Carpworld 346 July 2019

TONY ATKINS

CHRIS BALL

THE EXPLOITS OF AN ORDINARY MAN – PART II

ENCOUNTERS WITH MARY

THE ORIGINAL AND STILL THE BEST

inside

N I W

RETURN OF THE

MAC

UP T E S £345 D O H R 2- ORT W

A SPRING ON BAYESWATER

JUL – 2019 Issue

346 £4.99

DARRELL PECK

MYLES GIBSON

D AV E L A N E

THE ORIENT EXPRESS

RETURNS WITH HIS DINTON DIARIES

A T R I P D O W N M E M O R Y L A N E – S T. I V E S

ALSO: TIM PAISLEY PAUL FORWARD

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LES BOWERS

IAN CHILLCOTT

LOZ EAST

MIKE BRIDGES

GREG ELLIS STEVE BRIGGS

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Jon McAllister

Return of

the Mac

Following a hiatus from any serious angling in recent times, Jon has made quite the resurgence of late. Firstly by taking the plunge into the murky world social media and then using it to showcase parts of a whirlwind start to this season after his name finally came up for Gary Bayes’ syndicate water in Essex. This is how it all unfolded in full

W

ell, how on earth I’m going to explain what has happened in the weeks, months and years since I last wrote an article, I have no idea! I certainly haven’t got the time, or the space, to fill in all the blanks but all I can do is start at the beginning of that period and hope the story I have to tell covers enough bases and still makes for an enjoyable read and an eye-opener into my return.

Most of you will be aware that around four years ago I set up Proper Carp Baits with my good mate, Sean Leverett. Our ethos was clear from the outset and we set to, producing arguably some of the best, high-quality nutritional baits ever produced.

It has been a labour of love and for anybody who thinks that because I’m partners in a bait firm it must mean I’m rolling in it, if you’ll pardon the pun, they really need to think again! It has been very, very hard work establishing a bait company in such a competitive market.

Nowadays the industry is full of big companies with big money behind them, or, at the other end of the spectrum, people buying cheap bait and rebranding/re-selling it for a nominal gain and undercutting those companies who, like us, do everything in house. If you’re looking for a high-end bait, your support would be very much

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Pecky’s Darrell PEck

Progress

Darrell sets sail for another intrepid adventure on the high seas of the mighty Orient once more, only this time he is aboard The Black Pearl

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D

uring the early part of the winter 2018 I’d been locked in the office trying to make a decentsized dent in writing a second book. Talking and writing about fishing without actually going is really difficult for me and as a result I made two quite substantial retail therapy purchases. The first of these was a new Canon EOS R camera and the second had been a fibreglass cabin boat. To be honest the cabin boat and trailer were purchased with the proceeds from selling my previous bivvy boat, but had I known the offer of the Wellington Country Park ticket was coming just two days later, I don’t think I would have been quite so frivolous. The boat lay dormant in the garage all winter, but toward the end of March, I repaired a couple of small holes in the hull. It was at this point I started to find myself in the office staring at my calendar with intentions of a big carp adventure to the ocean that is Orient. A Thinking Tackle shoot glared back at me, engulfing nearly all the first half of May and the real question was if Natalie could manage without me long enough to bolt a personal session onto that.

Make no mistake three weeks is a long time to be away from home in anyone’s book, not mention with a pregnant wife and young twins to deal with. To soften the blow we were going on holiday toward the end of April and with the in-laws in agreement that they would help out where necessary, it was confirmed. With permission granted I set about painting The Black Pearl for her maiden voyage as a carp boat. In my head I was thinking battle ship or dark sea grey but the budget Halfords primer I used was just a ‘ little bit’ lighter. The end result not quite what I had had in mind! In a desperate attempt to salvage this horrendous job, I tried spraying in some black and my god she looked a mess. She resembled a bloody zebra, not a carpy vessel. With a few days to spare before the holiday I ordered in some military vehicle paint the end result was far more acceptable.

On our return from holiday, I spent a few days meticulously packing my stuff, I needed to be prepared, not only for the boat session at Orient, but also the second leg, which was the for a Thinking Tackle shoot that I’ll cover in next month’s piece.

