Top Banana for Crowy!

Solar consultant Simon Crow joined our very own Steve Briggs as being the only two anglers in the world to have caught 50lb-plus carp from five different countries! This amazing feat was achieved last week when the 40-year-old fished at Domain de la Ribiere in France, topping an eight fish catch with a 50lb 10oz mirror. Crowy’s successful bait was the ever-faithful Top Banana readymades fished on size 6 X-Wide Gape hooks and Solar lead clips.

Commenting on his trip, Crowy revealed: “I’ve not really done much fishing in France over the last ten years, and prior to that I tended to fish the public waters like Cassien, Madine etc. My biggest French carp was a 46lb from Lac du Der Chantecoq. However, there’s been a boom in 50lb-plus carp in the country since the commercial lakes took a hold, and I decided it was time to go and have a look what Ribiere was like as I was hearing lots of great things about it. I chalked up my fifty during a week-long trip with friends Steve Briggs, Rob Hales and Dave Treasure. We had a great time, Rob also getting amongst the fifties, with Steve landing them to 47lb and Dave to 43lb. I struggled to get on the fish for a few days, but once I did, it was the always-reliable Top Banana that did the trick for me.”

The other countries Crowy has landed fifties from are England, Romania, South Africa and Austria. A huge Top Banana to him on a great achievement!

Quench does the trick

The winter fishing down at Rainbow Lake can always be a bit tricky and you have to be a little bit lucky with the weather. I've fished every year in February since 2004 and it's a case of 'some you win some you lose' although I have managed to catch at least one fish each time. This year the weather turned just at the right time though, and it was getting in to double figures for the first time this year. The water was still quite cold though and it meant being very careful with the baiting approach. In the winter I generally go for the Quench with its lovely fruity aroma and it turned out to be a real winner. It started off with me catching 3 small commons over small beds of the Quench with matching 365 pellets. Hook baits were double 14mm Quench.

As the first week wore on the fish started to move in more and they got bigger. The first real biggun was a 54lb common, which was the start of a really good spell of action. To that point my mate Gary had been struggling on tigers and after changing over to the Quench he got his first fish of the trip, a 36lb mirror. That was the start he needed and we both caught fish consistently every day after that with Gary landing his new PB of 65lb and also his 3rd biggest ever, another good mirror of 62lb. Most swims were producing one or two fish but I'm sure that the Quench was responsible for keeping the fish interested out in front of us.

Besides the bait there was one other thing which seemed to make a difference and that was the new Solar Unleaded braid. This stuff is just amazing and will make leadcore a thing of the past. you can see from the pic how supple it is and while it is heavy, it contains no lead wire. It is designed as a leader material but I caught a few fish using it as hook lengths too!

Thankfully the sun kept shining all through the trip and after last years struggle when it was all about snow and ice it made a nice change to be able to sit outside all day and feel that there was a chance of a run at any time. As usual most of the action came during the day

and that is always a feature of the fishing at Rainbow, which suits me fine - a good nights kip and then up for a bit of carp action! The Quench has served me really well in cold water conditions and I find it really helps to match the pellets to the boilies. I've done well with Quench and Dairy Cream pellets in conjunction with Quench boilies, whereas in the warmer months the Red Herring or Club Mix 365 pellets work a treat with the Club Mix boilies. It was a good start to the year anyway and I'm just looking forward to the next trip now!!!

Cheers Briggsy........................

Top Banana!

The last time I fished Orchid Lake was in June 2009 when I came away with some nice fish from off the bottom and top. In late November, however, I put aside 48 hours for my first trip back, arriving just before dark on the Sunday afternoon so that I could get set up. I know most of the swims at Orchid like the back of my hand so it didn’t take me long to get three rods out. I was in the swim known as Island Dug Out with a set of dying lilies to my left and a large island at 50 yards straight in front. There’s a few good spots to the right, too, including silt and gravel, but the two main areas worth focusing on at this time of the year are the lilies and the island. The lilies especially hold carp throughout the year, and it was here where I decided to put two rods for the first night.

