9 April 2017 – Catch report from: Elliot and friends

Matt’s Fishing Tutorial & Beausoleil Rigs

After the long drive, those armed with our Beausoleil rigs got off to a flying start and caught on the first night (6 fish in total). James was a little greedy though and had three carp to 30lbs… Nice! We are seeing more and more anglers select our readymade, ready to fish rigs. These venue specific rigs have been perfected over many years with the input of a lot of our visitors. This of course doesn’t mean that you won’t catch with your own rigs! But depending on your experience, confidence and time, they can be a good option if you want to help kick start your session.

As well as the rigs, a couple of the guys, James and Damo, had booked a day’s tutorial to make the most of their weeklong fishing holiday. This tutorial was designed specifically around their needs and we focused on feature finding techniques, hitting the clip and feeling the donk (especially in shallower water), hook sharpening and rig tying skills. I never tire of the shocked look on anglers’ faces when they see one of my hand sharpened hooks compared to what comes out the packet. Let alone what one looks like after it’s been on the lake bed for a night! After James and Damo showed Elliot the results that can be achieved through hook sharpening, he was very eager to get on it himself.

A carp catching bonanza

By Wednesday James was absolutely smashing it from The Big Double with nine in total including four 30’s and a big cat. Damo was also grinning like a Cheshire cat as he’d had two cracking low thirties. Elliot was going well too with two upper twenties and a 30. Despite having the most experience of the group, Jamie was doing his own thing (which I applaud) but finding our fish considerably harder to catch than he was used to. At least he was off the block with a good sized catfish and actively working the problem. Damo mentioned that he’d seen Jamie secretly borrow the Beausoleil hook sharpening kit from Elliot’s bivvy and after watching some hook sharpening videos he was fettling his hook like pro. Again, hand sharpened hooks, his own version of one of my rigs saw him bank his first carp at 28lbs a few hours later.

Damo wasn’t catching the fish in numbers like James but by sticking with my stiff hinge rigs his average carp size was higher (4 x 30’s). His third carp was 32lbs and he was absolutely buzzing! Despite the fact that James followed our mainline advice to the letter, he still got smashed by something massive but by paying extra attention to tightening and then testing his knots he banked the 2nd 100lbs catfish of the year on 25lbs Big Game… what a beast!

Great baiting gets results

With a week stuffed full of so many great moments, the highlight of the week had to be something very special indeed. Elliot had be spreading 2kg of our Nutty Banoffee boilies per day just to hold a few fish along his margin. He quickly found that winding in at breakfast, then baiting liberally and leaving the rods out until late afternoon really paid dividends and early Thursday evening he lifted into a proper chunk. Pepe is our biggest common and always fights like a tiger! Although Elliot had been catching on bright popups over the Nutty Banoffee, he decided a change was in order and slipped on a single 20mm bottom bait straight from the bag. On the scales, he made a smidge over 40lbs and just to be sure he was weighed twice! A new PB, and a lake record Elliot was bouncing off the walls with that result!

You’d have thought that after banking so many good specimens that they’d have taken it easy for on the day…Not a chance, they each re-doubled their efforts to bank one more and finished the week with a flourish with a carp a piece including 2 more 30’s!

The girls had a great holiday too in the very comfortable house. For them it was all about total relaxation in complete peace and privacy with plenty of wine and cocktails thrown in for good measure! They even managed a trip to the lovely old town of Vitré half way through the week.

It was an absolute pleasure to welcome this delightful group of hard working, young professionals from the North and we hope to welcome them back one day.