New Weed Effect range

Having been a user of other hooklinks for many years now, I’ll admit I was a bit reluctant to change over to the new Weed Effect range that’s been recently released by Solar. When Locky sent me through the samples though I liked the look of them, and during a recent trip to Grenville Lake in Cambridgeshire I decided to have a go with them for the first time.

I was invited to the lake as a guest of the owner for a feature in Carpworld magazine, and I had 40 hours ahead of me. Knowing the lake was quite weedy I stripped down my rods to the bare essentials, then attached one of the new Leadcore Looped leaders, followed by a lead clip and finally one of the ready-tied Weed Effect hooklinks. I completed the set up with a 3oz Weed Effect lead. The whole lot looked liked a ball of weed it was that well camouflaged, and I’ll admit I wasn’t that sure about it at first so I decided to try it on just the two rods to begin with to feel my way in. The other rod I kept my regular set-up on.

During the night I had four takes on the Weed Effect rods which obviously caught my attention. One of these rods was fished over a heavy area of Club Mix 20mm freezer bait, whilst the other was on a single Top Banana, so it may have been something to do with the strategy which produced the takes, rather than just the end tackle camouflage, but it was certainly an interesting first-time result.

20 hours into the session I moved swim to where I’d seen a lot of fish showing. My original swim had not produced a fish during daylight hours and I fancied having a go somewhere else as it was a short and sweet trip. I ended up with just the one fish during the remainder of the trip, a 32lb mirror, and interestingly, that fish came on one of the rods with the Weed Effect set-up on.

It’s still early days for me to say that the Weed Effect range conclusively catches you more fish than with other simpler set-ups, but with me having all of my takes on the range during my first time out with it, thus far it certainly gets a massive thumbs up from me. I’ll keep you posted on how I progress.
Simon Crow

Cassien Fun in the Sun

I hadn't been down to Cassien for the last couple of summers so I was keen to get back for another go. It is a wonderful place to be for sure but isn't without its problems. The sun and scenery make it a very popular place, not just with anglers of course but a whole load of holiday makers. But with water temperatures of 28 degrees I was swimming as well as fishing every day!

Despite being almost devoid of anglers at the start of the trip, it soon filled up and became quite busy. Fish were showing well but weren't feeding that heavily and although it wasn't difficult to find them it was a little more difficult to catch them. It was strange that some swims would produce while the areas either side just wouldn't and that was happening all around the lake.

Getting the baits right is never an easy thing as there are so many other species that will eat them in the warmer weather, especially in the shallower water. One thing which I did find to work well were the new cork dust pop ups. I only tried the Dairy Cream ones but for some reason most of the pestrs would leave them alone while the carp still picked them up! They weren't full-proof but at least I was able to fish fairly normally. Some extra-hard baits that someone had made for me some time back only lasted less than two hours in the water once the poisson chats had found them.

In the shallow water I was also keen to try out the Weed Effect gear as the visibility is so good at Cassien that I'm always worried about the fish being able to see hook lengths and mainlines and I hoped that the Weed Effect gear would look a bit more natural. It all worked very well anyway and leaders and hook lengths caught me a few fish in what were fairly tricky conditions.
One other thing certainly worth a mention are the Line Biters which actually saved me a bit of line! The boaters, pedalos and swimmers can be a nightmare in the summer and you have to be vigilant all the time because sooner or later they will wipe you out, but with the Line Biters even the most stupid of the boaters managed to see that something was there and divert around the lines!