A very good week’s fishing in roasting conditions with carp to 35 lbs
This week, we welcomed Mark, Steve and his son Stephen to the venue for their 2nd visit. They visited us for the first time in May of last year. Their first trip was a bit of a baptism of fire as Beausoleil is very different from the venues they know. Despite the challenge, they loved it and they learned an awful lot in a very short period of time. Since their last visit they’ve gone on to successfully apply many of the tricks I shared with them during the tuition day. This year they were very keen for the learning to continue so I spent another fun filled day with them where we were able to focus on specific areas where they knew there were big gains to be made.
What a fantastic week! Tuition with Matt set us up well for the week and we exceeded our expectations with over 10 carp and 4 over 30lb. We learned so much from Matt’s advice last year and on this visit, with further support from Matt, it really paid off. It was a week we’ll never forget. Thanks Matt and Ren for providing such a beautiful place to stay and fish. We highly recommend Beausoleil for anyone who loves fishing for carp or cats!
One area of particular interest to Mark was casting. He has a tendency to cast to the right and struggles to hit the clip at 18 wraps. I only had to watch one cast to see where he could make some adjustments and within 30 minutes, he was casting straight, true and much further, with less effort. During the week, he did some practice on his own and was smacking the clip at 25 wraps. He could probably now hit 30 wraps if the lake was bigger!
A big area of interest for Steve was on the rig front. He loves the robustness of my deadly D rig and the quick change-ability of the blowback multi and wondered whether it was possible to create a hybrid of the two. This led to a very entertaining and interesting rig tying session where I was learning as fast as the guys were!
On the fishing front the guys were not here to play. This was going to be a serious, max attack style session. They set up a night camp and a day camp that would enable them to be on the carp 24/7. It requires a fair bit of organisation and dedication to flip flop between swims twice a day but it’s a powerful tactic that’s been used successfully in the past.
On the fishing front, daytime bites were hard to find. This doesn’t come as a surprise as it’s something we see regularly in the summer. In terms of catches, Mark and Steve both caught on the first night. The catches continued steadily most of the week but the hotter it got the harder the fishing became. They did get smashed up by a few monsters and Mark even had a carp tail walk on him and throw the rig, wow, that’s a first!
Although they caught steadily, Mark felt that they missed a few opportunities. As the temperature warms, the carp get pretty adept at dealing with rigs. It’s just the way it is at this time of year. They’ve done it to me plenty of times.
The guys were all bivvied up in the Point swims and Stephen was fishing out of point ‘B’ which isn’t the most productive area. By Wednesday it was clear that things would have to be shuffled around to give Stephen a chance of catching. As Mark was in point ‘C’ and already on 5 carp, he let Stephen join in the fun. That night, he was off the mark with a low 30.
On the rig and bait front the guys used a selection of rigs that they’d learned from our sessions. They caught on everything they tried which was great to see. After some aborted takes, Mark had to make a few tweaks to optimise his inline lead system but once this was done, it worked perfectly for him and tricked carp after carp. They were religious in their attention to detail and prepped new rigs daily to keep the runs coming.
On the bait front the guys got through plenty of Scopex squid boilies, pellets, flakes and hemp. As the week went on they moved over to a boilie only approach. This forces the carp to move from bait to bait and makes it harder for them to identify the hookbait.
Overall, the guys had an excellent session in tricky conditions and Mark upped his PB multiple times. They worked hard at every aspect of their fishing and Stephen made sure that the team was well fed at all times. Congrats guys, it was a delight to welcome you back to the venue.
