Bill Cottam: Carping Allegedly
Renowned for his football analogies, Bill Cottam kicks off this month with another. He also has some forthright advice regarding inclusion rates and the use of salt as an additive
Transfer Deadline Day
You find me thumping this month’s monotonous diatribe on 1 September, which in the ridiculously cash-rich world of football is Transfer Deadline Day. It’s the last day player transfers can be completed before the window opens again later in the year. In truth—for the teams with outrageous financial backing at least—it is quite an exciting day. Watching Sky News all day in the hope that your team might acquire the services of the next world superstar can be almost life-changing stuff for a football fan.
Talking of world superstars, surely the time is rapidly approaching when the world of carp angling brings in a transfer window, and consequently, a transfer deadline day, by which time deals for anglers wanting to swap bait or tackle sponsors would have to be completed.
Picture the scene: Rob Hughes, complete with Jim White-esque yellow tie, all suited and booted on Sky Sports, keeping us up to speed with who has gone where. Regional reporters are camped outside all the major tackle and bait headquarters, ready to bring us live updates each and every time a hairy-arsed carp angler in a knackered Transit van pulls up at the back door. Later, they exit wearing a branded T-shirt as they clutch a copy of their new image rights contract, a new set of rods and an armful of freezer bait.
All that is then needed is a quick interview through the van’s window as it speeds back to the lake to confirm that—despite them not having even come out of their bags yet—the new rods are the best to ever; and that the bait—which our hero has yet to use—is the greatest ever produced!
And then, we go back to Rob Hughes in the Sky Sports studio to see who’s on the move next!
“Picture the scene: Rob Hughes, all suited and booted on Sky Sports, keeping us up to speed with who has gone where.”
Salt Levels
Back when I was working my fingers to the bone running Nutrabaits, every product that left our warehouse had inclusion rates or suggested dosages clearly marked on its packaging. This was something Tim Paisley and I insisted on way back in the eighties when the company was formed, and although it wasn’t particularly commonplace at the time, it is good to see that most bait companies now adopt similar principles.
Our inclusion rates were not guessed, of course. In fact, one of the main roles of our field testing team was to establish what the optimum levels for each product were. Products vary greatly from one to another, obviously. Those such as liquid foods have a great deal of flexibility in terms of how much you use, whereas essential oils and highly concentrated products of a similar nature have stated inclusion rates that are much more important to stick to.
I always thought that the vast majority of users of Nutrabaits products understood how much work and research went into establishing the optimum inclusion rates and consequently adhered to them. Undoubtedly, however, some people out there worked on a much-misguided premise that led them to believe that if 1ml of Black Pepper oil was good, 5ml must be even better.
It is very difficult to get your head around just how efficient a carp’s olfactory organs are, and how they can detect relatively tiny amounts of any given foodstuff or chemical. Once you come to terms with this phenomenon, though, I guarantee you will happily use quite a bit of the stuff you shovel into your bait at much lower levels.
In my humble opinion, lots of products are used at excessive levels. I get it, though. The vast majority of anglers who pick up a bag of Krill and Tomato boilies from their local tackle shop expect to be able to smell them from twenty paces away.
Salt seems to be very much in vogue on several of my local waters at the moment, and I concur that its inclusion makes a great deal of sense, particularly during the early part of the season. I urge you all to be sensible, however, with how much you use. The fact that it is as cheap as chips doesn’t mean you have to pile it in as if your life depended on it!
My usual tactic is to use a 50-50 split of coarse Himalayan rock salt and the granulated version. I then add half a small scoop to five kilos of dampened boilies. Pots of pop-ups are simply given a very light dusting of the same salt combination. Although I have seen it done on a couple of occasions of late, I would never consider pouring salt into a PVA bag.
Being The Best I Can Be
I have been aware for some time that I will probably never be a better angler than I am now, and that my angling skills will never see me able to hold a candle to many of the carp tigers out there. I am in awe of their catches, motivation and skills, and the accuracy they are able to achieve when casting and baiting. I can live with that, though. I am more than happy with the fish that have come my way over the years and the few that will hopefully continue to do so. My aim these days is not to try and compete with our carping prodigies, but to simply tweak little things as and where I see fit, and do everything possible to be the very best that I can be.
“I am not usually a fan of adding extra bits of metalwork to my rigs. In fact, I normally go the great lengths to do just the opposite.”
The Little Things in Life
The little things in life are very often the things that make me happiest, and Korda’s new Hook Klips fall into that category in rather a big way. Generally speaking, my hooklengths are rather boring and remarkably samey: 12–15 inches of soft, subtle braid or 20lb mono with a small loop for clipping to a QC swivel and a small, anti-tangle sleeve. The sharp end depends very much on the lake I’m fishing, and the rules and restrictions on hook use. The problem here, of course, as it will be for anyone who likes to have plenty of set-ups tied in advance, is that I end up carting half a mile of rigs around with me all the time. A Knotless-Knotted hook clip allows me to have a shedload of bare hooklengths pre-tied, and then I simply add the hook I need and a little kicker to secure and tidy up everything.
I am not usually a fan of adding extra bits of metalwork to my rigs. In fact, I normally go the great lengths to do just the opposite, but the Hook Klips are so insignificant they cannot be seen once the kicker has been slid into position.
I don’t claim to totally understand things of that nature, but from what I’m told, Hook Klips are also ideal for quick-change Ronnie Rigs and other presentations of a similar ilk—life-changing stuff!
