The Beginning of a Winter Campaign

First Session on a Tricky Winter Venue.

After such a busy week, I have managed to get onto the club lake for a long day session. After having a walk around for a few hours at the weekend, I managed for figure out an area that the fish visit. One swim I go straight into was 2 pegs down from no carp corner, fish were showing in numbers which made the decision to drop into the swim a lot easier. 2 rods were soon fired out to the spot where the fish were showing, only 2 single hook baits, one a chod rig and the other a hinged rig.

The Components of my Hinged Rig

The only problem I came across was it pushed the fish out further, I wasn’t going to keep chasing them and keep casting to the distances they were pushing out to, I knew they’d move off to another area of the lake. After the regular activity, nothing had happened for at least an hour. I took the decision upon me to move to a disabled swim which I know produces fish and another thing that attracted me to this area were the marginal snags and pads on the far bank. I flicked the rods out, one to a small cove in 2 bushes and the other just off the pads on the far margin. One thing that was noticeable when feeling for the drop were the timings so I had to re-adjust where the rods were.

An Underused Method on my Part, Chopped and Whole Boilies

I clipped up the rods and recast them to exactly the same spots and I clipped them up, some bait was then introduced from the far margin, it was pointless using a catapult when I could just throw it in by hand. I used a Korda Kutter to half some 14mm P-Nut Plus and also I halved some 14mm AK4-R with my hands, doing this allows the leakage of the baits to be higher and hopefully keep the fish guessing as to what is in the swim. This was also added with a helping of some whole boilies so it opened up my choices of hook baits.

It Was Easier to Bait Up From the Far Margins, Although I Did
Use a Mini Spomb From the Swim Little and Often

 After an hour of no show over the spot, a lovely dark looking mid double crashed over the spot, this had me buzzing that I was going to get a bit from the left hand spot as it was inches away, or so I thought was the case anyway.

After 3 quarters of an hour I decided to go for a walk and have a chat with some of the regular anglers on the lake and see what I can find out, I wasn’t being a pain just getting the low down on fish that had been caught. When I had returned to the swim about to recast, I had noticed both white hook baits had turned a tainted black, which means I’m fishing on a firm bar of silt along the far margin. The reason why I’m using the bright hook baits is for the colour if anything else, the reason I say this, I now know I’m fishing over silt which is 100% going to overpower the smell of the hook baits as the silt smells a lot more to the fish that an attractive scent off a small pinhead compared to the silty bar.

I Used Helicopter Rigs As I Was Unsure What the Silt Was Like

After re-doing the rods I added some more bait to keep the spot fresh, I soon noticed a sizeable dark shape cruising the far margin starting from a triangular bay where a friend of mine was fishing, I have been told the fish keep the snags on the far bank as a route of safety in some instances.

The Fluorocarbon Rig As
Described.

A Critically Balanced Rig. Tied
KD Style to Kick the Hook Downwards.

 After an hour or so passes me by and the chod rig on the left hand rod in the small cove was instantaneously changed to a fluorocarbon rig. To tie this I have taken 15 inches of fluorocarbon off one of my reels and took 3 inches of weed missing link and attached them together using a back to back half-blood knot. To the braided section I tied a loop and attached my choice of a 14mm P-Nut Plus boilies, I then thread the fluorocarbon through a size 8 Nash Fang Twister and made sure that the knot was sitting opposite the point of the hook which was being pinned in place with 2mm of silicone tubing for blowback affects. I then threaded on an anti-tangle sleeve as it would be used on a helicopter rig and then tied the fluorocarbon onto a ring swivel. I attached a PVA Nugget and flick it out and firmly hit the clip, landing bang on the spot.

16mm Pop-ups Are Perfect for Big Carp, Stand Out Like a
Sore Thumb on Silt As Well!

The rest of the session was fruitless unfortunately but from seeing some of the catches I don’t think these fish are going to give themselves up easily by any mean!  Keep reading my blogs where I hope something is going to unfold and then some fish will appear.

 

Follow me this winter for the journey on this small intricate lake to see if I can slide the net under a winter wacker, I hope all my tips and tricks help you along the way as well, as and from this month I am taking on the editing of the Team Velocity Baits blog page as well, you can also get to know other anglers on the team from this page as well, release will be over the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for Reading, Ross.