AAF Group 2, Match 1, Dorset Stour

There were quite a few surprised faces when I rocked up with Craig at the meet for this match as I have been spending more time on hunting carp all over than actually practicing trotting a float down a river, however, it was a day out of work so I was in.

Only 28 had booked in for the first match of the season which was a surprise, I had got most of my info off of Tommy at work.  He had been regaling me with stories of double figure nets of roach taken on hemp and tares so my plan had been sorted a few days before the match.  My plan was going to be cheap and easy but more of it later, the headline, as I pointed out to everyone at the draw was that I had left my pole at home as I would not need it.

Fishing as an individual I came out of the bag at the end and had A7 to be my home for the day, not too bad but I had to drop Craig off the other side of Sturminster Newton so that was fun!!  Once I had dropped him off in a field and doubled back to my stretch this was the sight that greeted me. 

At least the walk was bearable…. just.

With the honking great tree just in front of me my plan of fishing bread under a 6m whip was quickly changed to bread on a 5m whip, any more and carbon was touching the tree so not ideal.  I also set up a tip rod to fish bread or maggot, then a waggler to cast behind the tree amongst the weed and finally my bolo rod got set up with a worm rig for fishing down the inside.

I was ready long before the all in  so had plenty of time to annoy the neighbours, then on the all-in I threw two small balls of liquidised bread into the swim at 6m and then cast the bread feeder downstream against a weedbed.  Now if the roach were active I would have expected indications in the first 10 minutes but nothing happened on the feeder so I picked up my whip and started to trot the rig through the swim.  First run through and there was a gudgeon on the end, and the second, and the third but that was the end of the action.

An hour later with no more indications on the whip, tip, wag or Bolo and I went for a walk to find out that most people were still blanking.  That told me all I needed so I went back to my swim to set up my elasticated top on my whip and then fish it as a pole as far under the tree as I could.  Once set up I bait dropped 3 worms, 20 maggots some hemp and some bread onto the line and I left the swim for another 10 minutes.  On my return I ran the rig through for a small dace first go, then I had 2 small chub from upstream of the bait and then over the next hour 2 more gudgeon and a baby dace and then that was it no more bites for the last 2 hours.  I tried every trick I had on the book for a bite but nothing came of it, not a touch.

I shouted the all out on the nose and was already packed up like a few other people,  Rocky had managed a few small dace a few swims up to my right for 300g so he was smashing the section with most people on 1 fish for 10-20g.  I weighed in 150g and this turned out to be enough for second in section behind Rocky, third was a tie for Freddy and Craig I think both on 20g!!!!!!!!  The river had fished CRAP, 2kg won the match and I think I had come in the top half with my massive weight.

Could be worst the next match could be on there…. Oh wait it is.  I will be unavailable for that one, but hopefully I should be able to do a few more this season and improve on last.  Till the next time.

What would I do differently?

Taken my pole and fished that tight and tidy under the tree with bread from the start.  That’s it.

Tackle used:

Whip:

Line: 0.15mm to 0.11mm

Hook: 18 B957

Float: 0.6 DH14

Pole (on the whip at 8m):

Elastic: blue Colmic

Line: 0.17mm to 0.15mm

Hook: 18 B957

Float: 1.5g Drennan Trio

Bolo Margin:

Rod: Matrix 6m light bolo

Reel: TDM 3012

Line: 4lb Sensor to  0.13mm

Hook: 14 B560

Float: 0.7g Frenzee

Feeder:

Rod: Drennan 11ft Ultralight feeder rod

Reel: Daiwa TDM 3012

Line: 4lb sensor to 0.13mm

Hook: Various

Feeder: Various

Waggler:

Rod: Drennan 14ft Acolyte

Reel: Daiwa TDM 3012

Line: 2.5lb Maxima to various hooklengths

Hook: various

Float: various

Bait Review: Manilla

I have been kindly asked by Keens Tackle and Guns of Bridgend, Wales to conduct a review of some of the Manilla bait range produced by Sticky baits.  Ok if I must.

Sticky baits are a bait company that if you are serious about fishing for big carp then you have probably heard of before, their Krill range is starting to become legendary in certain circles and I have been using it for the last few months with improving results.  They have been expanding their bait range this year and there was a massive buzz on social media surrounding the new bait range the ‘Manilla’.

Now if you were not aware then, Manilla is not your normal boilie flavour, it is based on a peanut protein that is exclusive to Sticky and they have mixed this with other milk proteins and bird foods to make the base.  This is then added to with the insertion of a Madagascan Vanilla flavour to make a unique all year round bait mix that fulfils all the carp’s dietary needs.

