a load of silt.

Anglers should discuss their baits with others to observe there fishing an see were the bait may work so the next time you’re on the bank you know where the hot spot for that particular bait is or instead of wasting good time farting about putting a different method together let the other angler use the method they are using and see if that has success then go see what the anglers method is, I am sure they will be more than happy to let you have a browse since you did let them in on the goods.

SO! let’s get these 5 great tips for this year going, please take note of these tips and put them to use, we will be shocked if no one gets a catch on at least 2 of these tips.

TIP #1
Tip's lips: Ben Phillips
Team AP

CATCH THE CARP, DONT GET CAUGHT YOURSELVE.
What do I mean by this? well allot of our may have been told this by a fellow angler who has been in the sport for a long period of time, it doesn’t take a bright spark to work out the motive drive behind carp fishing of some anglers or what I should say is business men.
Many products on the shelf’s these days are there to catch your eye and sell to you, these may be products we do not really need or they could be products that we use every day in and out.
Colour, design, words are the biggest part of marketing e.g. ROBIN RED JUICY BOILIES, 99% SUCESS RATE, NO STEAMING NO BOILING NO MICROWAVE, MATT HAYES SAYS ITS GREAT.

Let’s have a look at this sentence above; well juicy brings foods and drink to mind that you may have yourself everyday so if you love it why wouldn’t the fish? 99% success rate of what?? 99% success rate of complete boilies of the line??? No loss of nutrition because they don’t steam or microwave or boil?? What chemicals do they use if they don’t cook them?? Popular star in the trade says there great?? Hmmm ye they look great meaning they aren’t so great in the water?
So getting back to the point of you catching the fish don’t let the angler catch you really brings this into place which is why you have to be careful with the baits or tackle you buy, stick with KORDA, FOX, MAINLINE, DYNAMITE as these guys have well established names but also have feedback on the bank yes you have to try some things and they might not be so good but try not to waste your time with business driving back round’s for example pure fishing are probably the only company I can think of that are able to drive millions of pounds into a sub company sponsoring everything and anything and then shut the sub company down after 4/5 years in a particular genre of fishing that was making big sales, it all about feedback at the end of the day, whatever you do not read forums and take their word as anyone can sign up and say another product is rubbish.

 

This has got to be one of the most important tips for the anglers sake and has got to be stressed to all anglers and is through the media as well, there is an advert by angling trust saying most anglers spend £120 + a year the best anglers spend £25 or less which is not so true but is true in the aspect of anglers getting sucked into the "you need this!" market, please stick to what you know and what is good do your research before you buy.
Ben Phillips

TIP #2
Tip's Lip's: Roy Thomolson
Team AP/Glamorgan Champion

DONT GETS STUCK IN THE SHILT!

By the heading don’t get stuck in the silt I don’t mean the silt on its own but I am talking about environments under neath the water surface, why is this important? well believe it or not a fish is like a human, it prefers to be on the sunny side of things, in the fishes case it likes to live on a different surface area to the others whether its gravel instead of silt or its silt instead of gravel and for others vice versa e.g. clay, mud.

So why it is best to hit these so called "HOT SPOTS" well it obviously increases catch rates, why put your hook in a hay stack when you can put it in the spot light?

I think enough has been said about the spots and all that but how are you going to find those dam spots? well there is a range of different ways, here is a few listed:

Knowledge of lake structure<<<<<
Marker float<<<<<<<< Good
Bait boat sonar<<<<<< Very accurate
Polarised glasses <<<<
Google earth<<<<<<<

As you can see I have listed 3 obvious ones but Google has got to be the new edition to the family of fishing research as it is producing some pretty hot pictures of lakes and sea beds also letting you have a print out so you can plan out your casting points while you are at the lake or sea, river whatever, Knowledge of lake structure is the bad boy to know out of them all for sure as this can only be obtained from the start of the lake's construction, asking the bailiff or fishery manager for a landscape tour would be advised if available or offer is there.

So lads and lasses don’t get caught up with bait tunnel vision, open the big picture and do your lake research of area and I am sure your success rate will go up, remember every 0.001% counts.
Roy Thomlson.

 

Part 2 to coming soon.....

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