Lately i spend the little freetime that I have in the center of France and fish some public lakes over there. The drive of 600km for a few nights fishing i take for granted. The weather conditions were hot and a lot of the fish were sunbathing on the surface. With a sig-rig baited with a Solar Fluor during the day and a standard bottom rig baited with a 22mm Byt boilie during the night , i manage to catch a handfull of good fish up to 40lb. Satisfied with this result i'm already planning my next few nights to France , but first 12 days of Afrika Fishing!

You can see a small movie from this session with the link below :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9icczfMppA

Have Fun

Greets Roderick

First succes of the year!!

Last year I have fished this very pressured lake in Holland with no result. As the temperature is getting better I went of the do some serious pre-baiting with the famous clubs. I had a two night session and the wind was blowing mad from south-west. the first day is saw a fish jumping just in the margin, and I place a choddy with a pineapple fluor pop-up on the place where the fish came out of the water. The lake is very low stocked with only eight fish on 4 acres. So I knew I was in fish.. On the last day just before sunrise I had my first take off the year, after a fight of 10 minutes I had the fish in the net and what whacker a big female lether carp of 40,2lb. I was realy over the moon.

Keep it up guys,

Ronald margadant

First outing on Solar Baits

Last week I was invited to visit Freedom Lakes near Poitiers and fished the biggest lake of the complex(Louane). I fished this wonderful lake with my mate Jan and we ended up with some very lovely fish.

The fishing was not easy as they prepared for spawning, what they ended up doing from Wednesday on.. We tried building up some feeding spots but most bites came from the middle part of the lake near the shallows around the central island. We ended up with 17 bites with an average of 15kg+(33lbs+) and the highlights were a 49lbs complex record common and a 42lbs long mirror for me and for my mate Jan a 44lbs mirror.

It was the first time to use the Solar Baits since joining the Team and I choose the shelf life version of the Secret in 14,18 and 22 mm combined with 15mm Pineapple pop-up fished snowman style. This combination resulted in 6 of my 8 bites. Two fish were taken from showing fish using Pineapple pop-up choddies.

Set-ups consisted of leadcore leaders with leadclips or helicopter style and coated hooklinks with Stronghold Longshank hooks.

All 8 bites were landed, so a very pleasing result.

Freedom Lakes is a very nice venue with 3 lakes to be fished. The biggest lake, which we fished, is the one with the biggest fish in it. The lake record is 50lbs+(last season) and the growth rate is very impressive. I had a 42lbs mirror that was caught 6 months ago at 31lbs(and it was not heavy with spawn)! There are some 200-250 fish present in around 9 hectares/22acres and a maximum of 8 anglers can fish 14 swims.

If you want to try your luck have a look at http://www.freedomlakes.com/

The confidence in the Solar Baits range was already very high, but after this first result it has become skyhigh!! As you can imagine i’m looking forward into the rest of the season haha

Dennis de Wilde

The month of April 2010

Solar consultant Simon Crow has been having a romping good time of it lately, banking carp from both the north and south of the UK, including the prestigious Black Eye from Chad Lakes’ Home Pool. The capture of the legendary fish took Crowy into an exclusive club by becoming only the fifth angler in the world to land carp of 50lb or more from four different countries (we should add that Solar’s consultants make up three of the five anglers in this little clan, the others being Steve Briggs and Alijn Danau).

Crowy takes up the story about his run of good form: “I know full well that in the spring you need to put your faith in a really attractive bait, and there’s really only one choice here and that’s Club Mix. I did ever so well on this bait last year in the early part of the season and I had no reason to change. I didn’t do much fishing during the winter time, but once the equinox arrived I went at it all systems go. My first session out for the year was a short over-nighter to Chestnut Pool in Hertfordshire for an Open Access Waters feature in Carpworld magazine. It was just manic, and in the end I had to reel in for the night because the action was just none-stop. Wherever I put bait it went, and in the end I gave up counting how many fish I caught. The best wasn’t massive, only around 18lb, a pretty scaley mirror, but it was a great way to kick the Spring off."

"Next step was The Willows syndicate in West Yorkshire where the Clubs really worked very well for me. The lake received a healthy stocking of smallish carp around 5lb during the winter and I expected these to be a bit of a problem. However, the Clubs singled out the lake’s better fish for me without giving me any problems with the nuisance fish. I kicked off with a cracking common of 26lb, followed by mirrors of 24lb, 24¾lb, 25lb, 25½lb, a couple of 26s, a 26¾lb, a 34lb, a 35¾lb, a 36lb, and a 36¾lb, plus a rake of doubles and low-20s."

"If that wasn’t enough, I also booked myself onto the famous Home Pool at Chad Lakes for a few days, only to find myself attached to the lake’s biggie Black Eye just six hours into my trip! A single 20mm Club was all it took, fished over a few handfuls of freebies and pellets. The great fish is a regular 54lb-plus carp so when I had it in the net I was chuffed to have joined fellow Solar consultants Steve Briggs and Alijn Danau as having caught 50s from four different countries. It didn’t end there though, the lake contains no more than thirty carp and in the three nights I fished there I also chipped in with a low-20 mirror, another of 23¾lb and the lake’s Big Fully at 28¾lb, all on the Clubs! It was great fishing at a truly wonderful lake! I’m now itching to get back out and hope that May is equally as rewarding!”

All of Crowy’s fish came to rigs comprised of our very own X-Wide Gape hooks with leads presented on Solar lead clips with matching tail rubbers.

Scaling down

By the lack of posts on here it would appear that not too many of us have been having a great time out there? My old mate Crowy has been getting amongst them and big congratulations go out to him on catching his first English 50, the superb Black Eye at 54lb from Chad Lakes Home Pool. With him catching that fish on his first day of a two-week session I was grateful when he offered me a few days of his trip.
Any thoughts of catching the big one myself went out of the window as the fish went and sulked in a weed bed where it stayed for the next two weeks (but then so would I if I'd been nabbed by Crowy - only joking!) Dropping temperatures with clear nights and a full moon didn't help - and neither did the end of the lake which I had to fish - a quick look through the catch reports revealed that my end had only produced one fish all year!
But fish were visiting the area so I was in with a chance but as ever with small waters, they were very shy and very riggy. I was able to watch on a few occasions fish cleary avoid the rigs. Eventually I found two fish 'clouding up' the bottom right in the edge and I scaled everything down to a size 10 hook, a six inch 12lb mono hook length and two Dairy Cream 10mm hook baits (The small Solar needle was ideal for such small baits)I placed the bait carefully right next to the tuft of grass in the picture around 1ft from the bank and at 3.15am the next morning a one-toner had me running up the bank. A good scrap followed and with just hours to go before I had to leave I banked my first Home Pool carp of 28lb 2oz. Not quite as big as my old mate Crowy's but a pleasing capture all the same.