Carp Fishing Advanced Tactics

“Carp Fishing Advanced Tactics” by Simon Crow

Published by Crowood Press
Retails at £ 19.95
240 pp
Numerous colour photographs on almost every page!

As you would expect from the title of the book and the name of the author, this is just the kind of book to get you and me carping properly! Maybe I insult you, but I consider myself a carp splodger rather than a refined carp, so this book is the one to put me back on the track.

Chapter 1

Deals with carp behaviour, especially under conditions of angling pressure, to which many waters are subjected. He also discusses the “intelligence” of carp and comes to roughly the same conclusions as some other famous carpers such as Richard Walker. One thing I did like was his conclusion that carp learn to recognise good food and select it. This was the basis of Fred Wilton’s Boilie revolution and I know it is correct.

Fish rarely go “off” an HNV boilie of good nutritious quality. If you are fishing a pressurised water than you’ll need to “mark” your HNV boilie so that the fish select it in preference to inferior food. This is one of the nicest chapters in the book because it emphasises that all is not understood. It ends with a section on “uncaught carp”. It’s odd isn’t it, that one should feel the necessity to convince people that there are uncaught carp out there!

Chapter 2

Takes you through the carp angler’s year, what to expect in the way of weather and how to deal with it, and the different carping techniques needed at different times of the year. The chapter is very detailed and one of the very best reads on the subject that I have come across. The rigs are particularly clear, well illustrated and argued for.

Chapter 3

Rob Hughes and his observations on carp as a diver. I won’t tell you much about this chapter except to say that it is fascinating reading. Very very instructive in fact. There then follows a couple of chapters of great use to the average carper, one on bait boats and their uses and another on using (proper) boats as an aid to baiting up, transporting gear etc. The chapter on rigs will, for many, be the highlight of this book. It begins with an interview with Frank Warwick, and then goes onto his own rigs, with extremely clear diagrams.

The book gets a little more advanced in the next chapter “staying one step ahead” and for me it is one of the highlights of the book (the other I’ll mention in a moment or two. The carp food chapter is very thorough and includes an interview with Rod Hutchinson; and he follows it with a chapter on how he prepares his own hockbaits.

The holiday carp fishing is useful and, indeed, mouth-watering section, but the second real highlight for me was Chapter 12 “Opening week at Redmire”. I think it is good that so modern an angler as Simon can create exactly the atmosphere of Redmire that captivated the pioneers Walker, Thomas and the rest. It was a lovely read this bit.

This carp book is one of the very highest calibre, extremely informative – so much so that I shall be using it as a bit of a referent book for my own carping – and very well written. In fact, I reckon it’s the best carp book for quite some time.

	Barrie Rickards Verdict
	This carp book is one of the very highest calibre, extremely informative – so much so that I shall be using it as a bit of a referent book for my own carping – and very well written. In fact, I reckon it’s the best carp book for quite some time.