Stuart Dennis, an experienced angler of some 26 years has, until recently, concentrated mainly on catching tench, his favourite species. In the last two years, however, he has been suffering from carp fever and has realised that carp fishing is far removed from what he has been used to. In spite of his long experience and success with general coarse fishing, where carp are concerned he classes himself as a total novice.
Stuart says, “There are no doubt hundreds of questions we novice carp anglers would like to ask the experts, but unfortunately, for various reasons, we sometimes feel awkward doing so.
Rik and Stuart
“So what I’m going to do is get under the skin of one of our most experienced carp anglers, Big Rik, or Carp Angler, as he’s known on the forum, and shoot all those questions at him that you always wanted to ask, which will, as we go along, be turned into a series of features covering various carp fishing topics.
“As these articles run their course no doubt many questions will arise. So If you’re just getting started, or are an improving carp angler (or an experienced carp angler even, who just wants another opinion) and want to get under the skin of the expert, email me with your carp fishing questions at stuartdennis@msn.com and I’ll go banging on his door without a care in the world and post the results on here!”
PART 1 – HOW TO TACKLE A NEW VENUE
We’re going to kick off this series by trying to uncover the tactics required for fishing a venue for the very first time.
What would determine your choice of venue?
My immediate thoughts on venue choice are governed by the results that I would expect. By this I mean ‘What am I looking to get out of the session?’ Half a dozen singles and doubles, or the chance of a bigger specimen? From your point of view Stuart, getting runs and hooking carp will help build your knowledge base a lot quicker than blanking on a mega-hard pit.
The pursuit of specimens can come at a later date. As your knowledge increases, then knowing that certain waters fish well in different weather situations will also govern what venue you visit.
When approaching a new water, and having very little knowledge of the venue, what are your first considerations?
I would not turn up at any new venue totally cold. Asking the people who are fishing there, the local tackle shop and the biggest source of info, the ‘net will yield you with at least some info to be working with. Whether these are hard facts, hearsay or just speculative guesses, you will have to judge and make decisions on.
I would look to garner some info around certain points:
Venue size
Stock levels and sizes
Number of swims and how busy it gets when I intend to fish
The going bait and method
Last years going bait and method
So from that info I can determine how big the venue is and what’s in there. I can also get an idea of what people think that the best methods are and form my own opinions from this, ie, is it big beds of bait, small patches of pellet, sprinklings of particles, etc, etc.
Okay, so you’ve now found out a little home truth about the venue you are about to fish, and you’re now on the bank. So what would determine your choice of swim?
If the venue was empty when I turned up and I had first choice of swims then I would look at a couple of different aspects.
Firstly, I would be looking for signs of fish, such as swirls, crashing or bubblers.
Secondly, I would look for obvious features such as islands, reedbeds, weedbeds or lilies. These are known fish holding features and although the largest or wariest carp may avoid them, they will certainly hold resident fish and would be a good starting point.
Finally, I would look at the wind direction and, dependent on the direction and strength, would either look to fish into or behind it as necessary.
When you say ‘signs of fish’ I take it you mean crashes at the surface or bubbling ‘hot-spots’, through to dorsal fins cruising through the water. But does this necessarily mean the fish are actually feeding? And what are the tell-tale signs of possible feeding spots for the fish that are showing?
The obvious signs are small patches of bubbles or clouded areas where the silt or mud has been disturbed as the fish root around feeding.
Fish crashing or swirling is a very deep topic that has no definitive answers. There are many different opinions.
Crashing fish are not necessarily feeding ones, but if you have nothing else to go on then fishing in an area where fish are known to be present is certainly more advantageous than picking an otherwise barren-looking area.
You also mentioned wind direction, facing winds and fishing on the back of a wind. What is a good wind direction and what is a bad one? And why?
The wind direction and strength can play a major part in fish location. Due to our climate, winds from the south and the west tend to be warmer so are more conducive to carp fishing.
There is an old sea fishing rhyme and two parts of it are quite relevant here.
When the winds in the East, the fish bite least, When the winds in the West, the fish bite best.
This is generally a good rule of thumb, but it should be considered along with the whole picture.
If you are sat on a deep lake on a stifling day in August, then a gentle easterly breeze may actually enhance your chances (as well as your comfort). But in the colder months, then a strong easterly may cool the water even more and kill any chances you had.
Thus, fishing into a warm southerly or westerly wind (or combination of the two) will give you a better chance and you should fish on the back of a cold easterly, ie, in the calm water behind the wind.
This is obviously very general and will depend on your venue as there will always be exceptions.
Wind strength is also an important factor to consider in conjunction with the depth of water and lake size.
Larger lakes tend to be more affected by winds, as do shallower waters where the undertow has a more immediate effect. The wind will cause a wave motion and thus an undertow, which will disturb food item goodies locked up in the bottom silt. Locating this area where the larder door has been broken open will give you an advantage.
So you’ve located and chosen your venue, you’ve gained as much local knowledge as possible and taken into consideration the recent catch reports. You’ve got pretty much the run of the lake so you’ve chosen a swim that will take, let’s say, one rod to the island and another to a bed of reeds. There’s been a few carp rolling and crashing near the island and just a few carpy bubbles around the reedbed swim that has a warm south westerly blowing into it.
So what’s next? What’s going through your mind now? Is it important to find the depth? Or to determine the condition of the bottom of the lake or is it just as simple as, ‘we’ve located the fish, now let’s throw our baits at them?’
Once again it will be down to experience and each individual water. If you think that you can place an attractive bait to the fish, then do so with the minimum of disturbance.
My experience of island margins and edges of reedbeds is that they are very rarely clean and are normally littered with branches, twigs or dead reeds, thus hindering bait presentation.
The application of some dissolving rig foam or placing the hookbait or rig into a PVA bag will give a ‘clean’ presentation of the hookbait and this may cause less disturbance than casting around with a lead or marker.
This will need to be evaluated on a swim by swim basis, but you shouldn’t need to bombard fish with bait if they are on the move and hopefully feeding.
If you can get a decent look into the swim without spooking the fish and they have moved out, then try to get some bait down there to try and hold them when they return.
Well that was the first of our series, where we covered new venues through to the best way to tackle swim choice. Over the coming months I will be grilling Rik to find out his views and theories on the following subjects:
Spodding
Using A Marker Float
How To Determine Underwater Topography
Pre-Baiting And Loose Feeding
Baits
Hooks – Shapes And Sizes
Rig Choice – What And Where
Braid Versus Mono
Carp Care And Essential Tackle
All About The Carp – Male, Female, Never Been Caught
If you have any questions or comments regarding this series then let’s get a thread going on the forum. Or if you have additional topics you’d like the expert to take a look at, then send me an email: stuartdennis@msn.com.