I had the rods in place for 5pm all on tiny 6mm Top Banana hookbaits over seed. With the carp being so active in the pads I had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before something happened, and only a short while later a good fish crashed not far from my middle rod. Despite a forecast of cold and driving rain in the region, I sensed that for once I’d timed my trip perfect and less than an hour later the first fish was on! A scrappy battle followed amongst the outer edges of the lilies and it was clear a dynamite double was on the end. The next morning a hard battling 22lb mirror followed, and then a few hours later I was in with a really heavily scaled mirror and a cracking 28lb the next day, all on the little 6mm hookbaits. It was a great return to a venue that I hold dear to my heart.

Always wanting to make the most of a good thing, I was back down a few days later, after I’d got some work out of the way. Amazingly the fish were still in the swim and I was able to get back into it. Arriving at first light, by the end of the first day, I had one of my target fish on the bank, a mirror known as Sampson which is one of the oldest carp in the lake. This particular fish has been around for a very long time, even making the cover of Carp-Talk way back in the mid-1990s. At its heaviest weight, it has been as high as mid-30s, but on this occasion it went 29lb 8oz.

My lucky roll continued with an absolute corker weighing just over thirty at 30lb 4oz the next day. This one came right on packing up time when I had everything packed away apart from the essentials!

                Another trip to the lake a couple of days later saw me land a cracking 29lb 2oz heavily scaled mirror. This fish looking stunning in its full winter colours. Sadly the cold weather put an end to something good, although I’m sure the fish had moved out after I landed the 29lb 2oz. I’m itching to get back down once the weather warms up, and I’m certain the Top Bananas will continue to produce the goods!

Check out the latest Orchid Lake news at www.orchid-lakes.com or telephone Marsh Pratley on 01865 341810.

Weed Effect uses

The Weed Effect gear has been a revelation since it came on to the scene and it's helped me to put a few extra fish on the bank for sure. But what has really got me excited about this stuff are the different uses it has and the situations where it's helped for reasons that weren't obvious to start with.

It was back at Cassien in the summer when I realised that although the obvious use for the Weed  Effect gear is to help camouflage everything, that certainly wasn't the only use. Back then I was using it in very clear water in areas which had no weed, but I was catching plenty of fish and it was obvious that although the Weed Effect gear was easy enough for me to see, the fish didn't connect it with anything dangerous.

But more recently I was across in France fishing a fairly shallow lake which is also very silty. The problem has always been one of presentation and casting out at any range with a heavy lead would invariably bury everything with the force with which it was landing. The Weed Effect gear helped in two different ways; firstly I noticed a while back that the leader material slows down the drop to the bottom considerably, almost like a parachute effect which definitely helped to stop the rig sinking in to the silt. But secondly the Weed Effect leads dont bury in to the soft silt anywhere near as much, instead they plug in almost on the surface but at the same time they are harder to dislodge. So not only is the presentation far better but so is the hooking potential when the fish picks up the bait and moves off. So there's a lot more to the Weed Effect gear than just camouflage!
cheers Briggsy..............

Club Mix continues to catch em’!

I know I’ve gone on about The Club Mix quite a bit this last year in UK magazines, but I really can’t speak enough about it. It just keeps on working wherever I take it, the big fish really taking a liking to it. My latest biggie isn’t a monster by national standards, but it’s from a lake that’s very well stocked for its size, yet the Clubs still managed to single out one of the better fish on my first ever trip there.

I had a two-day trip planned for CEMEX Angling’s Chigborough Lake in Essex as part of a slot for Rob Hughes’s Extreme Carp Show which is to be aired on Sky Sports in the New Year. I knew virtually nothing about the lake other than what the bailiffs had told me, and settled into a swim known as Bailiffs Corner. It was a lovely swim with lots of overhanging bushes in a bay to the right and a nice gravel bar in front at 30 yards which stretched from the corner of an island to the right-hand bank.

Being a two-rod water, I put the left-hander off the gravel near the island over a handful of 20mm Clubs, with the right-hander going towards the overhangs on the same tactic. Almost immediately I was into a low-double mirror from the right, followed by a low-twenty on the left. The action was fantastic during the night, slowing down once day broke the next day. I’d landed five nice fish to low-20s. Nothing happened until dusk the next day when the action kicked off again. Each rod would go with some really hard fighting fish, and then at 8pm I struck into one I knew straight away was a decent lump. It kited to the right along the bar and then plodded its way towards me. It put up a great scrap in front of the cameras, and when it surfaced in front of the net I knew it was a decent kipper.

