9 July 2016 – Catch Report from: Jamie & friends

A carp and cat fishing stag party holiday? Why not! PB’s all round and a good time had by all!

This week we had the pleasure of welcoming a lovely bunch of lads from near Manchester. This was to be an alternative “stag do” for Paul and was arranged by good friend Jamie. Paul and Jamie had dabbled for carp before but spend most of their time chasing other fine species (mainly on the river) such as barbel, tench and roach. For Michael and his Dad Bob, this would be the first time they’d really fished for carp. None of them had any catfish experience so chasing our specimen carp and cats was going to be a whole new experience for everyone! Due to family commitments Michael and Bob had to be away by Wednesday so they literally only had a few days to catch something.

During the tour Bob asked what other species are present and asked about zander and pike. The zander are too small to target at the minute and I only know of one pike. We do have a healthy population of roach though and some are already specimen sized. On hearing this, Bob’s face lit up and said he’d like to target them. My only concern was the number of baby carp he’d have to catch to hook a roach. Bob loved the idea of catching the baby carp on the waggler and spent a very happy three days doing so, banking close to 100 perfect miniature carp of 1/2lb each along with 50 great looking roach of 4 to 6oz. If this is something that you fancy having a go at this year, then grab a float rod, arm yourself with some barbless sized 10’s and a few tins of sweet corn and feel the years roll back as you remember what a pleasure it was catching beautiful fish on a float rod! (all the baby carp were removed to a fishery cage and the fyke net is still in place).

With no previous carp experience to go on, Michael opted for stalking tactics on the island. This remains an underused tactic at Beausoleil but as Michael proved it’s highly effective, requires minimal gear and gives you one of the biggest buzzes in carp fishing! The island of Beausoleil really is a carp stalker’s paradise. The carp are so close you can almost touch them! Michael used a Beausoleil rig and hand sharpened hook to land himself a new PB of 32lbs. He got the pickup literally inches from the bank. He also helped his dad bank a big framed mirror of 38lbs, another PB. Unfortunately we have no photo of this capture. Jamie and Paul fished in a more conventional manner for both carp and catfish. They did try a few hours stalking on the island but with no success. Paul banked himself a new PB of 38lbs and Jamie banked one of the new Royale carp at 34lbs. They really wanted to bank a big catfish but despite getting several pickups, luck was not on their side and the cats were lost.

Beausoleil is not an easy water and as this was pretty much the first ever carp and cat fishing session that these guys had ever done I think they did well to bank one carp each in excess of 30lbs. These guys are all highly skilled anglers but chasing specimen carp and cats is a very different ball game to the one they know. It was a real pleasure to spend a little time on the bank with them and it’s great to know that they learnt loads and want to return for another go one day.