Leaderboard

After Elmo's plea for more content, I decided to start this one. Below is a video I found on You Tube. It's a fair effort and uses tech to the max, bait boats, drones and underwater camera's. Despite all that, I couldn't believe how blatant the rig was, especially the pop up. The line was bow tight and stood out like a sore thumb and even the lead stood out more than I thought it would. I've seen quite a few of these types of video's and I can't believe that the carp continue to feed anywhere near the area. I'm a bit paranoid about trying to make everything as unobtrusive as possible. I use Korda Safezone leaders (fluorocarbon) and always backlead to keep everything pinned to the deck although I know it compromises bite detection. All my rigs are combi's with a fluorocarbon boom with an inch or so of supple braid to give the hookbait some movement. I don't use pop-ups but but do often use a slip-D combi rig with a wafter that has been bored with some cork to create what I call a wafter+, it is enough to lift the bait off the bottom but the hook still touches the bottom. What edges do you use to minimise suspicion?

Whilst this is mainly true some of the trickiest carp to catch can be those that have seen it all on a daily basis on a busy commercial, I reeled in a bent hookpoint after one bleep last trip so deffo been done. 95% of bites are dropbacks and you rarely connect, that is NOT normal - this is my finding on Bluebell's Kingfisher anyway - cute as anything. On my big, low stock lake I think they are scared of baited patches which again seems pretty rare, they usually say find them and you'll catch, here it's find them - cast out and they're gone lol This lake is so clear I've been looking at my flouro leaders thinking well they're easy to see - should I go back to leadcore. Minefield!

4 day blank on the canal for me 🤣 back to the complex for a couple nights 👍

I'm not going to get all technical ,here's what I've learnt over time .. I had an old friend 'Egloskerry Tom' Tom had a massive influence on me as a youngster ,as far as carping went he was God.. I used to watch him set up a rod ,cast his latest rig out ,with the latest homemade RH recipe, Partridge hook ,then came attaching backleads ,sinking the line ,....you get the picture !...a right kerfuffle!.. He didn't catch many ,but I loved him as a friend .. Anyway I used to turn up with a bag of Richwoth tutti, some not looking to good ,just found some ,spots that I felt held fish ...one Sunday I turned up he'd been there hours same routine etc ....and nowt ...by lunch time fishing simple running rigs and so on I had 7 nice carp...what that taught me is over complication looses against simplicity .. I fish similar even today, simple is best ,no gadgets or gimmicks ,just a sharp hook in the right place carp are simple creatures...if they don't feed there is nothing you can do about it...and boy ,don't those tackle manufacturers know it they play on people's insecurity..

I've actually made my MO to be largely yellow beds of bait, I've used maize flake, sweetcorn and yellow pellets, all doused in yellow smart liquid,

I've never used a fluoro pop-up, I prefer match the hatch muddy brown baits similar to my freebies. I know a lot people use a snowman or a bit of pop up corn above the boilie for a fleck of colour but it just looks so blatant to me. We get "done" far more than you would believe. For many years I fished a shallow river for barbel that went crystal clear at certain times of year and it was a revelation. The amount of times I would have barbel come onto a baited area and then I would see my grains of corn get blown out with force and all the fish would scatter. Another time I had a run baited with hemp and corn and a fish was coming up the swim in a straight line hoovering up the freebies. It come to my double corn (on a 3 foot hooklink to avoid spooking), veered around it and carried on up the run taking everything else! I was using the double corn so it was obvious to me where the hookbait was, unfortunately it was also obvious for the barbel! My thinking is that if I can create an area that seems "safe" and there is nothing that the fish can associate with danger, the greater the chance of catching them.