13 June 2015 – Catch Report from: Peter, Jane, Mark & Fiona

It was a case of quality over quantity this week at our exclusive venue with multiple 30’s banked (no 20’s) and more massive catfish!

This week we welcomed another family on their annual carp fishing holiday that had not, as yet discovered the joys of our delightful exclusive lake and accommodation. It would be just the boys fishing this week with the ladies enjoying various trips around the area. They were delighted with the quality of the accommodation and when they weren’t ferrying food and tea to the boys had a very relaxing time! On the fishing front Peter (father in law to Mark) was the self confessed novice of the team. As many do, he’d discovered carp fishing later in life and has been chasing his scaly quarry for the last three years. Mark been carp fishing for considerably longer and back home targets the harder club waters for his angling thrills. They’d both fished in France before but have always struggled to find the right balance between quality fishing and quality accommodation. If the girls aren’t happy then you’re not going to have a fun holiday boys!

The lads got off to a good start with a mirror of 31lbs for Peter and a 66lbs catfish for Mark who was very eager to bank himself a monster moggie. Peter lost a couple more nice carp at the net as they managed to roll on the line and lever the hook out which was gutting. Following complaints from the ladies that the boys had setup on the shady north bank instead of the point swims which are bathed in sun all day, the lads moved round. I met them Monday and Peter Mark had also lost a good carp at the net. I noticed on Monday that once again with warm weather and plenty of sun that the majority of the carp population were in the shallows and point A looked very good for a bite or two. I returned Wednesday to find out that Peter had indeed had two more pickups but they’d also dropped off!

Can you over-sharpen your hooks?
This was obviously concerning and on checking Peter’s rigs I noticed that he’d over sharpened the hooks and made the angle of the point too steep and short thus changing the geometry of the hook. In my experience I find that once I’ve lost about 1mm of length of the point when compared to a new hook, it’s time to change it as that’s the time you’re going to get hook pulls even with hand sharpened hooks. Peter’s hooks were up to 1.5mm too short on point length which would go a long way to explaining the hook pulls. Peter’s a lovely fellow and open about his lack of experience so it was a pleasure to work with him and make a few tweaks to his technique. Following this Peter banked two more lovely 30’s including Chestnut at a spawned out weight of 37lbs.

For Mark it was all about the cats, and losses are to be expected when targeting them. Mark successfully targeted them in open water in front of point C which is definitely the way to go. He did manage to bank some biggies though with cats of 86lbs and then one of 93lbs. Mark was keen to fish the last night and Peter was happy to call it a day so Mark moved his rods over and had two more 30’s in the early hours of Saturday morning just before they were due to leave. Mark was on a real high (carp fishing induced, I’m assured!) when we met them for check out on Saturday. He came here for big cats and that’s exactly what he got. With the carp all down the shallows for most of the week it was difficult for them both to fish for them without having to split up the social. Despite his experience Mark was quite shocked at how tricky our carp can be to catch and soon realised that they do not generally respond to baiting and waiting. You have to be on them and bait strategically until they make a mistake. The boys both told me that they’d learnt quite a lot this trip and it was an absolute pleasure to meet them. I’m sure we’ll see them again in the future.