River Stripys on Lures

I have a little secret spot near my house that at certain times holds some absolutely cracking perch. Now looking at the stretch of water there’s no real cover or structure to speak of and I thought the river bottom was fairly even so what attracted these large perch here? Normally I fish this stretch in the autumn & winter months but now the river is down to its summer level is on went the chest waders a light plug rod and down off down the river to see if I could find some of the specimen strippy’s, wading into the river I found that the first few yards from the bank was a mix of silt and gravel but then the bottom changed to large rocks and boulders perfect hunting ground for the perch. In the colder months skipping a soft rubber lure over the bottom has done well but on this occasion I went for a floating Rapala plug which when cranked back will dive to about 5ft, reeling in till I feel it bumping across the bottom I then letting it rise back up a few feet watching the 15lb Tfgear Grunt braid that hangs from the rod tip for any movement. A slight twitch on the second cast and I strike into a solid feeling fish that puts up a great fight on the light 7ft spinning rod, the Grunt braid means I can feel every twist and turn the fish makes and within a short time a beautiful perch around the 2lb mark comes to hand, this seems to be the average size here. Over the next hour another 8 perch of similar size are landed great sport anywhere, then as the light starts to fade a really solid thump on the lure signals something larger, after a hard fight a superb stripy of 3lb 4oz is landed weighed and release great sport in just a couple of hours after work. Lure fishing is a great form of fishing and can be done with the miimum of gear.

Golden Delight

When you spend as much time as I do in a determined search for extra big fish, it can make a refreshing change occasionally to have a much less serious session. I had such a session last week. At the tench pit I took my 8lb males in the spring, I’d caught loads of rudd accidentally on tench tackle, so I decided to have a day after them with light float tackle.

When I arrived a little after dawn, I found that the water had changed a lot since May, in that there were great rafts of surface weed everywhere. Talking to the few carp lads who were fishing, it soon became evident that they were struggling, as the weed was really closing in. Nothing much had been caught for a while, the tench also having gone quiet. In the prevailing conditions, the one fish that would be worth pursuing in the upper layers would be rudd and I was bubbling with anticipation as I made a slow circuit of the pit looking for signs of surface activity.

Although there were lots of evidence of surface feeding carp, making me wonder why none of the carpers were offering floating baits, I saw no evidence of rudd until I arrived at a quiet corner where golden backs were breaking the surface. I’d found what I was looking for and was soon set up for a day’s “maggot spraying”, using my TFG Starving Whippet 13ft light float rod. At the business end was a Drennan large puddle chucker float, set three feet deep, with a hooklink of a ready tied Kamasan size 14 animal spade to 3lb mono, baited with a buoyant Enterprise red maggot and two real ones. That combination took around a minute to sink. By regularly casting and catapulting, I wanted to keep the bait slow sinking in the upper layers while freebies sank all around. Every thirty seconds or so throughout the day ten to fifteen maggots were catapulted around the float, to provide a constant rain of bait, and at the end of the day I’d got through half a gallon of reds.

After about ten minutes of casting and catapulting, the bites started in earnest and, as well as the fish I landed, I must have missed another twenty bites. I also had a ten second encounter with a big carp that made a complete mockery of my gear! I also had the mortification of losing the biggest rudd I hooked. It took the bait the instant the float hit the water, taking me a little off guard. There was a tremendous boil on the surface, a flash of red and gold, and then the fish was gone. It was certainly far bigger than anything I landed.

At the end of the day, though, I’d really enjoyed the change; I ought to do that kind of fishing more often. I had a total of 27 rudd, all over a pound in weight, with the best two 1lb 12oz and 1lb 13ozs, plus 13 nice roach to 1lb 6ozs. What was very interesting was the average size of the rudd. During the spring tenching, I’d had loads of rudd on my feeders, but the majority weighed only ounces. I also found out that the biggest verified rudd from the water, taken two seasons ago, is 3lb 11ozs. That one will do! However, I had no monsters and certainly no personal best, but what a brilliant day!

