carpepecheur

Jerome Moisand has produced and watched many hours of underwater carp videos and has come to the conclusion that anti eject rigs do not work. He argues that the force of water when the carp blows out just pushes everything in front of it. I did some tests by sucking and blowing water into a glass tube testing various rigs and came to a similar conclusion. I tried to find a way to ACTIVELY turn the hook when a carp sucks in and came up with the idea of "The Spinner" which has already been described here I was very disappointed when I missed my very first run using "The Spinner" but since then it has proven to be an effective hooker. However there are some reservations regarding it. It has been suggested that it provides the possibility of hooking outside the mouth before it is sucked in. I have never seen this in practise or in tank tests but the worry still remains. The other reservation is that, every time a new bait is needed a fresh rig has to be tied. This can be a bit of a pain. In an effort to prove Jerome wrong, I came up with a second ACTIVE hook turning rig which I call "The Turner" The following diagram shows how to tie it:- The next diagram shows "The Turner" in use. First a bait is mounted on a loop of dental floss and held in place with a boilie stop. The two ends of the floss are then used to tie the bait onto the rig ring on the hook. The idea is that as the carp sucks in the bait, the bristle comes against the lip of the carp and starts to turn. There is little likely hood of the point penetrating on entry as it enters bend first. Once inside the mouth, the hook is in an aggressive hooking position when the carp blows out. But in addition to this, if the end of the bristle also goes inside the mouth, it will stop the carp easily ejecting the hook. This is very much at the idea stage as I have yet to test it in the lake. I fish a clean bottom, with my bait inside a PVA bag so tangles on casting are not an issue. This is my first attempt at tying the rig. I would appreciate any helpful comments.

You are about 100 miles away and perhaps 2 hours drive. You are welcome to come over for some fishing if you want. Depends on dates and whether we have visitors. The same licence applies in both areas. Lac Mont bell is enormous, well over 1000 acres and holds large carp. It is reputed to be difficult (by French standards) and I am not sure how necessary it is to have a boat.

I'm way down South, just North of the Pyrenees. Yes plenty of good fishing and most of it free (once you have licence). It is not quite the same as the North of France where you have organised carp fisheries. The carp around here have not been specially bred to put on weight and fattened up on high protein foods. They are more lean , mean and hard fighting but sometimes difficult to find. I rarely go further than my local lake, 3 miles away. 110 acres and usually I am the only person fishing! If you want to know more try googling this B00781MKAW

Good luck. Don't forget your sun-cream. Temp is 36 deg C at the moment and rising!

Like al things French, it is not straightforward. Your question is answered in this link. If you do not speak French you can cut and paste the URL into Google Translate and it does a pretty good English translation. http://www.cartedepeche.fr/33-la-reciprocite.htm Basically, wherever you buy your carte de peche, (online, tabacs, tourist office, tackle shops) it covers you for most of the area you are likely to be fishing in. If you are going to be fishing lakes as well as rivers, you need to buy one with a "vignette du Club Halieutique". Many waters are run by a club which belongs to this organisation and they have a reciprocal agreement so that all members can fish all lakes. So if you wish to fish these waters you need to make sure this stamp is included on your fishing license. They will tell you when you buy it. (It can be purchased separately and stuck on later) Hope this helps? If you have any specific questions try a PM to Guy Holman mentioned earlier. I believe he is studying to become a Garde de Peche so should know all the regulations

Yes you are certainly right. I forgot to say that I fish almost exclusively with my bait in a pva bag specifically to avoid tangles.

I must put my hand up for re-inventing the wheel it was not Cobelyn's fault. I am often accused of re-inventing the wheel but who knows, I may find a better shape one day. I think you are referring to something called The Weighted Drop Rig. I have been unable to find it on the net (and am too tight to buy his videos!). Could you manage a sketch of how it works? I used to be a fan of putting a shot on the bend of the hook until I started testing them in my "think tank". I believe the idea started with Frank Warwick. The weight seems to help the hook drop out of the mouth rather than into it. It depends how vertical the carp is when he blows out. Anyway the point you make about outside hook holds is a good one and I have been thinking about it. If the weight between the hook and boilie is increased so that it just sinks the boilie, the length of line between the bolie and the second weight can be adjusted. The longer that distance is, the further the boilie goes into the mouth before it starts to spin. The important thing is that on sucking in, the hook is shielded by the boilie and outside hook holds should be avoided. I am planning to give it its first test this evening. Now if only the carp will co-operate!

Yes I saw the smilies but haven't worked out how to use them (wink smiley here)

I tie my rigs from scratch every time. I rarely reuse them. The boilie goes on first before tying the hook. I do put a small rubber float stop above the boilie to stop the hook slipping down. No I have not fished it yet because I only dreamed it up today. Tomorrow will be the first test. I do not keep schtum about any of my ideas. My local lake is so rarely fished the chances of anyone competing with the same rig is about a million to one. I prefer to share ideas so that I can get feedback from more experienced anglers and hopefully make improvements. So all feedback is gratefully accepted.

