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It was a crisp, cold damp April morning and the flask of hot coffee that had been so generously made by the Mrs earlier that day tasted so warm and inviting, almost like being back in bed again. The rod was in and the lake looked calm and almost glass like, my float sat steady upright pierced through the surface as though it had been stitched delicately by hand.

The rod lent itself precariously on the upright bank stick that had been difficult to push in the tough hard ground, but nonetheless it served its purpose. As the dew built up upon the rod, small droplets of crystal clear water gathered and dripped onto the weedy contained grass below. The sky was almost clear but with a few fluffy clouds scattered here and there, as the sun started to make its appearance slowly peering its self over the twisted tree line its orange, yellow colour burst like that of a cracked egg.

Warmth was instant and comforting, all parts-feet, toes and nose heated up steadily and my face was drawn towards the suns heat. The hat that had kept my head from the early chill had to be removed eagerly and as the sun burst higher into the sky. A sense of well being and life grew around me and the pleasure of simply being there was highly apparent.

I had drifted off slightly into the world around me, the float had become a blur and not quite as sharp as first seen but It wasn’t long before my concentration came back once again strong and the float appeared to dip softly. Was I just imagining it? At once the float disappeared and the feeling hit me like someone had pinched me……

My senses wandered suddenly from day dream to reality as I firmly snatched my rod before the fish did and like the crisp sharp flight of the dragonfly in summer I felt in control. The scruffy fibreglass rod bent creating a perfect ark that looked beautiful and I noticed how its sweeping curve and shiny surface reflected the bright sunshine from it. The somewhat thin line made a sweet song as the wind caught it at a perfect angle and it sounded as though it were about to part at any moment. I hadn’t seen a thing but could feel a heavy almost machine like movement that seemed to make my line cut through the flat water like butter.

I pulled back as much as I dared without risk of dislodging the small delicate hook and I felt as though I was getting closer to see just what I had made contact with. As the fish eventually began to surface a large whirling vortex of water was displaced by a powerful tail and thick set body as I caught a small glimpse of something that looked more powerful than I ever could have dreamt of. The light sent back a reflection of golden beams as it caught the large plated scales of what seemed to be that of a common carp. Just when I thought my tackle was about to give up on me the fish took its last gulp of air taking water through its gills and pushing it back out through its mouth as it spat out water. The wide neck of the landing net was almost in place as I’d left it close to the bank, I reached down to feel the hard wooden handle cold from where it had laid in the wet dew and long shady grass. I managed to lift the handle and slowly sink the net and as I pushed it out further to slide the net under the fish its large head slid slowly over the cord followed by its wide flanks and lastly its big sail like tail. She was mine and I was overcome by a feeling of both satisfaction and accomplishment. I let out a sigh of breath as if I’d been holding it all that time and prepared my self to take a sneak peak before I let her rest for a while.

Athough I wrote this originally for Augusts Crafty Carper there really is no reason why you couldn't still make and use this at any time of the year.  

How many times have you watched or just caught something out of the corner of your eye like a large swirl right under your rod tips or just out in front of you? Only for it to have you sit and wonder what was that?

Well at this time of year all manner of new insect life has been forming for some time and where they obviously spend most of their lift time creeping around on trees, hedges and all plant matter in and around the waters edge they will from time to time accidentally fall in or be blown in by a sudden gust of wind. This is where carp love to sit in the warmer months because of its natural food counter and the shallow warm sunny water. But it is only our noise and arrival that usually pushes them away from the banks and most of the time over to far margins where they can set up and wait there instead. For quite some time it has now been a know fact that little black pieces of foam are being readily taken by carp all over the country and some huge fish have been falling to this method. Different colours have been used also to maybe mimic certain insects and with some research and some obvious choices you can make up some awesome looking insects from two simple products. It isn’t something I would confess to thinking up my self but I know that it isn’t spoken about too much so I’ll show you how easy it can be.

