Catch Reports
A Common Occurrence!
Posted in Catch Reports on 16th January 2009Gary King has been fishing for carp for over 26-years, but until recently has never had a thirty pound carp grace his net. We think it’s fair to point out however that Gary probably fishes less in a year than most carp anglers do in a month!
The elusive thirty pound barrier was soon put well and truly behind him this winter though when he caught the two biggest commons in the lake on consecutive trips! The first was a deep chunky common that settled bang on the 30lb mark, whilst the second was a long lean specimen that recorded a weight of 30lb 2oz.
Considering the long hard winter we’ve just had, with most lakes freezing up for long periods of time, two cracking winter thirty commons are a right result in anyone’s book, let alone when you’ve waited 26-years for them! Both of the big commons tripped up on the cold water version of the legendary Shellfish B5 – as you would expect!
Fluoro pop-ups
Whilst carp are not generally recognised as sight feeders, there are undoubtedly times when they are visually drawn to a food source and bright pop-ups are a classic example of this. It's not surprising therefore, that fluoro pop-ups have proved very effective, particularly if just using a single bait with no free offerings. The winter and spring months are a classic example of this and a single fluoro pop-up cast to a 'showing' fish has resulted in the downfall of many a carp.
But it would be a mistake to think fluoro pop-ups should be just restricted to single bait presentation. Quite often, a fluoro pop-up fished over a bed of bait can fool the wariest of carp and a little 10mm fluoro pop-up mounted above a standard bottom bait can act as a very good visual sight and lead to a bite or two when other methods fail to produce.
