The lads were doing this as part of their ASDAN Fish For Life course and had a great day, catching carp to just under double figures using rods that we have picked up from car boot sales!  The rods included split canes that were approx 50 years old, early glass fibre rods and other old warriors.

The lads were really impressed with how well they coped with catching carp from the canals and rated them all highly with the Edger Seeley rod coming out on top.

It just goes to show that you can catch a good number of fish and become a great angler without the need to go and spend hundreds on new tackle.  Its all about watercradft, skill and ability rather than just looking good on the bank.  make sure though that you dont forget your net and unhooking mat though as these are vital.

Now i have to say that i know that they had learnt a lot over the last year but they really did show me how good they were!

Callum really impressed as he found a margin spot next to a snag down the bank and baited it lightly with corn a a bit of pellet, everytime he walked the rod back to the rest he was in again and ended up the run away winner with Steve.

Well done lads….. fine angling by all.

G

Callum showing that he has the skills to go far in the angling world.

Last weekend saw the Junior Carp Team travel to Crockerton in north Warminster to fish a prolific venue, Shearwater.  Fishing with us was Graham, Tom, and James “Grith”. There van was well and truly loaded with bedchairs, rods, and around 40Kg of carp grub in the back!

The boys having a laugh, covered in spod mix after an epic session!

We got there at around 7:30pm to see the venue was pretty packed! Not a good sight for any carp angler. However a short drive up the path revelled some tasty looking swims that we could fish from, sorted! Me, Connor and Callum set up in a large swim, we decide to try and bait up in a line to try and get the fish moving around on our spots to land us some carp. G, Tom and Grith set up just down the path from us in separate swims. There was a cold Northerly wind blowing and high pressure so conditions weren’t looking too good.

Where are they hiding? Water craft is essential when out Carp Fishing.

20.30:
Me, Connor, and Callum had started are baiting attack, we found a nice spot at the bottom of the ledge that ran all they way in front of all of our swims, that will do us! G had also started to bait up his spot, Tom and Grith fired out singles for the night a head, hoping to pull fish out at long range.

21.30:
The first bit of action for the Junior team’s bite alarms fell to Connor, after a non-spirited take, and a non-spirited battle a small bream was in his net, far from pleased! We all prayed that there wasn’t a big shoal of ‘’snotty’’bream moving through the swim, the last thing any of us wanted was to be landing small slabs all night long! Tom had lost a carp and Grahams bite alarms went with out noise, for the time being anyway.

Dinners UP!

Through out the night:
As we crawled into our bedchairs at around 1am Connor kept on getting little bleeps from the snottys, luckily none of them could fit the bollie in their mouth! During the night Tom had managed to land 4 carp, there size wasn’t anything to shout about but the carp looked very nice, being long lean and dark! At the beautiful time of 4am my bite alarms awoke to tell me that I had a carp running away with my bait, nice one! After a nice battle under the rod tip the first carp of the Junior teams session was netted by Callum, mainly because he had the welly’s on.

James with a nice Mirror.

Morning:
As morning woke so did the fish, they could clearly be seen high up near the surface of the water, Zigs were the order of the day! We hoped that the fish had moved in on the bait we had spodded out last night. All three of us worked hard to get a bit more of the sloppy spod mix out for the carps morning munch. Graham, Tom and Grith also saw the carp hitting the surface and were soon raking in the rewards, by about 9am G had 20 carp under his belt, Tom about 10 and Grith with 4. G and tom had only been able to fish with one rod for must of the day because the fish were taking the bait as soon as it landed in the water. Grith decide not to spod any bait out, as the wind was blowing his way, so he sat back and let the other two do all the work… in true Grith style! It was so hectic that the three of them had to have a break, so headed to the lakes cafe for a mega morning feast!  Soon my left hand rod sprung to life on a 5ft zig. The carp obviously fancied the yellow and black foam on the end. As soon as it went back out another fish wanted a nibble on the foam. Connor and Callum kept spoding the bait out, and waited for the fish to move on down there way.

Fish number 25 of the morning and it was only 9.30am.

Mid Day:
G, Tom and Grith return from there breakfast and got right back to hauling! The anglers on the other side quite simply couldn’t believe what was happening! They were tearing the lake apart, the carp were taking it before they had a chance to put the rod down! Grith’s non-spod tactic was still working as he kept catching frequently, and even caught a couple of nice mirrors along the way. I moved up onto a total of 4 whilst Connor and Callum kept fishing there socks off trying to tempt the carp there way. Surely it was only a matter of time before there accurate spoding produce a result! They had been very unlucky not to have a fish up to this time as we were all using the same tactics.

Accurate spodding and casting was the key to success, along witht he right length zig.

Late Afternoon:
It was safe to say that by this time G, Tom and Grith were well and truly knackered, they were in competition against each other, Graham was in front on 36, Tom was second on 34 and Grith sat on a nice bag of 18. Connor had managed to land himself a nice common carp after working very hard with the spod. He was trying out some new zig tying line and hooks, it seemed to do the job as he managed to land the fish thanks to Callum’s net-menship. Callum had also managed to land a carp, his bite alarms came into action to what can only be describe as a screamer of a take! He played it nicely to the net, and a smile leapt onto his face, the first outing for the junior team and no one blanked, result! I also managed to sneak in a couple more shearwater commons to bring my fish counter to 6.

All in All:
in just less then 24hours of carp fishing FLE had managed to catch over 100 carp! Much to the rest of the lakes disbelief. G ended up with 38, Tom with 37 and Grith sat on a total of 20. As for the Junior team I left with 6 and Connor and Callum with 1. The Junior team really showed that even if your not catching that if you stick to your guns, and keep applying the same consistent tactics you will eventually be reward with some carp! So let that be a warning to all the English Carp, The FLE team are on our way and there will be no snags left unturned!

Keep Hauling!

Ryan Dyke