Taking Advantage of every opportunity

A hot summers morning (yes we still get them occasionally) while walking my dog for a walk down the river near my house I happen to take a look over the road bridge not expecting to see much because of all the commotion with holiday makes, kids paddling & canoes all over the place but there they were, a shoal of big chub cruising around below the bridge. Now not one to miss an opportunity I walked down to the small shop at one end of the bridge and purchased a loaf of bread and hurried back to the shoal. Breaking a small piece of bread from the loaf and trickling them in I soon had about 12 big chub fighting for every crust of bread I throw over. With so many tourists around I decide to return later that evening. On my return I peered over the bridge but due to the lower light levels and even with a pair of TFGear Matrix low light yellow polarized glasses on I couldn’t see the shoal had I missed my chance? I flicked a couple of lumps of bread crust over and watched as they drifted down stream for about 20 yards before being engulfed by a pair of huge rubbery lips. A few more lumps of bread are introduced before I make my way from the bridge down to the waters edge to tackle my favourite TFGear All Rounder rod (a great rod for so many situations) up with 6lb line and a size 4 specimen hook and that’s it, simple but effective. A good tip at this point is to spray the reel line with a silicon spray; this keeps the line floating on the surface making it easier to mend any slack line.

Ready to start fishing well not quite, as with surface carping to get the most out of this type of fishing its best to keep the feed going in until you create a competitive feeding situation. By now they have followed the bread trail up to within 5 yards of the area I have waded out to, now is the time to begin. A good lump of crust is impaled onto what may seem a large hook but when put by the side of a chubs mouth it looks tiny, dip the crust into the water to add a bit of casting weight and an under arm cast and within a couple of yards drifting downstream my first fish of the evening slurps my bait down. After a good fight a nice chub of 5lb 4oz slides into the waiting net, it’s always very pleasing when a plan comes together. I let the swim settle and keep feeding bits of bread every few seconds and the shoal starts feeding confidently again. Before the light goes I manage another 4 decent chub nothing quite as big as the first fish but all over 3lb, a great way to spend a summers evening and not another angler in sight and it only cost the price of a loaf of bread, so get down to your nearest river or stream and give it a go.

Floater fishing the Total Fishing Gear Way

Summers now with us and as we all know carp love to get the sun on there backs, so its time to look to the surface for our action throughout the day. Stalking carp off the surface has to be one of the most exciting forms of fishing there is but week after week through the summer we visit lake and see carp cruising in front of anglers who sit there watching motionless bobbins seemingly oblivious to what’s in front of them.

So we would like to go through some of the basics to help you catch a few of those sun bathing carp.

A little more thought.
90% of the anglers that do venture out to catch carp of the surface grab a bag of Pedigree chum and start firing them out at the first fish they see. With a little more thought and preparation you’ll find that your catch rate will improve dramatically.

Flavoured dog biscuits
A simple tactic that will put more fish on the bank for you is flavouring and adding oils to your free offerings which will draw carp from some distance away and also draw carp up to the surface. One of our favourite mixes and one that we would never be without on the bank is the TFGear Hot Krill and Special Brew mix. Mix around 100-200ml of Hot Krill oil and 100ml of Special Brew together, pour a 2kg bag of Pedigree chum dog biscuits into an airtight container then add the liquid mix seal the lid and give it a good shake until all the biscuits have a good covering, then leave overnight to soak in. The Hot Krill oil will float on the surface creating a calm slick around the free offerings while the Special Brew being water based will sink through the water column drawing fish to the surface.

Hook baits
I know many top carp anglers who still use dog biscuit as hook baits but we find this way to time consuming. Hair rigged cut down boilies are the way we do most of our surface fishing and the boilie of choice at the moment is a cropped down 15mm Amino Active CSL boilie hair rigged to a Korda widegape size 10 hook.

Controllers
Without doubt the best surface controller is the TFGear surface missile in the 30gm size, this casts up to 80yds with ease and due to the design of it when the carp takes it will act like a bolt rig and the weight and shape will help to hook more fish. Using a hook length of around 6ft and greasing this up to 1ft before the hook will also help hook-ups.

Rod
A rod of between 2 & 2-½ lb test curve with a parabolic action is a better option than the quicker action heavier test curve rods that are more in vogue today. The TFGear X series 2.2lb test curve barbel is an ideal choice.

Summer Pike Session

With the Pike season open it was time to head up to a secluded Welsh lake for a spot of lure fishing. Armed with a TFG journey man and Force 8 reel loaded with 30 lb Grunt braid and an ample selection of lures, I headed out into the lilly shore lined lake in a small rowing boat. My fishing partner and fellow TFG colleague Simon hooked and landed a feisty Jack within a few minutes, which of course always boosts the confidence. I let my soft plastic Roach imitation hit the bottom in 20 foot of water and reeled in with great anticipation. Within a period of 30 minutes I had several hits, and lost two in quick succession that thrashed off right next to the boat. A quiet spell of several hours followed, broken up only by a tiny Pike of about a foot long on a surface lure. I decided to hunt the deep marginal drop off by row trolling with two rods, the inside rod set higher up in the water to cover the deep margin contour in about 10 foot of water, the other on a long line set to run at about 18 feet. This soon paid off with a scrappy Jack. A few minutes later a thumping take on the outside rod indicated something of a better stamp - this very welcome double figure fish tail walked right next to the boat several times and gave an excellent account of itself. Another 8 or 9 fell to the technique over the next 2 hours, some of them absolutely slamming the soft plastic lures and almost ripping the rods out of the boat. Several times both rods got nailed at practically the same moment!

