quentyn

The future of spodding is here and it is Spomb shaped !

Spodding is a chore that few of us enjoy, it can be back breaking messy work and one messed up cast can send every carp in the vicinity scurrying for the hills as your spod sends up a great gout of water as it slams into the surface. Imagine if I told you that there was another way… a way in which spodding can suddenly become easier, mess messy and a hell of a lot less back breaking ?

Well there is such a way.. enter the SPOMB

What is it ? well unlike a traditional spod, the design of which has not changed for several years it is not just a rocket shaped design with an open back but a fully enclosed bait delivery capsule. This has several massive advantages,

You don’t need to have groundbait / mud handy to pack the back of the spod
You can bait up with pure hemp / small particle with out having to clean it off your back / head
it flies like an arrow
It retrieves over the surface skipping like a coot

The last point is what steals it for me, my biggest bug bear with spodding is the retrieve. No matter which spod you use it is like you are trying to pull ( in effect) a small parachute back through the water towards you. This is what really wears me down and is one of the reasons I was considering buying a bait boat. However with the spomb this is now a thing of the past.
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In Praise of Delkim – Again

Some of you may have remembered my post on the Delkim Standard Plus alarms that I posted a while ago and from this you probably gathered that I liked my delks.. well nothing has changed but I now have another reason to like them. Their customer service. A while ago I managed to break one of my delkim hangers, massive run, line got tangled and the hanger took the brunt of the strike. It wasn’t a happy delkim hanger..

So I contacted Delkim expecting to be given the 3rd degree, expecting to be asked for a reciept to prove it was in warranty. Well I wasn’t which was lucky as the best I can remember was that I bought the hanger from a shop at the Zwolle carp show in Holland sometime earlier this year. Anyway after mailing them I was told to complete the RMA form here and post it back to them. This I did and got a mail telling me that it would take 10 working days to resolve the issue and that payment may be due. Well after 6 working days I am not the proud owner of a fixed ( well it looks brand new) delkim hanger.

Well done Delkim, often you hear horror stories about bad customer service, well this is not one of them. Superb product and backed up by a good solid service department and they even have online integration of the repairs process.

Why cant other manufacturers be like this ? don’t tell me to go back to the shop ( I am talking about <redacted>, yes you..) as I may not even remember which one it was and after a week I pretty much never have the receipt any way ( hey I am a man) I want to go back to the manufacturer and cut out the middle man.

Education not condemnation

Education not condemnation – the motto of ECHO, the English Carp Heritage Organization. Recently I have found myself fishing several semi public waters and have had a plethora of anglers of differing abilities and nationalities, from English to Polish and even Chinese. It would be easy to ignore them or to just mutter darkly under my breath when you see them fishing without an unhooking mat, or for pike when it is banned will the 1st of October ( not that I personally agree with this but rules are rules). However the approach that I have taken is one of friendly advice. Confrontation will get you nowhere however a friendly chat and then a discussions about the merits of unhooking mats and rod licenses in my cases at least seemed to have worked. In many cases some of these anglers do not know what they are doing is wrong and when it is pointed out to them ( well the 3 I have spoken to this week) it seems that they do take it on board.
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how many 20s on the surface

Why is it that the best places to fish are out of bounds ? I present to you this video evidence of a lake near me that is verboten to fish…. that is packed with doubles and 20’s. If you look carefully you will see an easy low 30 also make an appearance and you could virtually catch them by hand.. oh well the lake will just have to serve as a source of amusement as I am not going to risk fishing it and I am 100% confident that no one else fishes it either. Until hell freezes over I have to leave you with a video – Enjoy !

Now doesnt that make you want to break out the surface gear ?

Flyfishing Ruislip Lido

You know when there are lakes right on your door step that you never fish ? you know those ones that you look back at years later and think “damn” wish I had fished that one – could have done as well…. Conningbrook was like that for me in my youth, I had the ticket, I lived right round the corner and yet it never appealed despite the last 3 british record carp coming out of there ( albeit the same fish – Twotone) . Well I live around the corner from Ruislip Lido and as it was so close I decided to give it a go. My wife wanted to go for a walk as the summer evening was glorious with all of the birds, squirrels and insects in full bloom so I suggested that I should bring a rod…. just in case 🙂

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Now you have no excuse not to be able to charge your mobile whilst fishing

Hot from PopSci.com comes the ‘Bat Hook“

Basically you sling the device above over a handy power line and voila, electricity flows. The hook slips over the line and the razor blade makes contact with the copper line underneath ( then again power lines are not shielded so it is probably to scrape through crud), one imagines that there is a step down converter in the package somewhere else you will feel a slight “buzz” the 1st time you use it…. though only for a tenth of a second before you become a human light bulb.

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1st UK carp in 15 years

As many of you will know I recently moved back to London from Amsterdam where I had been living for the past few years. Fishing in Amsterdam was good, if you are ever considering a place as a fisherman to relocate to I heartily suggest Amsterdam.

Anyway, that is now all in the past and I am now back in London and fishing is a hell of a lot harder 🙂 gone are the lazy days sitting at the side of super easy dutch waters ( there are harder ones but guess which ones I chose) pulling doubles and 20’s out by the fistful. Oh well a new chapter in my fishing life beckons.

As I wanted to get some serious fishing in I decelieded that there was only one plce to try Thorney Weir, I joined this syndicate a while back and I decided that as I had holiday to burn now was the time to get down to Thoeny Weir and put some hours in.

The lake was fairly empty as one would expect for a Monday morning and I was brimming with confidence. There was weed everywhere and the wind and been going around in circles for days do I thought it better to concentrate on where I could see fish rather than where I knew they had to be. The back of the island swim was vacant and as I could see fish topping and rolling I thought that this would be a good bet. Knowing that there was a large gravel patch on the left hand side of the island ( thanks Jon) I put out 2kg’s of boilie figuring that in this weather the carp would be super active and with the stocking levels as they are this would be gone in no time. The other rods I fished against a weed bed and in the margin as there was a very tasty margin along the access road where no one can fish to.

To cut a long story short..

After 3 days of precisely nothing I decided to move to the swim called river point. A quick walk around the lake in the early morning showed that there were fish aplenty cruising around and generally sitting in the weed.

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Solar Weed Lead… has lead camouflage gone too far

So what is it ?

well it is one of Solar Tackles new “weed camouflage” leads, not sure if it works but I am wiling to give it a try. Over the years we have had everything from glass weights to pebbles no we have one with faux weed on it. When will the fun ever stop ?

Do you have an opinion on calouflagain your end tackle ? have you tried out outlandish things in the name of camouflage ? post a comment and join the discussion

New World Record Carp – 99lbs

Well hot on the heels of Solar Head Honcho, Martin Locke’s, 94lb carp from Rainbow comes this one from Les Graviers. It is the well known fish called “Scar” due to the massive scar that you can see around the fish. The scar was caused by the fish getting tangled in a rope when it was small and was released unknown if it would live… well now it is the largest carp in the world. My congratulations to the captor, Ambrose Smith for this new record which is tantalizingly close to the 100lb mark. As I reported earlier in the year ” When will the 100lb barrier be broken ? Will if be from France or from elsewhere ? Will the 91 from Luke Moffats Les Graviers take the title again ?” well it turned out that my prediction was true, the fish from Les Graviers has taken the record.

Ok, prediction time again.

1, There will not be another record this year

2, It will go to an unknown German fishearly next year

Lets see if I am correct

What do you think ? Am I right ? do you have another opinion ? Have you seen a larger fish and want to share ? Post a comment and let me know