A South-African Carp Tale

I got into the carp angling scene at the very young age of 8, and as most South-African anglers, I started off my fishing career as a conventional angler, but I soon learned that there were different ways of doing certain things, and discovered the preservation culture of specimen angling. This is when my passion for the sport truly began. As a teenager getting into specimen angling, like most novice anglers I looked up to certain icons in the specimen angling scene. Top anglers such as Terry Hearne and Frank Warwick are just a couple of the names that come to mind. To me, these anglers seemed to carry a vast knowledge of the sport that I have come to love. After all, great knowledge comes with years of experience! I started following their careers, and often watched videos of their carp fishing endeavours on Youtube, hoping to pick up on some tips and tricks. I trusted that I would learn something from them that I could implement in my own personal fishing endeavours, something that would perhaps improve my own carp fishing skills. I often found myself heading out to the local pond to put some of the things that I had learned to the test. The more I learned, the more my skills and results improved. Modern pegs blend in with nature and actually help to preserve bankside vegetation, maintaining a waters aesthetics. One of the most important things that I have learned is that there is only so much you can learn from reading books and watching videos, the rest has to come from hard earned experience. Success doesn’t come overnight, or as they say… Rome wasn’t built in a day! Most often I would get decent results at a venue only once I had fished there a couple of times. This is generally the case for most anglers. Any angler will gain more knowledge through spending as much time as he can on the bank, and closely watching the waters of the particular venue he is hoping to master. Detailed knowledge of a venue is a huge edge, and the more extensive your knowledge of a venue is, the higher the probability of achieving your goals will be. Good quality bait also goes a long way, and is a key aspect to successful fishing. I have been a consultant for a UK brand for over a year now, and have noticed a definite improvement in the results I have been getting by using their baits. Simply changing your baits, or bait strategy is often all that is required for success! I have been targeting a local venue that is close to where I live for quite some time now, and had struggled for almost a year to get a decent result from it. This particular venue is 30km away from my home, and because it is in such close proximity, I had been trying to do at least one weekend session there each month. It has not always been possible to do so due to general circumstances in life that have been out of my control. Some of my earlier success at the venue, which include a few chunky mirrors, came from using a bait that the venue had been conditioned to over a period of more or less 5 years, and by placing my traps in some of the known ‘hot spots’. However, for some reason I started getting fewer bites on this bait even though I was still placing my lines in the correct areas that had produced me some great captures in the past. I suspect it is because the carp became more aware of the ‘dangers’ this bait held for them. Hi-Vis Pop-Up, with one of my favorite rigs, The Spinner. With the limited time available to target this venue, I had to try and make the best of the time at my disposal by putting in the extra effort. By keeping a close eye on its waters during each session, especially at first light, the lake gave up some of its secrets. This was definitely the key to some of the success I had. Watching the water is what made me experiment with different feeding tactics. I started spreading my baits out more over the bait areas, because watching what was in plain view right out in front of me, made me notice where, how far apart, and how often the carp would generally show themselves. With this knowledge, I also knew when would be the best time to top up my baited areas. Some of these areas were within the margins, and it would be quite easy for me to simply top them up with a boilie pipe. I also changed the bait I had been using for a few months. I started fishing with freezer boilies as freebies, in combination with carp pellets in PVA mesh bags. The boilie is a high quality bait that is dark-red in colour with a sweet fruity aroma. Its base mix consists of fish meals and birdseeds making it an all-round bait, which is probably why I have had so much success on it. Another solid Common and the biggest of the session. Since using this bait that is totally different to what I had been using previously, I have been getting rewarded with some proper captures, and I feel relieved to say that all my efforts are finally starting to pay off! I have captured a few 40lb + carp in the interim which include some chunky commons, mirrors, and grass carp. This is the result you get when effort, ‘in depth’ knowledge of a venue, and good quality baits meet! In my most recent session at the venue, I arrived at my swim early on a Thursday morning. My intentions were to fish there until the Sunday afternoon. Some heavy rain was forecast over the weekend, but fortunately the clouds only covered the skies on the Sunday afternoon after I had packed up my camp. Actually most of the weekend was rather sunny and made me realise just how blessed we as South Africans are with the amazing panoramas and the beauty of the sun as it rises and sets over our waters! I had a rather quiet first night with all my efforts producing only one run, unfortunately a very small carp that had made its way into the back of my net. I got up at first light hoping to spot some movement, but I could not see anything. Later on that Friday afternoon, I decided to row out onto the lake armed with a prodding stick. I was hoping to see some signs of life below the surface. Again, I was not able to spot even a single lost carp. Nowhere in the reeds, nowhere in the depths nor the shallows, nowhere in the grass and nowhere in the silt either. I suspected it was because they had moved into the deeper parts of the lake, and I was hoping they would return when the shallows warmed up again. Later on, when I decided to reel my lines in I realised I had been done by crabs and that I didn’t have a single hookbait in the water. I re-did my lines shortly after 16:00, and decided to tip my hookbaits with extra-hard plastics in an attempt to combat the vicious claws of the crabs that had clearly destroyed my chances of additional runs. The fact that I was not able to spot any carp all day left me with only one thing to do, and that was to set my traps out on the spots that I had previously identified, and spots that had produced some carp in the past. If you can’t spot them physically, the best thing you can do is to go with the knowledge that you have gained from previous experiences. I had grown quite confident in the spinner rig over the past few months, and had found myself using this rig regularly. Mixed pellets, confidence in a bag. I like it because it is such a versatile rig to use. It can be fished as a pop up rig, a critically balanced or even as a plain bottom bait rig. It is also quite resilient, which would make it rather difficult for a crab to destroy. Tipping my hookbaits with hard plastics seemed to work well, as I had another 3 runs on the Friday night going into the Saturday morning. One of these happened to produce my biggest carp for the session. The other two were once again quite small. I continued with this tactic throughout the remainder of the weekend, but unfortunately to my disgust I was pestered by small carp. I had a total of 10 runs at the end of my session, which produced 8 carp, but 7 of these were small. An angler can’t always catch big carp, often you need to work through all the small fish first, before you get rewarded with that special capture you really want! See you in soon, hopefully in a few more lb’s time.