Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Have a great evening
It’s easy to make the most of just a few hours if you strip down your tackle and get hunting, says
It’s a common truism in carp fishing that time is one of the most difficult things to find while chasing your dream capture. Many of us work 9- 5 but some of you may be lucky enough to get to a lake before 6pm for a few hours fishing before dark. And until the clocks go back at the end of October, these opportune sessions can be extremely fruitful.
I start getting withdrawal symptoms if I’m away from the bank for just a few days, so I often head to the lake after work to get my fix.
It’s easy to overlook the mountain of angling opportunities that could be achieved by spreading some of our precious fishing time over the mid- week period. I’m sure everyone has heard the advice that “the best time to catch is first or last light.” And this is true. Just like human beings, fish are creatures of habit and usually feed best at times similar to us - breakfast and dinner being two examples.
some of my best fishing has been after work, during spontaneous sessions where I’m dressed in totally the wrong clothes, climbing through bushes still togged up for work. But wow, the rewards are worth it.
As always, the summer seems to go far too quickly and the light hours are reducing faster than I would like them to. By this time of year a good proportion of fish will have seen the bank at least once and angling pressure will still be high. Weed and natural food will also still be plentiful and you can often find carp mooching around margins and weedy areas.
staying mobile and stalking carp in the edge is an excellent way of maximising your chances during a short after work session. there are numerous advantages to stalking.
For me, though, the main plus point is that not many anglers actually do it. If you’re willing to go looking for the carp and then feeding them and setting a trap in the edge while everybody else is sat stationary behind their rods, your efforts will more than likely be rewarded with a fish or two.
Actively search for fish
The equipment needed for stalking is minimal. A rod or two, unhooking mat, landing net, a small bag of end tackle and some bait and you’re ready to go.
A slow walk around the lake looking for promising areas and feeding a few spots can quickly result in carp giving away their location. Over the years this has given me many chances and has led to a number of opportunistic captures both up in the water with zigs and on the deck.
Locating carp at close quarters puts you in a fantastic position to judge their reaction to bait and rigs. If the water is clear enough you can even identify individual fish. Studying them for a while and observing how they approach the bait may just give you a clue as to how to catch them. When I have spotted my target, I begin introducing a few baits in two areas quite close to each other in the patrol routes. While setting up my rods I constantly watch the water for any fish feeding on my freebies. The key is not to rush getting a hookbait into the water. Believe me, no matter how stealthy you think you are being, the carp know you are on the bank. The longer you allow them to feed with no lines in the water, the easier it will be to eventually catch one or two as they begin to feel you are not a threat.
Zig rigs for the margins
In the margins I find mini zigs popped-up 6in straight off the lead works really well. The hooklink material I use is Kodex Zig & Floater line. I have witnessed too many fish shy away from my hookbaits with other lines on the surface and in clear water, but since I have made the change to the Zig & Floater line the carp no longer hesitate in taking the hookbait.
I think this is largely because its special fluorocrystal characteristics make it almost invisible both on the surface and the under the water. From observing fish close up they don’t seem to have any idea that the hooklink is there even when they’re really close to it. I complete the rig with a Kodex Genomic Wide Gape hook - a deadly combination.
A double hit of specimens
After casting out my little zig I could see the tails of two carp flicking just under the surface, feeding on top of the weed, and within seconds my rod was off. With an intense battle on my KX-i rod, taking me all around the lake, I finally managed to slip the net under a cracking carp – known as C Scale – at 41lb 4oz.
With a carp caught so quickly and hungry for more, I noticed a lot of fizzing in the left-hand margin of the other area where I had been throwing small PVA bags of pellets covered in the Kodex Ectoplasm over the top of a handful of Monster Baits boilies every 10 minutes for the last 30 minutes.
I could see fish moving in and out of this margin and noticed another large carp giving away a feeding patrol. I slowly lowered my rig on to the area being visited frequently by this unit of a fish with a little mesh PVA bag of pellet dribbled with my favourite Ectoplasm.
Twenty minutes later, bang, I was off again. This battle resulted in the carp I had been watching – another known carp, Apple Slice – weighing in at 34lb. This time it was mission accomplished, with the light drawing in fast and my dinner probably in the bin or the dog, it was time to chuck my gear into the car and head home buzzing all the way.