Winter Carping At Florida Lake

Unlike many others, when the first cold fronts hit the country I go into overdrive as I believe that when the weather is unfit for human consumption, the carp come out to feed. I have proven this to myself so many times that I firmly believe it to be true. Not Massive, but a result indeed. A 9,98kg Florida common. I recently hosted a weekend team building/mind change session at Florida Lake with the current Protea Carp Team that will be participating in the FIPSed World Carp Angling Championships in Serbia this month (September). The purpose of this session was to get the anglers to accept and understand that the European conditions are vastly different to ours. The tournament venue in Serbia, just outside Belgrade, had recently been stocked with juvenile pellet-fed carp, thus overfeeding could be a real problem as the fish are used to only a certain amount of food per fish, and with the population of Poison Chat (a type of Makriel) that can decimate any swim in minutes, a mind-set of feeding very little, but often, needed to be embedded in the angler’s minds. Florida Lake was selected for the training as it does not have a massive population of carp, but at 130m to 140m has the same depth and bottom make-up as the lake in Serbia. The plan was to do feature finding and select the correct ambush spots and then cast out a selection of whole boilies, halves, crushed boilies, micro and 4mm pellets as well as 2kg of freshly cooked hemp. The choice of bait had to be the same as planned for Serbia as I needed to get the guys confident in the bait also. I thus selected Nash Key Cray 15mm boilies, pellet and micro pellet, plus Specimen Food Source boilies and coarse pellet. The short KD rig. Simple but really effective. BAIT PREPARATIONEach peg had to take 1kg of boilies of which about a third had to be whole, a third cut in halves and the balance crushed in either a Korda Crusher or in my Ice Crusher. Then 1kg of pellet had to be split 50% 4mm and the balance micro. This had to be added to the freshly cooked hemp, mixed and left for about an hour before it had to be spombed out. Solid Hook hold in the middle of the bottom lip. Mission accomplished. FEEDINGWith the marker floats popped up and checked with the range finder at 135m, the spombs were clipped up at the reel end at 134m to compensate for velocity and forward motion of the spomb when hitting the water in order to ensure the feed landed exactly where it needed to. The anglers spombed out their feed and then cast out the rods, also clipped up between 137m and 140m so some landed right in the feed and some on the back end of the feeding area. RIGSThe rigs were probably the most consideration as fishing in silt means adapting your approach in order to ensure the baited rig ends up just on the silt layer and not buried away. The choice was the helicopter and semi-fixed distance lead set-ups with 24cm hooklinks. Choice of rigs was blow-back, Ronnie and hinged chod rigs. The plan was to fish the rigs our anglers are not familiar with or confident in so they could build trust in time to use them confidently when required in Serbia. APPROACHThe plan was to fish two rods inside the fed area and two rods on the back end of it. In early morning on Saturday GP Nel got a run, but sadly his choice of rig was not strong enough for the big fish on the other side and the thin fluorocarbon hooklink snapped. 3He upgraded very quickly and soon was into another fish, and this time I netted it a few minutes later. The fish turned out to be a previously uncaught pot-belly near linear mirror carp of 9,13kg! The fish were just not having a munch, but we stuck to our decision not to introduce more bait. I decided to cast a single white pop-up on a Ronnie Rig as far as I could manage at around 07:00 and by 12:15 got a take and several minutes later I landed a common of 13,94kg. Early on Sunday morning Erick Jansen landed another common of 13,13kg, also on a single pop-up on a Ronnie rig. OUR CONCLUSIONHad we decided to introduce loads more feed to improve our chances of landing more fish, we would actually have stood a chance of blanking as the fish was clearly avoiding the baited areas. To convince myself that this could indeed have been true I went back to the lake four days later and cast out single hookbaits and within 47 minutes banked a common of 9,98kg, but then the wind picked up from the wrong direction and all fish activity seized completely. END TACKLE FOR THE WEEKEND SESSIONLEAD SYSTEM – Helicopter rig set-up.SUCCESFUL RIG – Ronnie (Spinner) Rig made with Korda Curve Shank Size 2 Hook and 25lb Korda Boom, Krimped at both ends.LEAD WEIGHT – 4oz DistanceHOOKBAIT - Single 15mm Mainline Diamond White Pop-Up sprayed with a home-made citrus flavour made by a friend of mine.DISTANCE FISHED – Clipped up at 135m. Gilbert with his fish of 13,94kg. END TACKLE FOR THE MID-WEEK SESSIONLEAD SYSTEM – Helicopter rig set-up.SUCCESFUL RIG – 18cm Short KD Rig using a size 5 Nash Claw hook.LEAD WEIGHT – 4oz DistanceHOOKBAIT - Single 16mm Sticky Baits Krill Wafter.DISTANCE FISHED – Clipped up at 135m. GP with his 9,13kg Potbelly Mirror.