Filmed on RMC’s Blue Pool gave the film an extra edge for me being as I fished it along with a number of other FISHINGmagic members earlier this year (2004) on an FM fish-in. It makes a difference when you can relate to the water and recognise scenery and swims as the camera picks them out.
For me, Part 2 is still the best of the series so far, but this Part 3 was interesting enough and well worth watching. The camera work and the presentation has got more professional since Part 1 and the DVD navigation itself is slicker and more modern, even though the background music at times gets on your wick and you find yourself reaching for the volume control.
Part 3 is more of what went on in Part 1, which is filming the fish as they, for the most part, turned their noses up at baits and rigs in the clear water of the Blue Pool. The one thing I learned from this film, above all, is that most of the time we assume there are no fish in the swim when they most certainly are, but far too wary of the bait or presentation to be tempted enough to take the bait.
For the most part, in daylight, it wasn’t a rig that couldn’t turn a take into a hooked fish, but a rig or bait that deterred the fish from picking up the bait in the first place.
Clear lines and fluoro lines are best, of that there is no doubt, and my decision to change to these some years ago for most of my fishing in daylight was a good one. The clearer the line and the more you can pin it down on the bottom the better. The reactions of the fish made that obvious.
It was amazing how the fish set themselves a very distinct line that they would approach to and mop up the free feed but would not cross that line. Within that line was a danger zone and they kept away from it as though it were shielded by an electric fence.
(It was at this point in the film I would have liked to have seen a longer hooklength used, one that would have extended beyond that ‘electric fence’, just to see if that could have been an answer. If it would have tempted at least one fish to pick up that bait that lay outside the danger zone.)
Yet, once the light failed or the water became cloudy that line receded until it no longer existed and the hookbait was taken.
Again, popped up baits were the greatest turn-off in bright conditions. They were just too obvious to the fish and spelt danger.
In spite of being 31/2 hours run time there were several unanswered questions. Danny Fairbrass comes to a number of conclusions that I would have liked to have seen more evidence of why he had reached that conclusion, although he does say in the film that it was made over five days and edited into just 31/2 hours, so he had more evidence in that time to reach his conclusions. He also makes one or two statements that needed explaining. For instance, right at the beginning of Disk 1 he says he’s got a new reel and then proceeds to dip it in the water before casting, claiming that it was necessary. Okay, I know why, but there will be a good number of less experienced viewers who won’t.
But don’t let little things like that put you off watching this film, they are only minor distractions in a production that is valuable viewing to any angler, not just carp anglers.
