Summer on top

The arrival of the summer months is one of my favourite times of the year as it means I can practice what I most enjoy about carping, fishing on the surface. I absolutely love watching carp taking baits off the top and there’s no adrenaline rush like watching a fish near the hookbait and then eventually take it.

My favoured method is getting the carp in close and selecting out the fish I want to catch. It takes a lot of patience to do this as very often you need to spend upwards of an hour feeding them streams of surface bait. It sounds easy, but when you’re fishing for spooky fish, all it takes is for one of them to spook on something and you can be back at square one.

Only this evening I fed a group of six carp Mixers for almost an hour, and before I’d even had chance to cast the hooker out, one of the smaller ones came up for a bait and spooked the rest of the group. The carp lost all of their confidence and they wouldn’t come within eye shot for quite some time. An hour or so later, just as it was going dark they eventually came in close, but it was too difficult to pick out which fish was which so I had to abandon it for another day.

The key to getting carp in close is to feed Mixers one by one, the aim being to create as little water disturbance as you can. Catapulting or hand throwing handfuls seems to put them more on edge and they end up being much more wary which makes the job that little bit harder. It pays to be as stealthy as you can, even on the lakes where they appear to be fine with anglers making noise on the bank.

I love flavouring my Mixers, and my current favourites are Dairy Cream with a slight touch of Esterblend. You can be quite generous with the Dairy Cream, and I generally use it at a level of 30ml per kilo of dry baits. With the Esterblend, however, this is a very powerful additive and I prefer it used at a low dosage of only 3ml per kilo which is enough to make it noticeable. The extra attraction does Mixers the world of good, and you’ve only got to watch how quickly the carp close by begin searching for food once they get a whiff of it.

I’ve done quite well recently, fishing one of my local ponds which doesn’t contain anything massive, mainly doubles and twenties. Fishing short three-hour trips after work I’ve had some nice fish, including three nice mirrors that I singled out from the smaller fish and targeted. The best looking one was a fish I particularly wanted to catch as its believed to be one of the Leney strain which are quite rare in the north of England where I live.

With a bit of patience and the right bait, it just shows that even when time is limited you can have some success with your local carp in the summer months. If you’ve one or two good fish to go at, you never know, you might just hit the jackpot, so get out there stalking them in close as nothing quite beats the buzz that this type of fishing brings.

All the best for July and August.

Crowy

Attention to detail

We're always looking for those little edges and ways to improve our results and over the last couple of months there are a couple of Solar products which I believe have really made a difference. The first are the Ball Bearing swivels. They've been around for a while now and I must admit I never realised until recently just how good they are! I've been messing around with the Chod Rig a fair bit this year and for a rig which appears so simple, is in fact very adaptable and as technical as you want to make it. One of the main factors is the movement of the hook link itself and for a good hook hold it needs to rotate freely. Like most people I normally used the standard ring swivel - that was until I tried out the Ball Bearing version and the difference is amazing! The movement of the hook link is improved dramatically and so therefore is the hooking potential of the rig. It's a real edge for sure and a great Solar product!

The other thing which has helped me this year are the Weed Effect leaders. I've been fishing a water that is not only extremely difficult but the water is like tap water and the visibilty is so good that at times you can see the rig in over ten feet of water. If it's that easy for me to spot the rig then imagine how easy it must be for the carp which are seeing it from much closer! I had it in my mind that should the opportunity arise to fish on some close-in spots I would use the Weed Effect leaders in the knowledge that they would blend in much better with the surroundings and as if to prove the point, they were very difficult to pick out on the bottom. Of course the real proof is if they can help to put fish on the bank and I had two opportunities this spring (I said it was difficult!) and both times I ended up with a carp on the bank, two stunning commons of 34lb 2oz and 32lb 4oz both of which are real history fish and have only rarely been caught in the past.

The month of May

Crowy’s run of good form continued throughout May, with Club Mix yet again proving its big fish pulling power! Concentrating his efforts in the north of the country on Eric’s Angling Centre’s Willows syndicate, our man on form notched up two more really big fish for Yorkshire, including a lovely 35lb 12oz mirror followed by the lake record in the shape of The Toffee Fish at a whopping 43lb 14oz.

Crowy commented: “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, they did! I was baiting quite heavily with Clubs during most of my trips, and although I did catch a few twenties and smaller fish, it once again proved its worth with the biggies when just fifteen minutes into an overnight trip I landed a stunner weighing 35lb 12oz at the beginning of the month. Two weeks later, during a very busy weekend when the lake was almost rammed with anglers, I contemplated pulling off because nothing was looking likely to give. Somehow I talked myself into staying another night, and I freshened up the swim with a few kilos of Clubs. I’m glad I stayed because at 5am on my third morning I had a one toner that just didn’t want to come in. It fought hard all the way in. I caught a glimpse of its flank in the clear water and knew I had a lump on the end. After some fifteen minutes of plodding in the margins, eventually it eased over the net chord. What a sight it was! At 43lb 14oz I was buzzing! Good old Club Mix singled out a biggie yet again! An awesome bait and certainly one to put your faith in if you want a particular big fish from your target water.”

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.