On the scales it went 32lb 8oz, a big mirror known as Two Scale. For my first ever time on the lake it certainly made me smile and just goes to show that Club Mix can produce the biggies without any pre-baiting whatsoever. It’s an awesome bait and has accounted for some great fish to myself this year, and like the rest of you I’m not out on the bank 24/7. I’ve a busy lifestyle, dashing here there and everywhere. To know there’s a bait around that can produce the goods without any previous introduction gives me masses of confidence every time I’m out there doing it.

The success of this bait globally is second to none, whether it’s monsters from Rainbow or biggies from your local lakes.

Crowy

Snag fishing at Rainbow

I´ve just returned from a week session at Rainbow. Since I´ve start fishing the lake I love the place. The lake is beautiful, has got the right atmosphere and of course big carp! This time I was situated in one of the most snaggy areas of the lake. From a session earlier in the year I knew that I only had a couple of little spots to fish to. That made me decide to fish the small piece of the big island – what was my water in 17 – only with two rods.

In the spring I started with four rods and found out that I only could get takes on two of them. So I thought it would be better to get les lines into the snags. After an early wake up I was already fishing within an hour after the guys to my left had gone home. Because the guys around me were not fishing yet I was hoping to get un early take. So far I never had a take within the first hours at Rainbow. Only an half on hour later happened  were I was hoping for – the first rod went – and I could land my first fish of the session. When I saw the fish I knew directly that it was a good fifty. What a start!

 During the hole week I could manage to catch fish every day. Later in the week I tried a third rod on several spots but again I could only get takes on the two hot spots. The most funny thing about this session  was that I fished with very sweet Top Banana boilies and I didn’t caught a single mirror during hole the week. All of my fish were commons! 

 

Arjen Uitbeijerse

BYT does the job!

This summer I focussed my attentions on a club water local to where I live in the north. Situated in South Yorkshire, the venue offers both day and night fishing, although I myself only had day-book access due to a lengthy night permit waiting list. Having landed my target fish from another water in the spring, the start of June was the ideal time to put in some effort for the two targets I wanted from the new water, known as Trigga and Trio. Both mirrors had made forty-plus in the spring, Trio having topped 42lb when it was landed in May off the top.

Knowing the fish in the venue had a liking for yeasty-type baits I put my faith in the ever-consistent BYT. Being very weedy, I spent a lot of time searching with the marker float for areas worth fishing. The weed was especially bad in most areas, covering almost 90% of the lake bed. It took some serious effort locating the areas where the carp had been rooting, as where the weed was, it was almost top to bottom in 8ft.

I started pre-baiting the areas I’d found with copious amounts of 20mm BYT and then started fishing short trips before work in early June. Immediately I got amongst the fish, landing four on my first morning. Later that week I then got lucky with Trigga in my net weighing in at 37lb 2oz. Being one of the best looking carp in Yorkshire, it was a lovely start. I backed it up with a further eight fish that week, including a nice scatter-scaled 26lb mirror.

            Due to work and family I commitments, I didn’t really get much time to keep the trips consistent during the rest of the month, July or the start of August. I was mainly fishing short evenings when the weather looked good for a bit of stalking. On one particular day I stumbled across the venue’s biggest common, hooking it straight away on a Mixer, only to lose it at the net. Gutted!

I didn’t get back to any serious static fishing until the middle of August when I heard a whisper that Trio had been out at 39lb. The weight really got me excited as I had a feeling it’s next capture could see it over the magical 40lb mark. Arriving at the start for 5am I went on to land a little un’ on my first trip back, followed by a blank the next day and then four fish the next day. The BYT was working wonders, and the next morning, with the rain lashing down all around, I finished my time on the water with a low-double and Trio amongst a mass of weed! Weighing in at a whopping 39lb 10oz, the old character had fallen to a 20mm bottom bait fished over the top of 4kg of BYT freezer baits. It was the perfect result, and proved yet again that with a good bait fished in the right spot, even with limited time on your hands it’s possible to have a result!

Crowy