So as I have already alluded to Keens sent me a small care package to try out and now that I have used most of the items in the box I feel qualified to say what I think about them.

I am going to start with the pellet, I received the 4 and 6mm pellet to try and I was very impressed, they came out of the bag with a sweet nutty small which as you might expect had a distinct vanilla undertone.  I decided to conduct a small breakdown test with some of the 6mm pellet and found that even well after an hour they were still in pellet form with a hard centre.  I believe that they are made by covering the extruded pellet in another layer of flavour and this would seem to prolong the breakdown time.  This is I my mind a good thing, I have come from a match background where we expect pellets to be completely saturated and soft within minutes so a lot of the crunch factor is gone from the bait very quickly.  This will not be an issue with these baits, I used them as part of my pva bag mix in the recent Interservices Competition where my Partner and I went on to win our section by around 600lb in 48hrs.  It may not have been all down to the pellet but they certainly didn’t put the fish off.

Bait spray:  This is a quality little product and comes in a small spray bottle, I have been using it on my hookbaits of late and again there have been certainly no detrimental effects to my catch rate.  Again on the Interservices after the first 12 hours all my hookbaits were either getting sprayed with this or glugged as it was reducing the amount of time that we were waiting for bites.  It is also light enough that you can soak it into pop ups for prolonged periods and it has been designed not to affect the baits buoyancy.

Bait Glug:  This has been designed so that you can take a hookbait and small pva stick and dunk it straight into the bottle, my only complaint is that the neck of the bottle is not really big enough for all but sticks and bags barely bigger than a 24mm hookbait.  Other than that the actual bait product is again perfect for the job that it was designed.  It is viscous enough to stay around the bag on the cast and when a small bag was thrown in the edge it leaked off really well for a good time making a nice halo of smell around the area.

Paste:  Another attractor product and something that I had only ever pottered with in the past, it is designed to be wrapped around a hookbait to add a slow breakdown layer of attraction and this it does very well.  I was struggling for a bite over the weekend but put out a hookbait wrapped in paste with a small pva stick of active mix and it resulted in the only bite of the session a couple of hours later.  It was the only bite off the lake that night that I am aware of, again it had to be in the right place at the right time but there would have been a small amount of leakage still falling from the paste as the fish came a sniffing so it certainly didn’t put the upper double off. The only downside of this product is that straight out of the jar it will not take a very powerful cast, but wrap it in pva and it will be fine, after all we are not always chucking to the horizon.

Pop ups:  I was given a pot of the 12mm pop ups and these are fantastic small baits, they take a good amount of weight to sink them and they stay popped up for longer than I have needed them so far. I have taken to using the 12mm pop ups on chod rigs with size 5 hooks to increase the hooking potential and these sticky ones are still sat proud after 12 hours so far. Again the small of the bait is just like the feed bait and they have been given a slightly lighter colour than the standard boilies so that they look as though they have been washed out for a short period of time.

Wafters:  The wafters have also been a successful hookbait for me on the Interservices, although most of my fish were taken on micro corn I went through a period of losing fish in a snag so I upped the hookbait size to a 16mm wafter in yellow and continued to hook carp, although it was easier to land them on the more robust tackle that I was now able to get away with. They also come in the lightly washed out natural colour as well and they are really good hookbaits, easy to mount and they stay buoyant for long periods.

Hard hookers: Although I have not had a need to use these yet they certain look and smell the part, and it is almost impossible to break a hook bait in your fingers so that bodes well for when I fish somewhere with crays or if I have to try and put a single over the horizon.

Active mix: I have saved what I think is the best until last and that is the Active Mix, I am a big fan of using pva sticks that are full of flavour to try and protect the hook point on the cast and this stuff is certainly full of flavour.  It is also very fine so I have found that mixing it with some liquidised boilies makes for an awesome stick mix.  It is full of high leakage attractors so when coupled with a few pellets and some crushed boilie makes a small bag with a lot of punch.  This is my favourite product out of the lot as I would also use it in spod mixes both for fishing on the deck and up in the water and also as a base for a PVA bag mix as well.

So that concludes my review, in short the bait is not your normal boilie and it has certainly not stopped me from catching wherever I have been of late. I am always reluctant to say that it is because of the bait that I have caught as I still believe that location and timing are far more important, but, having said that I am still very impressed with the range as a whole. 

I would like to say thankyou to Keens Tackle and Guns for the opportunity to try the bait out as I would have probably waited for a bit longer to try it, but is certainly going to be getting added to my arsenal especially once the water starts to get a bit cooler in a few weeks.

