Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Get active & keep catching – Brian Skoyles
Brian Skoyles and Colin Cutts prove that reducing your kit and staying mobile will produce more summer carp
IT’S great when you have time to set the traps, put the kettle on and wait for the carp to find you. For most of us, though, time is limited and if you want to catch consistently you will have to go to them. In the warmer months when the fish are active, being mobile can be the difference between catching and blanking. With fishing time hard to come by, Colin Cutts has to make the most of his time on the bank. I joined him for a day of mobile carping at Trent View in Nottingham.
Venue choice
Trent View is well stocked and because it’s relatively weed-free with an open expanse of water the fish readily show themselves. If you are vigilant it won’t take long to find the fish. By contrast, weedy, tree-lined lakes make spotting fish much harder. The fish tend to move less because of the weed but once you have found them, though, you can usually rely on them being there for a while. We’ve all experienced that feeling when you’re settled in a swim but deep down you know you’re in the wrong spot. Gradually the doubts increase as you watch fish top outside your fishing area or you see others catching. Do you stick or twist? There is a lot of truth in the saying that five minutes in the right place is better than five hours in the wrong one. Often, though, you’ll only make the decision to move if you are geared up to be mobile.
Trolley dash
Some modern carp waters make mobile fishing easier with good access all round the lake. In many cases, it is actually possible to keep most of the gear in the car. Colin favours this approach and only takes the essentials into the swim. Some of the lakes I fish are not so handy and I use a small fold up-trolley and keep the gear to a minimum.
More rods can produce less
When moving on to showing fish it is important to keep disturbance at a minimum. One rod among confident feeding fish is better than casting multiple rods out and alerting the fish. Much depends on exactly where you have seen fish activity. At range you can generally get away with multiple rods, but margin feeders often need a more cautious approach.
Weedy swims
Weed can be a real issue on many waters, particularly if you want to get a bait in the water without spooking the fish. You cannot risk lots of leading around and casting of marker floats. I use a rig that I call the ‘Mega Naked Choddy’. This is based around the Korda Naked Chod Safety System and the Heli-Safe lead system. The big difference is that I fish it with a longer hooklink than you would normally use on a chod rig. This gives me the maximum chance of the hookbait staying clear of all but the thickest weed. Using this I’m confident of casting to showing fish without the need for lots of exploratory casts with a marker float.
Fishing the margins
I love margin stalking. All that’s required is one rod and a small PVA mesh bag, then it’s a case of sitting well back, laying the rod on the ground and making sure the clutch is slack. Even on very busy waters there will be spots where the fish come in close.
Baiting for mobility
When moving on to active fish the aim is to get a quick bite rather than a big hit of fish. Colin uses a Method feeder as it delivers a tight pile of attraction together with a single hookbait in one cast. The hooklink is 4in of Kryston Merlin and the hook a size 7 Fox Edges Curve Shank. His Method mix is incredibly simple. He starts by pouring 2kg of 4mm Trigga Ice pellets into a bucket and then covers with boiling water. A few crushed boilies are added before the lid is put on and the contents left overnight. I favour a double wafter hookbait coupled with a small PVA bag of boilie crumb and finished off with a flavour spray. This gives me a combination of a food bait and a high attract pop-up, plus the bag of sprayed crumb adds loads of smell around the hookbait. I always test my hookbait buoyancy in the margin and trim off bits until it sinks slowly. When I’m mobile angling I rarely use a lot of free bait, just a few boilies scattered around the area I’m fishing. If I’m worried about spooking the fish on more pressured waters I won’t even do that.
Bottom, top or in between
In the warmer months carp can be active and prepared to feed in the various water layers – on the bottom, on the top and anywhere in between. You have to be prepared to fish where the fish want to feed rather than where you want to fish. It doesn’t take a lot of organising to carry a basic floater kit and a few zig bits, so you can present a bait in the layers you suspect the fish are most active in. Good mobile angling is a combination of physical mobility and mental mobility, placing yourself in the right swim and your hookbait in the right place. Over the years I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve moved and caught soon after settling into my new swim. Unfortunately, I’ve also lost count of the number of times, I’ve stayed in a swim and regretted not moving.
The session
As I drove up to the gate I could see Colin was already fishing. “You wouldn’t believe the number of fish topping, I can’t understand why I’ve not had a take already,” said a bemused Colin. We sat and watched fish enjoying the early morning sun, but gradually the activity slowed and eventually stopped altogether. It was time for our first move. With hot weather forecast, we headed for the shallows where Colin opted to fish three rods across to the far reed-lined margin. With a gentle breeze and a clear blue sky he was confident it wouldn’t be long before the fish arrived. I sat and watched the water hoping for some clues. It was getting progressively hotter, nobody was catching and the fish
weren’t giving themselves away. Trent View is very well-stocked, so they had to be somewhere. Thankfully, it didn’t take me long to find them. As I walked along the railway bank I saw two fish moving along the reed line. I stopped to get a better look and soon spotted more carp. I hastily sorted a rod, crept to the front of the swim and swung the bait into the margin. Normally I’m a patient angler, but for some reason instead of sitting and waiting, content in the knowledge I had a bait near the fish, I decided to put a second rod out. A big mistake. I thought I’d positioned it okay but something alerted the fish to danger because gradually I could see fewer and fewer carp. After a while they had all gone. I gave it an hour and again went walkabout, as did Colin. He had seen a few fish in the margins to the right of the entrance, but still fancied the shallows. I decided to investigate the other area near the entrance. There were a few fish in the margins and, more importantly, judging by the puffs of silt in the water, they were feeding. This time I had no intention of mucking it up. One rod was gently lowered into the cloudy water and I watched and waited. I didn’t have to wait long as the water erupted and the spool started spinning as a huge bow wave charged off into the lake. There were a few anxious moments, but eventually I slid the net under a nice mirror. I phoned Colin who decided to give up on the shallows and join me as I could still see some fish in front of me. I watched on as Colin carefully swung out his hookbait to the edge of the reeds. It looked really promising and after a short while his spool was spinning. I grabbed the camera and turned round just as the fish came off. Colin’s expression said it all. Despite the disturbance, there were still fish up and down the margin, but there was less evidence of them feeding on the bottom. With time running out Colin cast a pineapple pop-up on a zig rig into their patrol route. We stood watching fish swim near it but not take it. Then out of the blue it was taken and once again it came off. “Get it back out there, there’s still time” I encouraged. Again, we stood watching as several fish swam past the clearly visible pop-up. One couldn’t resist and this time it stayed on and Colin soon had a well-earned mirror in the net. It had been a tough day, tricky weather with few chances, but we’d both caught. Being mobile and working at it, had paid off with some exciting fishing.