The sport cooled off with the rain that poured down and cut the session short.

Horseshoe Revisited

Not long after dawn, I was again setting up in swim number 1, for another crack at the tench. The general consensus had been that, the previous week, I had been a little unlucky not to have at least one big female of 8lb or over. In fact, the swim had produced a few doubles already, to over 11lbs. As my personal best is 11lb 11ozs, I was certainly in with a fighting chance of upping that with a little good luck.

I approached the fishing in the same way as the week before, only this time I was using some of the new generation of rubber maggots that Chris Hormsby of Enterprise had sent me to try. He has imparted a very lifelike “wriggle” into them, so lifelike in fact that my wife was loath to touch them! I was also using for the first time my new TFG Specialist Bivvy, and was very impressed with it. The erection time stated of 20 seconds is certainly no lie, in fact it took longer to peg out than it did to erect. And pegging out was important in the very strong south west wind which, luckily, was directly behind me.

The session was the complete reverse of the first, the first day being completely blank apart from just one small rudd. Other anglers on the water were saying that the fishing had become very hard with very few fish landed for a few days. On the second morning, after an uninterrupted sleep, I still had over a pint of casters left and debated whether I should introduce any bait on account of the total lack of action in the previous 24 hours. In the end, I put them in, with half a pint to each rod. All or nothing, I said to myself.

At mid morning, another angler Leigh stopped for a chat and as we talked the wind really got up and a fine, squally rain started. I said to Leigh that hopefully the rain would bring the tench on and within seconds of the words leaving my lips, both rods were away. You wait hours for a bite, and then two come at once! With Leigh on hand to deal with one fish, both fish were played at the same time and landed in the same net, quite a bizarre occurrence. Leigh weighed them for me and declared two males of 7lb 6ozs and 6lb 8ozs. Quite an exciting way to end a quiet spell!

There were to be two more tench of 7lb 3oz and 6lb 6ozs before I eventually packed up in late evening, plus a few rudd. The one negative was a big rudd that got round my other line, dragging the second feeder into thick weed. Eventually, with everything solid, the hook pulled out of the fish and I was left cursing my luck.
I’m off to Acton carping next week ; I’ll let you know the outcome.

First Horshoe Experience

I’ve been meaning for some time to have a go for the fabulous tench of Carp Society water Horseshoe Lake near Lechlade in Gloucestershire and this year I finally did something about it. On my arrival I was greeted by Luke and Dave, who man the lodge at the venue, and I was immediately impressed with their professionalism and the terrific way the water is run. They were also very helpful with advice on where tench had been showing and I was soon ensconced in peg number 1. the most productive swim had apparently been Summer Point, the swim next closest to the lodge in Summer Bay, but it was temporarily closed, as were the swims round the shallows, as carp had started spawning.

Once again, I was using a size 12 Pallatrax hook on short Gamma fluorocarbon hooklinks, fished above the Kamasan feeder and held between rubber grip beads on rapid sink rig tubing. This rig ensures that no fish can possibly be tethered on a main line break. It is also easily adjustable to fish the hook bait right alongside the feeder or as far away as deemed necessary.

After finding a nice clear area about 30 yards out, with light Canadian pond weed around the fringes of the swim, I baited with six of my large cones of mixed hemp, casters, mini pellets and dead red maggots. Hook baits were two Enterprise buoyant red maggots with two real ones accompanying. By the time I was sorted out it was late morning, and the first two hours passed uneventfully as far as tench were concerned, although I was being regularly plagued by small rudd. Then, at 1.30pm, I had a real screamer and soon landed a superb tench of 7lb 8ozs. That fish opened the floodgates and in the next four hours tench came regularly. I wasn’t to get a really big fish but there were three more seven pounders and a few sixes. Nothing under six pounds was landed.

After a quiet night, I was expecting more tench action on the second day. But, typical of fishing, for some reason the swim had just died. Apart from more rudd, not a tench was tempted on day two.

It had a been a great first session on a fabulous water and I couldn’t wait to get back. That was planned for the following week.