First grab your self a spool of a product called Amnesia in black. It’s a cheap common leader come stiff rig material that’s been around for years. And next take some black rig foam and some yellow rig foam (the cigarette butt end looking type is best). From here you can let your imagination run wild or take a look on-line at some water born insects to see if you could perhaps copy their shapes and colours much like that of our fly fisherman neighbours when tying up flies. Next is really simple get your black foam and cut off around 15mm then take your yellow foam and cut off around 5mm. From this point cut off 4 pieces of 10mm in length amnesia and 1 piece at 30mm.

Now the fun part. Very carefully take your baiting needle (preferably a safety point type) and pierce four holes along the body of the foam opening them out a little. Once this is done push the 10mm lengths of amnesia through the body until you have what look like eight legs. And lastly once again with your baiting needle push it through the black foam length ways. Once this is done push the long length of Amnesia through the length of the body and mount the little yellow piece on the end to create a head. Take a lighter and go round blobbing all the ends to create feet but at the head and tail end blob the stiff material down to ensure the yellow and black foam stay together. And there you have a floating insect that will hopefully help you bag some of those crafty carp! Good luck!

All the best

J.T.

THE NEW GRANGE…

I have been quite intrigued to find out a bit more about a bait that has been taking many fish since its birth. The particular bait in question has been doing really well of late and Shaun Harrison of Quest Baits explained to me that the numbers of fish being caught at present have been quite a bit more than he had ever could have dreamed of. It has been named The Ghurkka Spice and is just one of many good baits Shaun has in the range but he has done so well on this bait of late it would be foolish to switch to another. The Rajah another of Shaun’s baits has also done exceptionally well but this seems to be taking firm hold at the Quest crown!

A really nice aroma first hits your nose as you open the bag and that lovely Indian spice smell came off it instantly. But it’s not just a spicy Indian flavour that comes from the bait but more of a subtle smell. Shaun explained that it’s smell appears more like that of a Thai Green curry, if only we had scratch and sniff! A mass of ingredients go into the making of this bait and there are some really nice ones too. Based on three types of bird food and added milk proteins it also has an awesome additive being the inclusion of Prosecto, which is a dried insect meal that Haiths the top bird food manufacturers supply. Also the very potent and extremely carp addictive anchovy extract is included too. In fact a huge mass of twenty one separate ingredients are included in the overall finished mix which also includes two very particular essential oils. Shaun has been playing around with this mix for at least two years before finally getting the mix of ingredients correct and at their right levels before feeling that it is now ready for its general release. A very nicely rolled bait like most are these days however the pop-ups were not quite of the standard I would have come to expect when everything else was so well constructed. Perhaps I am a little fussy when it comes to baits/boilies being nicely spherical but then as far as I’m concerned if the mix is correct and the right size equipment is used then perfectly rolled baits should be a breeze. However this doesn’t really mean it will have any effect on catch abilities sometimes quite the opposite. The pop-ups were tested as normal, both tied with the Korda Mouth Trap material in 25lb b/s to a size 8 Korda Choddy. Again I tried to put as much weight on these baits as possible to see just how buoyant they were. Two colours were put to the test, a fluoro yellow version and a standard sandy colour version that matches nicely to the bottom baits and the two differed slightly which was somewhat strange. I tried again choosing new fresh hook bait in case a dud had found its way in. The same thing happened again and after 24hrs in the tank the sandy one was found lying on the bottom. It still had its buoyancy about it but nowhere near anything like the fluoro version which was still bolt upright like it had taken a shot of Viagra! So once again I tried, third time lucky and this time it was fine. One other thing that was a nice touch with the yellow one was the leakage that appeared from within it. There are many pop-ups that just have a visual and flavour attraction but this had all three, really nice. Also to complement the range is the usual paste that is the exact mix used to produce the boilies, a nice easily pliable paste and that much like all the other products, shelf life. A standard extruded pellet also comes in the range that will give the angler a different baiting strategy which breaks downs in around 2-3hrs. These give off a decent cloud of flavour, colour and food signal that hangs just around the bottom. All in all an attractive bait package that will no doubt go on to catch plenty of its fair share of fish. The guys at Quest supply these baits in 10, 15 and 20mm sizes as well as 1, 2 or 5kg bags.

All of the prices can be found on the Quest baits excellent web site