Catch Reports
Welcome back!!
Posted in Catch Reports on 21st August 2009Essential Bait boss Mike Willmott is having a tremendous year with a number of big fish from various venues including a few UK river systems, however, his latest big hit tops the lot! Mike has recently turned back time and re-visited a large gravel pit that he used to fish many years ago, and what a welcome back present he had! On his very first session he managed to bank an immaculate 38lb mirror (1st image) which at the time was the biggest fish to be caught from the venue so far this season, however, little did he know what was in store for him on his next trip!
The following week Mike returned for his second session on the venue, and what a memorable session it turned out to be! Fishing over beds Shellfish B5 boilies and matching B5 pellets to a marginal slope at 90-yards he managed to bank two forties!! The first being a stunning leathery type mirror of 48lb 8oz (2nd image) followed by an immaculate mirror of 41lb 2oz (3rd image) which hadn’t seen the bank for 3-years! As you would expect Mike used his favourite bait, Shellfish B5, and fished over beds of 16mm and 20mm boilies at various ranges to nail each of the fish.
Rigs included single 20mm B5 bottom bait mounted blowback style to size 6 Gardner Mugga hooks, 5-inches 25lb Gardner Sink-Skin hooklinks and 3.5oz semi-fixed leads. Each fish fell to 3kg mixed sized (16mm and 20mm)B5 boilies and matching B5 pellets. Rods were 12ft 3.75tc Daiwa Infinity Magnum’s coupled with Daiwa Tournament Basiair reels loaded with 16lb mono.
Footnote: Whilst compiling this report Mike has since returned to the venue to catch yet another whacker! Once again the B5 doing the business to catch this awesome looking mirror of 35lb 10oz (4th image)
Corker Pop-Ups
Cork dust pop-ups have a number of advantages over other pop-ups.
1) Made with identical ingredients/attractors to free offerings and send out the same food signals.
2) More durable and less prone to ‘theft’ from nuisance fish, crayfish and birdlife!
3) They can be pierced with a baiting needle without losing buoyancy.
4) Brilliant for ‘snowman’ presentations where you can trim down the corker pop up with scissor blades to achieve the perfect level of buoyancy required.
5) Ease of use.
Top tip for long term buoyancy
When fishing pop-up rigs in deep water for long periods of time or on waters where bird life can be a problem, drill out a cavity in the corker pop up with an 8mm drill bit then plug it with Gardner Tackle’s cylindrical high density rig foam (yellow). Then pierce the corker pop up on to your hook/rig, making sure the baiting needle goes up through the yellow foam first, then secure with boilie stop. I guarantee you that you can leave your pop up out there for 3-days if needed with no loss of buoyancy! Further to this, in the unlikely event that a diving coot or tufty unknowingly pinches your pop up, you are still fishing a nice visual yellow ‘fake’ bait.