A First Catfish Session

After missing a week’s fishing fulfilling a promise to the wife to re-decorate the hall, stairs and landing, I was certainly in need of two days fishing! This season, I have made myself a promise to catch a catfish to beat my current best of 22lb 12oz and headed for Cemex water Jones Pit on Wednesday morning for a 48 hour session. It was my first visit to the water and I was given some tremendous help by bailiffs Ed and Chris on the water. On their advice, I settled in a swim called “Dead Man’s Hole”, so called because an angler shot himself there a few years ago!

It was all close range work, with interesting small islands to left and right at roughly 10 O’clock and 2 O’clock respectively. A cast of barely 30 yards would be needed for those, while to my right, wooded margins coincided with a nice lily bed only feet from the bank. Ed informed me that a bait fished right alongside those lilies was a reliable tactic for the cats. Eventually, I settled on one rod to that margin, one to the fringe of the right hand island, and the third about a 40 yard cast midway between the two islands.

Because of the closeness of the swims, loose feeding was easy enough, and I prepared the margin swim with 1kg of 18mm Halibut pellets plus another 1kg of fish meal boilies. To this was added a bag of Fox Blood Red groundbait, which is specially formulated for attracting predators with its heavy fish oil content.

The middle rod was baited just with halibut pellets via catapult, and I went in initially with 3kg. I wanted a bed of bait that would stop a marauding cat in its tracks, and as they go to near 70lb in the water, 3kg would not be overdoing it.

The left hand rod was just a boilie attack, and I fired out the best part of 3kg of 18mm boilies.

The left and right rods were both baited with 18mm boilies, wrapped in fish meal paste to make offerings of around 30mm, and then dunked in a thick, gooey gunk of anchovy flavoured dip. The middle rod was baited with a 30mm Catmaster Tackle Mega Chunk halibut pellet. These are specially formulated for large cats and feature a tough exterior but soft interior. Unlike many pellets, these can be left out for several days if need be without dissolving.

There is not that much to say about the fishing. Both nights I was plagued with line bites from the lakes large bream population, but never had a proper run in the dark hours. The only real run I had occurred just after dawn on Thursday when a I struck into a very big fish after getting a real screamer on the open water rod. Unfortunately, and a rare occurrence for me, the hook pulled after about three minutes and I practised a few well rehearsed swear words to myself!

The lost fish could have been a big carp, of course, but, as the hook point was turned over when I examined it, I rather fancy a catfish hooked in the hard, Velcro like pad on its top jaw.

Ah well, there’s always next time!

Layers...

You’ve probably noticed that we have got quite a bit of clothing in the TF-Gear range. What with the primal range, second skin and the latest ranges it’s quite a comprehensive collection. Designing and selling clothing for the British market is sometimes frustrating though, primarily because a lot of British anglers simply don’t understand layers.

The common misconception is that if you want to stay warm the answer is to wear something big, bulky and with plenty of padding – the old fashioned one-piece suit being a classic example. They are awful things! When you walk to your swim you sweat like crazy and then, when you arrive the sauna lasts for about five minutes before you start to feel cold.

Why? Well, the answer is body moisture or, to put it more bluntly, sweat. When we move we sweat. Our skin is breathable and can exchange moisture with the atmosphere. If we want to stay warm our clothing should do the same – hence the term ‘breathable.’ The beauty of layered clothing is that it can be made breathable and because the layers trap air between themselves, the result is a warm, comfortable wearer. The other advantage of layers is that you can take them on and off to cope with changing weather.

The art of making breathable clothing is to ensure that sweat can pass through the layers but water molecules can’t. In many respects Gore-tex is the ultimate material but it does not sell well here in the UK because whilst Brits are happy to spend a fortune on fishing rods the same principle does not extend to clothing. We have worked very hard to source waterproof, breathable fabrics at a price that won’t break the bank and we have enjoyed great success with it. Seams are very important too – most clothing is let down by leaking seams. Ours isn’t.

Let’s look now at the layers and what they are designed to do.

Base or skin (second skin): this is a thin, breathable layer worn next to the skin. It forms the base layer and can be worn on its own on warm days or form the first layer on cooler days.

Mid- Layer : this is the layer that builds up warmth, usually in the form of a heavier fleece. Sometimes, if it is very cold, two layers of second skin and then the mid-layer are needed. Primal fleeces are perfect for this layer.

Top (shell): whilst most people love to wear padding, it is rarely necessary. Shell type jackets allow moisture (sweat to escape) but keep rain out. If you want to build up more heat, add more mid-layers. Some people prefer a lined or padded jacket and pants for the top layer and for less active styles of fishing this is OK.

At the end of the day, in addition to keeping you warmer and drier, there are other advantages to prospered layered clothing – notably that it is more comfortable to wear and lakes you look less of a plonker.