Keens Tackle and Guns

117 Bridgend Rd, Aberkenfig, Bridgend CF32 9AP

01656 722448

http://www.keenstackleandguns.co.uk/

http://stickybaits.com/manilla/

Inter Services Carp Angling Championship 2016

Courtesy of my match fishing background and my results throughout the year in the Army Carp fishing league I was lucky enough to get selected to represent the Army in the Inter Services Carp Angling Championships earlier this week.  The story however starts a few weeks ago as I have been out on a few secret practice sessions that I shall tell you about now:

My first Practice saw me getting onto the lake on a cold and wet Saturday, I set up on Permanent peg 59 and decided to fish the method in a variety of places around the swim.  I started in a small cut out in a tree on the far bank, moving onto a baited area about halfway across to my left and I finished down my right hand margin, all produced fish and the biggest was about 8lb.  My total of 10 fish was well down on what people were expecting but I felt as though I had extracted the best from the swim on the day as a match going on to my left all the anglers were struggling as well.

 





















My second practice was with the rest of the team and this time Paul was with me, we both set up in Peg 71 as we felt that it would give us a good idea as to how our zone would fish, we had been given the river mouth end of the lake to target.  It turned out to be harder than the time before and I managed about 8 fish most of which came in the last hour or so, I also had to fish tight into some snags on the far bank to get bites during the day so that was not ideal. 
Here are the two biggest both well into double figures:

The team plan had been formed and it was now the time to prepare, as you can see we all took alot of time to prepare and each angler had around 200-300 small pva bags of pellet ready tied and also 20-30 hook lengths all ready to go.  The plan was to fish small bags, small hooks and longish mono hook lengths to try and overcome the silt.

The big day was soon upon us and a slight twist saw the draw format being the team drawn first could pick their peg choice for all three sections, Tim was lucky enough to be called up first and we had swim C in all four sections.  For Paul and I we were well happy as we were sat on an absolute flyer in that we sat in pegs 72 and 73 and had about and acre of lake in front of us and a reedy bay to our right which was fed by the river.

I was sat in peg 72 so I had a huge snag tree on the far bank which was going to be my banker but to start I fished away from it to see if I could bag a couple of early fish. 

The answer was no and after a couple of fruitless hours I was soon putting a rod over tight to the trees, and that was the turning point of my match, by the end of the first day I had around a hundred pounds of Carp in the net and Simmo had managed a few from the end peg as well so we were smashing up our section before we had even started.  I managed a fish of 16lb just on dusk but simmo had a peach at over 21lb a couple of hours later.

And so it continued, we had a quiet spell between midnight and 3 AM where nothing happened but then in just over 5 hours I managed 12 fish for 101lb, Simmo managed to land a couple but he was suffering badly with lost fish in his snag pit of a swim.  After breakfast however, fortunes swapped and it was my turn to start loosing fish from under the far bank tree, and I lost alot of fish that day.  It ended up that I beefed up my hooklength from 0.24mm powerline (about 11lb) to 15lb mainline in an attempt to stop myself from getting cut off on the snags and it worked to be fair as I hardly lost a fish from under the tree after the change.

I decided at about midnight that I would try to have a bit of sleep for the first time since before the start of the match, however, the carp had other ideas as I managed to have 3 from swims that I thought I would not get a run off, oh well, I could sleep when I got home.

That night it was another 10 carp this time for a weight of 77lb and I had to get the angler in the next peg to witness my fish as I was running out of room again in my nets.

This was the last morning and I had a slow finish really with only 3 bites and 3 fish to show for the last 3 hours but it had been fun up until the packing up tired bit.. Sorry Paul and Josh :-)

We had managed to amass around 650lb of fish between the two of us, I think I had 409lb ( well it rings a bell) but by this time I was too tired to care, the Navy had managed just over a ton and the RAF limped in with tales of lost fish, well there was a big snag in their peg we had warned then about, with just less than a ton.

We  as a team met back up at the car park and as the results started to filter back to us we realised that we had actually managed to win the match, Dave and Jimmy had top weight, Paul and I were 3rd and Paul also bagged the biggest fish with his 21lber.

Next year it is off to B2 so I shall have to make sure that I get selected again to try and help retain the title.

Well in all the team and many thanks to the runners and everyone who wished us luck and helped with tactics before the big day.

What would I do different?

I should have realised earlier that I needed to beef up my hook lengths especially after loosing a couple of fish but it is easy when you are not trying to bag up to say that.

Tackle used:

Far bank:

Rods: 13ft 3.5lb tc Free spirit CTX

Reels: Shimano 14000 Ultegra XTC

Line: 15lb ESP Syncro loaded

Short line:

Rods: 10ft 2.75lb TC Dwarf

Reels: Daiwa 4012 TDM

Line: 12lb ESP Syncro loaded