Does resting a swim increase your catch rate? On certain waters and situations I believe that it does. Now, what do I mean by resting a swim? Basically, it means removing all lines out of a swim for some considerable time to allow the carp to gain confidence in feeding on a baited area. I have used […]
Trout Pellets have been used in fishing for over thirty years and are used regularly by thousands of anglers. Bryan and Kev from Hinders go through an easy to follow step by step guide on how to use pellets for your fishing.
Over the years I have had more than my fair share of hook pulls and some with very large fish on the end. At one time I would be messing around with different hook patterns all the time, which in hindsight wasn’t a great thing to be doing as I never really got to understand […]
Despite the name, this carefully engineered setup does not involve heading down to your local Turkish fast-food establishment, however tempting that may be. There’s no chilli sauce, pita bread or strips of greesy, grey matter simply labeled ‘meat’. No, the kebab rig is in fact Solar Tackle boss Martin Locke’s favorite presentation. Having landed his […]
How many of you go carp fishing and know exactly what fish are in the venue that you are fishing? This doesn’t always have to be the case, if you are willing to venture off the beaten track or to fish large lightly stocked waters you can soon get that ‘sense of mystery’ back into […]
Over the last couple of years I have built up a reasonable size library of Angling books and on a number of species. Now I don’t just buy new/modern books but also old ones by the likes of Richard Walker etc, as I believe it gives you a really rounded overview of our favourite pastime. […]
Every year tens of thousands of us head over to France on the hunt for super-human sized carp, it’s becoming a ritual and one that is growing even more popular, but many of the anglers that head over the channel are bewildered by the experience and end up catching 10% of the fish they were […]
Paul Cooper discusses issues around the safety of plastic artificial baits… I first came across Plastic baits when I was fishing on the Mangrove with Shaun Harrison. Shaun was knocking the stuffing out of the carp, catching on every trip that he made on a fairly challenging lake. During mid-season he let me into his secret! […]
Every now and then the going gets tough you need to rethink your strategy or even just take a break and rest your swim. Sometimes when nothing else is working I return to one of my first loves, float fishing. Often improvising with what I can find in my tackle box; my set up is […]
Water temperatures are the key to fish moving and feeding in this changing time of the season. Carp naturally look for the warmest part of the lake and so we will often see them in the margins or in the upper layers of the water. This is especially true of gravel pits and deep lakes. […]
Jimmy Greaves famously said “Football is a funny old game” and those words could so well have been pointed towards carp angling. Winter carping in particular can be a prime example for throwing up unpredictable outcomes during those long dark winter months. I love my winter angling, always have. I have tried to analyse this […]
Another of our resurrected winter carping posts, today’s is 9 top tips on choosing your cold weather carp fishing bait. 1. Easily digested – the quicker it’s digested the sooner the carp need to eat again. 2. Low flavour level (that will surprise some!) – if I am presenting baits where I know the carp to be […]
How safe is the use of backleads. Can I use them in every event? Definitely not! The use of backleads have been about for a long time now. It would be during my time on the Fox Pool that I first used backleads to pin down my main line to the lake bed. I […]
Having developed and engineered the iconic Bow-Loc landing net, which to this day remains one of the most sought-after landing nets available, the unveiling of a new net from Solar Tackle has been hotly anticipated, ever since news of the Bow-Lite surfaced some months back. Designed as the ‘little brother’ to the Bow-Loc, which will […]
We’re resurrecting a few of our favourite posts on Winter Carping, here’s one from Shaun Harrison. Originally written for the blog in 2010, you can bet the advice is still worth heeding! Here’s a quick list of things I would not leave home without on a winter session; 1. Local weather forecast 2. Mobile telephone […]
Coiling your hook link may sound bizarre, but there is method in the madness as Martin Locke details a setup he’s used to catch carp in excess of 60lb. Here’s a rig that, for want of a better phrase, flies in the face of convention. With almost all rigs being designed to lay straight and […]
My next rig is one that Neil Spooner from Korda showed me at the Northern Angling Show, I told him that I need a rig to use at Bradshaw Fishery as an alternative to the D-Rig, since all braid is banned there rigs such as the D-Rig can’t be used. He told me this is […]
In this video series Mark details his 2013 winter carp fishing campaign at Lac Du Villefond. Find out the tactics employed on this mature big fish water right from the person that knows it best. If you missed part 1, you can watch it here. For more information on Villefond follow the link – Carp Fishing in […]
A simple question to all the Bloggers: How often should you re-cast a rod/bait in a day? I have no hard and fast rules on this one but generally speaking like to leave my swim as undisturbed as possible and pay far more attention to the time I re-cast. Now I am a firm believer […]
Paul Cooper expresses his thoughts around yet another controversial issue. Leadcore, impregnated leaders and tubing. How do we define leadcore – For years now leadcore has been readily available, complete as a fully spliced leader, or on spools where you have to splice your own. Leadcore is normally made up of a length of braided type […]
