Arnold

Field Tester

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In this blog I’m focusing on the angler who wants to catch a few fish on a sunny summer afternoon from a natural and well-established venue. The sort of place that presents a reasonable challenge but at the same time isn’t ‘easy’.

Not everyone wants to catch a small carp every 5 minutes, yet at the same time doesn’t want to invest thousands of hours per fish. Not that I’m criticising either approach, far from it, just saying that for many anglers they want something in the middle.

As you can see from the accompanying video, the pool I fished has been around a long time. As such, especially in the summer, it has lots of natural food sources. This is a challenge and one that the angler needs to think through. Bait approach is a key ingredient on a venue like this.

I go through that in the video and also show the products that I use. I was fishing 4-5 rod lengths out from the bank and both spots were fed with Flumino groundbait and Proactive Multimix pellets. The former went out by hand, the latter with a catapult.

Both rods fished boiles, the difference being that one had no loose offerings at all. As it happened, that was the rod that landed three fish, while the other one saw two banked. I also had a hook-pull that would have levelled the score

Considering it was a hot, still day and I was off the water before dusk, I was more than happy with the tally of fish. None of them were particularly big, but you can only catch what’s in there. That’s why we should always pitch our expectation level sensibly.

On some places a 20lb carp isn’t particularly big, on others a 10lb fish is a monster. Always remember that the definition of a specimen depends on the place you’re on. Everything is relative to where you are.

To complete the SBS connection, I fished with Discovery braid hook-length and size 6 Enigma hook. It’s been interesting to see the company evolve from just a bait producer to the wider area of tackle. I’ve certainly incorporated the various products successfully into my angling.