The van was riding low with the weight of all the equipment and that was before I had hitched the bloody trailer on. It must have been close to the legal 3500kg limit and it certainly affected the fuel consumption en route. I arrived to Mesnil St Pere in the afternoon a couple of days before the lake opened for night fishing. The idea was to spend some time just looking before rushing straight into the fishing. The lake looked ominously moody from the tourist centre, shrouded in heavy, low-lying cloud, with a moderate to strong southerly blowing down its enormous length. I nipped in there to purchase my permit and then drove around to one of the lake’s many bays. The wind was piling into a corner here, the bottom visibly disturbed by the large waves driving a muddy backwash upwind. On top of this, hundreds of excited swifts, or house martins, were dipping into the white-crested waves and instantly I just knew there would be carp present. Within seconds of reaching this windward corner I saw two carp thrash themselves clear of the waves.

Beaten back by the wind and rain I spent the night camped at Gigantica and the following evening, still tormented by what I had seen, I arrived to the slip-way 24 hours before night fishing began. I had no intention of fishing earlier than permitted - I just wanted to get in position before anyone else could beat me to it.

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Myles Gibson

Carp Diary

After a winter at home sorting the house, Myles has been back on his syndicate lake, battling his way through the crowds in pursuit of two giant linears

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I RIGHT

The fish were often held up in the bay at range and the displays were unreal BELOW

The early season fishing was all about the zigs

spent the winter finishing the house off and doing a bit of pike fishing close to home. I was pushed for time and wanted to get it all done in time for mid-February, so I could get back down to Dinton in the hope of catching one of the big linears.

Thankfully I had managed it and the third week in to the month I was back on the banks of Black Swan to start another year on the lake. Looking back at my time so far, I had been lucky to catch a lot of carp and some of the really special ones too, but the two big linears had still continued to evade me.

Knowing the previous form of those fish, I knew February was a little bit early, so I decided to do a bit of zig fishing over on White Swan for a few trips, before moving over to Black later. According to my notes, it seemed that a lot of the better fish wouldn’t trip up in Black until the end of April, so I didn’t feel that I would be missing too much in the meantime.

It was incredibly warm for that time of year and I did the night up at the far end of White Swan.

Nothing happened, but I saw a flurry of shows the following morning which made me move. The fish stayed in the area for the remainder of the trip, but typically of that lake, the fish were also spotted by the other members and I think the consequent amount of lines in the area prevented the chances of a bite. In my head, the early spring on White had sounded a good idea, but realistically, it was about to get busy and I had been chasing those linears for three years now, I just had to get back over there, even if it was a little early.

It was the first week in March and I arrived

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late, just on dark, and with the rain and wind battering down and the dog in tow, it made it all such hard work... I have to carry more blankets and baby wipes than bait, he is a lot of admin, but I do love him coming with me. The wind was really strong, and I decided to fish in the bay, as it seemed to be a place they would often wake up after their winter slumber.

Nothing happened during that trip, other than a few sightings. A friend followed me in to the swim once I had left and he actually caught one, which was a sure sign that the fish were beginning to get up and about. By the time I was back down, there had been five fish out and all on the zigs from what I had heard. My usual go-to for that time of year, the gap in the islands at range was almost gone. You were able to fish from the island now and the fish just didn’t seem to get out there in the numbers that they once did, mainly down to the fact that it wasn’t a safe area anymore and they had soon worked that out.

Instead, I settled for a swim in the bay again, off the back of the wind and arriving on dark as before, I had to go on what I had learned from the week previous. Nothing happened during the night, so in the morning I reeled in the right and left hand rods and tied up new zigs for both. I left the middle and I can’t remember why, but it was a good call, as shortly afterwards, the bobbin on that rod dropped backwards to the floor. I ran down to the rod, frantically reeled down until I was met with some pressure, but after only a split second everything fell slack, there was nothing there... I couldn’t work out why it had happened.

I was fishing everything beefed up, with the idea of not losing anything. I was using 15lb line, size-8, hand-sharpened hooks and sizeable bits of foam, to make sure that if I did hook one, my tackle wouldn’t let me down. In this case it didn’t, but it still wasn’t effective enough to stay in the carp’s mouth for whatever reason.

That was the only occurrence for that trip and the following week I found myself in the bay again, this time in a different swim though.