OK the title is just a pun on my latest rig called The Spinner. I recently bought a fish tank from Cash Converters to try and understand how well my rigs were working. To try and emulate the sucking and blowing of a carp I fitted a transparent tube with a piston to generate a suck and blow. I have been doing some tests with the tube and have learned a lot. Most set ups suck the boilie in with the hook underneath and then, when it blows out, the boilie can push against the hook taking it out the mouth of the carp. Most rigs try and find a way to increase the chances of a hold but suffer by various degrees from this problem. I have come up with a solution called “The Spinner”. The small shot is not quite heavy enough to sink the pop up boilie. The larger shot is just heavy enough to hold the pop up on the bottom. It hangs in the water as shown. When the carp sucks in, the drag from the larger shot causes the boilie to spin so that the hook turns upwards in the carps mouth. The carp starts to blow out but the hook is now clear of the boilie looking for a hook hold. In fact the spinning action generated could actually set the hook but that is only conjecture on my part. I have made a crude video which shows the rig in position, then being sucked and blown in real time, then in slow motion, then some step by step frame shots. The quality is poor because I do not have a proper video camera but it is easy to see the hook spinning to find its hold. Watch it here:-

Bonne chance et bon courage

Sorry Ross my "Pocket Rig" was designed for weed free situations.

Being hard up I make my own zig rigs. Not only does this save money but, in my opinion, it works better. This is a photo of my zig rig ready to cast. I typically fish in 7 metres of water and I like a distance of 3 metres between hook and float so that the latter does not spook the carp. Note how small and neat it is to cast. I call it the "Pocket Zig" The next photo shows how it goes together The main line, coming from the left, passes through the eye of a lead weight, then through the eye of the float and then through a rubber float stop passing on to the hook 3 metres away. With the weight on the bottom the main line is released until the float is seen on the surface. At this point, all 3 metres of the hook link is on the surface. I now retrieve three metres of line and only the hook is now just on the surface. Retrieve a bit more line equivalent to the depth at which you want to fish the zig et voila. On the retrieve the float comes against the top eye of the rod and further pulling slides the float against the stop towards the hook. This means you do not have to struggle with 3 metres of line between you and the carp if you do hook a decent fish. The float is homemade from a wine cork, table-tennis ball, and wooden barbeque skewer stuck together with "no nails". To get ready to cast, wind a short bit of pva tape around the cork bit of the float IN A CLOCKWISE DIRECTION . Then wind the 3 metres of hooklink around the cork bit of the float IN AN ANTICLOCKWISE DIRECTION. Then simply nick the point of the hook into the PVA to hold it place. When the tape melts after casting, the hook link unwinds. I hope someone else finds this useful?

Fish go walkabout ?..... in France? ..... surely not?

You are right Mrs R but I do not think you will find a site with links to lakes for lease for a period and then for sale as the OP requires. I would suggest making a proposal, along the lines he suggests, to those owners with lakes for sale. I am sure your kind offer will be appreciated.

This link may help carp lakes for sale

Just to be picky it should be "une grande bière" you will also find that all carp in France are female (linguistically). To be more helpful, don't look for fags in a supermarket. They are sold in tabacs. très bijou Rodney ..... (pukka mate)

I posted this link on another forum ... When the boilie is blown out the hook trails behind in the mouth.

Could I ask a question about the "hand test"? I have seen the videos where various rigs are dragged over the heel of the palm to demonstrate how the hook will behave. It would seem to me that this only demonstrates what is happening when the line is being pulled i.e. when there is tension in the line. This will happen when the boilie is being sucked in or if the carp is backing away. If the carp is just mouthing the bait or is blowing it out, the feature demonstrated by the hand test is surely irrelevant?

Good thinking, that had not occurred to me. However I have been using a shot on the hook for a year now and have never lost one. I twist a short piece of electrical wire on the start of the bend (pointed end) and nip the shot on that. I believe it makes the hook drop better towards the carp's bottom lip and helps turn the hook point down. I believe the original idea is attributed to Frank Warwick. I am not familiar with the mechanics of fish biology but would think it unlikely that a shot would be swallowed during a fight. Regarding hooklength, could I suggest trying a very short link to a hermit rig. I have found this effective. I definitely agree with your one change at a time idea. Good luck

It is an idea I have just started working on (I just coined that phrase). I always put a BB shot on the bend of the hook to help and yes I do use it with a fixed lead or to be more precise a Hermit rig. You are not being daft .... just thinking.

I would suggest that once the boilie is in the carp's mouth it has no longer any purpose. In fact from that point on it is a liability. It can be blown out, pushing the hook with it or, if a hook hold has started, it can suck/blow on the boilie to try and release it. This may be happening in your case. My suggestion is The Breakaway Boilie. Whatever your rig, replace the boilie stop with a sliding float stop (or even no stop at all). When any pressure is put on the boilie it slides off the hair and can do no further damage leaving the hook free to do its job. This will only work, of course, if you cast out your hook bait inside a pva bag as I tend to do.

June 1st but no fines proposed until November then 11 euros fine

There is a certain amount of gossip going around at the moment. It is illegal to run any business in France without a siret number and it is illegal to use those services. There is a lot of bad feeling between Brits who run bona fide businesses (not necessarily fishing related) with correct qualifications, tax payments etc and those who work "on the black". There is a culture of denouncement in France. If you report someone to the tax authorities for tax avoidance and they are able to retrieve that tax, the informer gets a small percentage as a reward. This can lead to family feuds that rattle on for years. The other bit of gossip is that there is a lot of discussion on forums about fish stealing. Apparently a lot of fish have been taken from public waters and used to stock British owned fisheries. This has got up the nose of a lot of French carp anglers. Our local water bailiff told me that, because I was British, I ought to be aware that I must kill any carp before taking from the lake. (many locals eat them!). If you mix this little lot together there is potential for some rather unpleasant situations.