Angling Lines blog

Since running a fishery and being involved with Angling Lines, I see a large number of UK carpers during any given year. One aspect of current UK fishing seems to be the use of small hooks. Now by small I mean N° 8’s and below. Now I’ve always been a fan of big hooks, based on the premise we are after big fish, and I have seen a good number of anglers lose fish by using what is to my mind, in adapted tackle for French fishing. Many anglers coming to France will not have had a chance to land fish over 30lb, so may be unaware of the power, strength and mouth size of some of these specimens. So what are the pros and cons of these two opposed strategies? continue reading…

By Pat Gillett

I have just come back from an interesting weeks fishing with Paul Cooper on the Angling Lines Venue, Island Lake.

Island Lake is a mature looking Gravel Pit of approximately 25 acres in the Champagne Region of France; roughly 3 ¾ hours drive from Calais. As the name suggests it has a large island and 4 or 5 bays along with a lot of weed and underwater features.

The lake is totally different to most commercial French fisheries as it is relatively lightly stocked for the size of the venue. Most commercial French Lakes are overstocked and so the fish become virtually dependant on anglers’ baits, which more or less guarantees you catching plenty of fish. The fish in Island Lake are of an excellent average size and it would appear that they have reached and are maintaining these weights by feeding on the abundance of natural food in the lake. This can lead to very challenging fishing, but to me this makes it all the more interesting and rewarding. continue reading…

Oliver Wilkinson wrote:

I fish at my local day ticket water Birkwoods Farm in Stanley, Wakefield.  It’s a 10 yr old lake holding hundreds of 4lb carp but there bigger fish.

My question is how do you get to the bigger fellas?  All methods I’ve used catch the 4lb’ers.

To make matters harder there a few bans which are no nuts or boilies.  I’ve tried the method float fishing slugs, corn & pellets plus surface fishing with bread, dog biscuits, cat food, weetoes etc.

Hi Olivier,

Silly bait bans unfortunately do you no favours in this case as my usual tactics if I’m plagued by small carp is to use the biggest boilie I can, say 25mm or bigger. While small fish will nibble away at the bait, it gives the bigger fish time to get to your bait…

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I often hear anglers who have booked onto a commercial venue in France complain about the difficulties they face catching carp.

“It’s outrageous, I’ve paid X amount and I still haven’t have a touch!!”

Some anglers even doubt the presence of the fish in the lake!!

It is almost as if having paid to be able to fish a venue they have a certain quota of fish they expect to catch.

Unfortunately the simple fact of paying to fish a holiday venue can’t possibly guarantee that the carp will crawl up the rods. All our Angling Lines venues have good stock level and are of varying difficulty and have varying size fish. Most are however significantly more pressured than day ticket or club waters in the UK.

So What Should I expect to Catch on a trip to France, and how do I get the best out of a new venue ?

Firstly I think anglers need to appreciate that carp fishing is the same everywhere. A carp is a carp is a carp. They behave the same in France as in the UK. Most of the continental waters do contain bigger fish than their UK equivalents, but on some of the southern English waters this divide is narrowing.

What you have in fact paid for is a chance to pit your wits against some big fish…And this is where your part of the deal comes in. You have to fish well to do well. If you are blanking, then you ARE doing it wrong!! Ok, I accept there are times when the carp don’t play the game, are spawning or feeding on naturals. But the good anglers nearly always do well.

I have seen it time and time again over the last 10 years, some guys always struggled and others always do well…. Is this just good luck? I think not!!! continue reading…

David Mills wrote:

I have just started fishing. Could you tell me the best knot to use to join a main line to a hook line? At present I’m using a 6lb main and 4lb hook line.

Hi David, I wrote an article on the type of knot you wish to know about a few months back. So I’ll re-post it below for you. I hope it helps, while I generally use heavier line for carp, the knots I mention below will work with all breaking strains.

Regards
Gareth

Shock Leaders, Lines & Knots: What you Need to Know!

by Gareth Watkins

Long range casting is something we all want to achieve. Modern carp gear is better and more efficient in this area than ever before, and relatively modest rods and reels are capable of huge distances. So for most anglers you don’t necessarily need the hugely expensive tackle to improve your distance. A fine tuning of your set up and a good technique will see the average casters putting in pretty good performances.

One of the main ways you can add distance to a cast is by dropping your line diameter down to the 30/100 or 28/100. Now line diameter is a far better indicator than breaking strain. Forget the stated strength; diameter is what you should be looking for on the label. Good lines for this include Shimano Catana, and P-Line.. These lines will typically be stated at 8-10lb but will normally break far above these weights.

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