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Gigantica – some questions and answers for a client visiting Gigantica in September 2009;

• Is it allowed to bring my own self made boilies to the lake (they are frozen and without any conservation)?

• yes, so long as there is no preservative in them, you can use them. I suggest you bring more, rasther than less, as the fish are feeding very well at the moment.

• Is it allowed to use a braided casting line (normal monofilment mainline and 8 metres Berkley Whiplash 0.24mm braided line for casting)?

• This allowed but there is no need to fish at long range here, most fish get caught at less than 70m from the bank. continue reading…

Linda

by Lee Johnson

Being a lake owner doesn’t always mean you get to fish whenever you like. This May, I did manage to get a few days fishing in on Lake Lauren here at La Gléhias and decided to go for a Catfish or two as they are hooked often, but rarely landed as the angler on the other end is generally fishing for Carp with Carp rigs. I was also keen to see the progress of them because they get banked so infrequently. In fact the bigger they get the less we get to see them; I can only estimate the smallest to be 48lb and the biggest around 65lb. 

The three Cats’ were introduced to keep the number of smaller fish down so I knew I had a bit of a challenge on my hands as I don’t believe they ever go very hungry due to the number of small Tench and Roach.

After witnessing Tommy Chantler’s success with squid in 2008, this had to be my first choice for bait. My first small problem was that I had to buy my squid from a fishmonger, not in a tackle shop. This meant that I had great slabs of squid meat instead of small whole squids.I tied myself some rigs with size one hooks on 50lb bs braid with the hairs around 3 inches long to stitch on the baits which I had now trimmed down to strips of 2 inches wide by 10 inches long – I even cut tentacles into them! The squid off cuts were mixed into some 3kg of large halibut and carp pellets along with about 1kg of broken up Quests Liver B8 boilies. I then added a cupful of lake water and let this steep for an hour to make it cloud instantly in the lake. This absolutely stunk and I was certain the cats would have no problems finding it.

continue reading…

Simon Boi wrote:

I’m visiting Old Oaks lake in June this year and was reading about the poisson chat and how to counteract them.  There are some good videos about netting boilies or using a plastic wrap to stop the being slowly eaten away.

I was wondering if the current wave of plastic baits might prove a fruitful way of fishing for the carp without attracting the nuisance species?

I have noticed the pineapple crush boilies seem to be a good bait for some reason but what about things like fake corn or would it be too small?

Also I quite like the idea of zig rigs for Old Oaks and was wondering if the crayfish and poisson chat were only bottom dwellers or if a bait half way up in the water would still be fair game?

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your question. Many people are fazed by these nasty little fish, but if you use techniques, some of which you already mention you’ll be fine. As far as I know there are no crayfish in Old Oaks, so you can scratch them off your list.

continue reading…

Vince wrote:

Why do I end up with holes through the centre of my home rolled boilies ? I have tried adding more liquids / oil to no avail. I am using bog standard semo/soya/milk powder etc with the inclusion of finely ground nut/seed mix in proportion

Hi Vince,

I’ll pass on your query to my friends at Quest Baits, also who will have a better appreciation of the problem than I,  but here is perhaps the reason.

It’s a long time since I rolled my own bait there are a few things I remember as crucial to getting round baits.

1) Make sure your mix is right, ie. The right consistency, number of eggs and wet ingredients to get a mix that is firm but not too dry nor too wet. This will take some trial and error, especially if you are putting together your own base mix blend from dry ingredients.

continue reading…