I actually saw a bit of fizzing that session, so I decided to fish a couple on the deck and the last rod on a zig. I saw a few fish showing in to dark and the following morning too, but I had to wait until 1pm before I got the bite and off the bottom too. To my devastation, 10 seconds into the fight, the fish was gone. The hook point was kicked right over and I had a stern word with myself for perhaps over-sharpening them. On a plus note, I was now beginning to see more shows each week and although that was my only occurrence of the trip, I knew it wasn’t long before they would liven right up.

I had clocked a few fish showing in a different area of the lake and with the same weather conditions forecast for my next session, that is where I headed to. Underneath where the fish were showing, there was a huge area of silkweed and it plumed up two or three feet off the bottom in

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Dave Lane

A Trip Down Memory Lane

This month sees Dave recollect some obviously fond memories of his time spent up in Cambridgeshire, as he began fishing on a relatively unknown venue, at the start of the millennium CARPWORLD

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t must have been around 2002 when the St Ives complex first came to my attention. It was actually my old mate, Phil Thompson, who told me about a huge lake known as the Meadows and Fjords that held a small head of carp, one of which was apparently huge, and was a carp angler’s paradise. According to Phil, hardly anyone fished there, and it was a little slice of carpy heaven. Obviously this piqued my interest no end and I was soon driving up the A14 for a first look.

The complex itself was made up of quite a few different gravel pits, but it was the largest one I was interested in, a lake made up from four different diggings that had all joined together as the water table had risen after the pits were completed. Because of this, you had a huge square boating lake with two separate smaller lakes, the Fjords, which were annexed off, but still accessible to the fish. Both of these were incredibly intimate and littered with bars and islands. One of these, the larger Fjord, had an extra lake of a few acres stitched on the back which was also easily accessible by the carp; this was called the Steak Pit. I instantly fell in love with the place, especially when a huge, round, brown mirror carp hurled itself from the water right in front of me, not once, but four times, showing me every side and angle of his magnificence; I was hooked.

Actual swims, as such, were very thin on the ground and most of the more likely looking areas were reachable only by plotting up on one of the many small peninsulas or dividing bunds, often these would be about five feet wide so the brolly would have to be pegged into the lake on either side. I used to end up with the lake actually soaking up into the material and spreading a huge

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Rig Mike Bridges

Reasoning

This month we put Mike Bridges under the spotlight and listen as to why he is another advocate of keeping it simple in this day and age

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he fundamental basics around my own personal angling have, and always will be, based around the age old adage that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. The older I get, the more I see within the advancement of rig mechanics, however, I see just as many successful anglers sticking to tried and tested components that they ultimately have 110% confidence in.

If you don’t have confidence in what you are doing then it goes without saying that you are surely not angling anywhere near as effectively as you should be! Carp fishing information is a veritable minefield these days, you could be swayed at every turn, yet the people who I look up to for inspiration are the anglers who share the same ethos as me really. They to, very rarely come out of their comfort zone, why? Because they don’t need to and maybe, just maybe, we give our quarry far too much respect in that aspect. Location, location, location would certainly be my focal point before worrying over any new form of rig.

I only use two rigs within my own fishing, obviously one is a pop-up rig, which I use 99% of the time, and I also have a bottom bait rig. The vital piece of the jigsaw puzzle is that both must be able to reset themselves and be capable of ‘fishing again’ should any bird life pick the rig up, or should a carp manage to dislodge the hook. I fish a great many overnight sessions, it is what I’m renowned for, therefore time is very limited. I literally have 11 hours at my disposal in order to try and get it right. Without a shadow of a doubt I have to be content and sit under the stars assuming I have done everything I possibly can in order to catch and, without a rig that resets itself, my personal opinion is that your chances are diminished massively.

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Next Month

In the August issue Echoes – Steve Briggs Steve’s round-up of action from around the globe includes this stunning shot (above) of this 40lb+ common that became Laura Monnier’s new PB Mike Kavanagh’s Rigworld Mike’s guest in the hot-seat for next month is Dave Little who has quietly and successfully gone about his business on a number of difficult Cambs pits and the great ouse in recent years

Tony Atkins Tony wraps up his mini-series with the third and final instalment of Exploits of an Ordinary Man Paul Mallinson The DNA-backed angler looks back at the quick-fire start he made to his time on the Tyram Hall syndicate near Doncaster in South Yorkshire On sale: Friday 18th July 2019 | Subscribe now to have next month’s issue delivered to your door! www.gifts4anglers.co.uk

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