By Martyn Russ, Featuring Brian Chandler
When the sun is out, the weather warm and the wind low this is usually the perfect time for zig or floater fishing especially for the Carp fishermen amongst us. The other day Brian Chandler, admin of Club FAW, decided that when he saw that there was a break in the weather and that the wind had dropped he thought he would sneak in a couple of hours fishing at the local lake that he's a bailiff on. When he arrived at the lake he spoke with a few other fishermen who were also trying to take the carp off the top using floater fishing techniques and they said they had been there for 4 hours but noting was happening. The carp seemed to be very shy and although they were coming up for the odd one or two dog biscuits floating around the lake they seemed to shy away from all the hook baits no matter what the presentation or how good your set-up was.
This didn’t deter Brian one little bit and he started to sling bait out on a regular basis only catapulting two or 3 biscuits every couple of minuets and watching the carp come up and take them but didn’t put his rig in the water he decided to wait. He noticed that the carp were quite a distance away from the swim he was fishing so decided to start baiting up close to them and slowly move the bait across to where he was fishing. This started to do the trick as the carp started to follow the baiting pattern. Knowing how shy the carp were acting today he didn’t want to put his hook bait amongst them or cast to showing fish as this would spook them and undo all his hard work so he waited until they had entered his swim and then using a huge cast he cast way over the top of them into the distance a few meters away from where they had been feeding.
He continued to feed the cap little and often every couple of minuets sending
out the bait and watching them slurp them down. He began to slowly increase the
amount he was putting in and watched as they were slowly becoming a little more
confident and at that moment he begun to move his hook bait little by little
every few minuets until it was sitting in the area they were feeding. This was
the time he thought and loaded his sling ready with a handful of biscuits coated
in his favourite flavouring. He waited for the wind to drop slightly, aimed and
fired. The biscuits all landed smack bang on target and surrounded his hook bait
and within seconds of them hitting the water the carp were slurping them down.
He twitched the bubble float gently not to spook the fish and watched as the
mouth appeared up under his hook bait and suddenly slurped it down. Instead of
striking at that moment he waited and watched the bubble float and waited for
the weight of the float to set the hook and move and then he lifted his rod
straight into his capture. He was rewarded with a beautiful mirror carp weighing
in at around 15 or 16 lb showing that even when they are nervous and feeding shy
you can catch them if you take your time and do it right.
A week later brian returned to the lake again trying to get them up feeding off the top. After a couple of hours on the main body of water only the odd one or two would take a surface bait so he decided to change the area and moved to the back of the island and found the carp sitting in the shade keeping cool. Again using the same technique as he did before he managed to land another beautiful Carp, a common weighing in at 18lb 8oz.
Top Angling Brian. Wet Nets & Tight Lines
