John Bailey – The Kingfisher Diaries
July 1st 2010
How Many Ways Are There to Catch Our Carp?
Alex Whitelaw is one of my firmest friends. A wonderful man in every way and a really good angler. He's a great friend of the Kingfisher complex and recently, having a couple of hours to spare, helped me out on some fish stocking. It was a wonderful day, the fish were in evidence and Alex couldn't wait to get started on his quest.
Through the course of the afternoon, fishing on both Lily and Lobster, he landed some fifteen or perhaps twenty fish.
Some he caught on the top using either bread crust or dog biscuits.
Some he caught on standard waggler float fished techniques over a bed of ground bait.
Some he caught stalking using a lobworm as bait.
Some he caught, again by staking, but by getting them interested in free sinking maggots and then putting a couple on a size fourteen to them. Takes were instant.
Some he took on a slowly sinking bait - bread flake is perfect for this.
So five or six different methods and I reckon he could have gone on to think of many more. That's the beauty of our waters. They encourage the imagination. Don't be stereotyped. Look for the fish, watch what their behaviour is and think how they might be feeding.
Tight lines.