Carp Baits – What’s Hot and What’s Not...

When I look back over the years that I’ve been carp fishing bait has always been an obsession. I am lucky enough to have been fishing around the time when the the first designer baits (christened with the name ‘boilies’) hit the scene. Boilies, so called because the bait is made by combining meals and powdered ingredients with liquidised eggs and then boiled to create a bait with a tough skin (the skin is designed to deter nuisance fish from stealing the bait intended for bigger fish) really did transform carp fishing. For the first time, anglers used to fishing with bread and potatoes had a new bait to play with and boy did the fish love them!

Modern boilies have come a long way since those early years. When we set about launching the new TF-Gear boilie range we wanted to create baits that would stand the test of time and benefit from all the advances that have been made in bait formulation.

History and experimentation has taught us that whilst carp are bombarded with many different boilies in a range of colours, flavours and bait that is made from a huge choice of ingredients , certain baits are the real fish catchers. Moreover, we also know that some boilies work better than others on certain types of waters and vice versa. Baits for hard-fished club and day ticket waters need to be different to those used when campaign-fishing a syndicate lake, for example.

Boilies are made with attractors (usually flavours) and food ingredients (these are powdered meals, such as fish meal, milk protein, birdfood and semolina. They are made into a paste by mixing the attractoprs and meals with liquidised eggs. The paste is rolled into little balls and boiled. The liquidised eggs harden in boiling water, creating bait that has a tough skin.

The flavour, or attractor acts as a label for the fish to recognise the bait. The attractor works as a label on two levels – it tells the fish that what it can taste/smell is food and helps it to recognise that food source on future occasions. The ingredients are the food value of the bait. Boilies can either be nutritionally strong or weak, depending on the quality of the ingredients used to make them. As a general rule, whilst carp will sample all types of baits with a multitude of flavours, they will generally prefer to eat baits with a high nutritional profile over a period of time. This is a concept that most anglers struggle to understand. The common misconception is that carp eat baits because the flavour tastes ‘nice’ and whilst this is partially true, they are more likely to eat the bait that does them the most good when fishing over a period of time.

When you choose a carp bait you should choose a bait for the job in hand. If you are fishing a day ticket or club water where the carp get bombarded with all kinds of bait, then what we call attractor baits with a strong ‘eat me’ signal are best. Bear in mind, however, that the ‘eat me’ signal does not mean using over-powering flavours that make the bait reek. Carp have superb olfactory systems that enable them to detect food signals in minute quantities – use baits that have good attractors at low to moderate values.

When campaign fishing waters, syndicate lakes, for example, the attractors or flavours should be much, much lower and it is the food value of the bait, its nutritional profile that you should rely on. Natural extracts and subtle flavours give the bait a label by which fish can recognise it in the future. We know fromn experience that the more subtle the label or flavour, the longer the bait will go on working. A good nutritional bait should get better and better over a period of time – as the fish get used to eating it and benefiting from its superior food value, they will seek it out in preference to others. Bait with strong attractors works for a while but eventually that same strong flavour that drew the fish to the bait in the first place begins to become associated with danger.

In the TF-Gear range of baits you will discover several important points. Firstly, none of them have flavours and attractors that are overpowering. This is a gamble on our part because we know that baits that reek of fruity flavours, so strong that they smell through the bag, attract anglers. We also know that ultra-strong flavours repel fish so we have avoided making our baits reek. Secondly, we have relied primarily on salt as a preservative rather than the sharp chemical preservatives that are so common in the bait industry. These chemical attractors taste bitter and repel fish. Salt, on the other hand is a natural flavour enhancer (we humans use salt as a flavour enhancer all the time) and it is also a great natural preservative. Thirdly, we have developed baits that use proven ingredients – top quality fish meals, proteins and birdfoods. These create nutritionally superior baits that are easy for carp top digest and eat more of. Finally, we have chosen some really great, subtle ingredients that make the bait stand out and keep the fish coming back for more – crushed chilli, for example.

To make life easy, we have created two ranges of boilies – our premium range and ‘the Gear.’ With the Gear we have a range made for day-ticket and club waters with the emphasis on attractors rather than long term food source. The premium range gives more emphasis to food value with lower level, natural attractors such as teatree oil. It’s a range that we are very proud of and results on the bait have justified our confidence.

Next time you buy bait, ask yourself just one question. Has his bait been designed by someone who really understands bait and fish or has it been put together by a faceless company? Too many anglers buy fishing products from companies that don’t employ anglers. I don’t play golf but if I did, I would want my clubs to be designed by Tiger Woods not Victoria Wood...