Frozen Beards In The Name Of Carpiness

I’m a bit confused… the other day, I was walking through the village where I live, sporting a T-shirt, a jumper, a fleece jacket, a woollen scarf and a (decidedly carpy!) bobble hat, and despite all of these, I was bloody perished!

When I was a teenage carp tiger, and long before the days of every tackle company producing a whole host of equipment and carpy garb to keep us all toasty, I used to fish right through the winter. Bivvies were a pale imitation of what we have at our disposal today, groundsheets were non-existent, and bedchairs—which were actually aluminium-framed sun loungers—came courtesy of the local supermarket. And if my memory serves me correctly, my burgundy, paper-thin, tartan-lined sleeping bag came from good old Woolworths and cost about three weeks’ pocket money.  

The winters were, and remain to this day, bitterly cold in and around Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and I have lost count how many times I awoke to find the lake frozen solid; but incredibly, I don’t recall ever being cold! If I had to spend a week on the bank in the winter with that type of kit these days, I swear I would need assistance from the Alaskan Mountain Rescue Group and a team of Siberian huskies to get me up in a morning.

Speaking of braving it in particularly inclement weather, I am reliably informed that some of the real hardcore carp tigers—no doubt in a bid to impress their peers—have taken to sleeping under the stars, even in the coldest of winter conditions… Let me tell you, waking up with a frost-covered bedchair, sleeping bag, bedchair cover, and beard(!) is not big, it’s not clever, and it’s certainly not carpy. What it is, is pure lunacy! Now, where’s my new Smart Carp snood and my Realtree hot water bottle…?

What’s New Pussycat?

If you ask me, the carpy marketplace has become rather too cluttered with so-called life-changing bits and pieces that are, if the truth were known, about as much use to the hardened carp angler as an ample bosom is to a raging, fire-breathing Aberdeen Angus bull!

Fear not, though, a few items launched relatively recently have certainly bucked the trend, and have been amazingly well thought out by the companies who have launched them.

The first thing to catch my beady little eye is RidgeMonkey’s new, ingeniously designed Uni Lead clip. What a great idea that is: a clip that allows the lead to be fished drop-off fashion or safely fixed, depending on your requirements. And to add even further to the all-important safety aspect of either lead set-up, no tail rubbers are required!

I have yet to get my grubby little mitts on any of these terrifically well-thought-out additions to our armoury, but hats off to Messrs Cottis and Cater, and the rest of RidgeMonkey’s development team… brilliant!

Staying with riggy bits and pieces, towards the end of last summer I began using Gardner Tackle’s Covert Tungsten Hinge Beads to balance the pop-ups on my trusty ‘Ronald’ Rigs. I think I am right in saying that the Hinge Beads were originally launched with Chod users in mind, but they are also ideal for a number of other applications.

I have long been a fan of leaving baits in position for prolonged periods of time, and as good as some of the modern-day rig putties undoubtedly are, I do worry about bits falling off, or little nuggets going the way of ravenous crayfish. I want to be sure that my counterweight remains in position, and my pop-up remains critically balanced—or at least as critically balanced as it can be after 48hrs or so in the briny. The Hinge Beads, used in conjunction with a size 12 QC Ring Swivel ensures this happens every time; the counter balance weight simply cannot come off! Gardner make these oh-so-useful little gems in two sizes, and both are now permanent additions to my triple-locked, retinal eye scanner-protected tackle box.

I don’t think the Nash Waterboxes are particularly new to the market, but with me being a bit slow to cotton on to things, they only came to my attention towards the back end of last year, and I am certainly very pleased they did! Ideal for storing a wide variety of stuff, my newly acquired collection will be used for spare bait, clothes, and more general bits and pieces. They come in a variety of sizes, all of which are seriously tough and terrifically well made, and best of all, they are water-resistant, which makes them especially useful when transporting gear by boat, for wet-weather barrow work, or for the ‘less is more’ carp tigers who angle in all weathers without a groundsheet, or indeed, a shelter!

Particles, And Keeping The Missus Happy  

I have always enjoyed particle fishing enormously, and it is method that has certainly been kind to me on a number of different venues over the years. These days, I tend to use particles and seeds in relatively small quantities, along with boiled baits. In the past, however, I used them as the mainstay of my approach, with just a handful of boilies and a hookbait over the top.

There are a number of reasons why the particle approach is so effective, of course, but to my mind, it all really comes down to the greater degree of preoccupation it is possible to bring about, and the fact that anything like a reasonable quantity of particles or seeds take much longer to clear, which in turn, theoretically keeps feeding fish in front of you for a longer period of time.

Hempseed, in my opinion, is the ultimate particle bait, and when used correctly, it can create a feeding situation unlike anything else I have ever come across, the only problem being that on occasions, the fish can become so preoccupied with the stuff, they seemingly ignore everything else in the area. Used sparingly, though, it certainly takes some beating.

Oat groats and French Mix—which generally includes a combination of groats, flaked maize and mixed seed of some kind—are also huge favourites of mine, and both have done very well for me on numerous overseas waters. The joy of these two baiting approaches is that they are relatively easy on the pocket and require next to no preparation; it is simply a case of getting organised and working a day ahead of yourself all the time. Both are ideal if you are looking to bait heavily in an attempt to hold numbers of fish in front of you.

Preparation is vitally important when using particles, pulses and nuts, and I urge you to err on the side of caution in terms of the suggested soaking and cooking times. Incorrectly prepared particles are not only nothing like as effective as the correctly prepared alternative, but can also cause potential health problems for the fish.

Having said all that, I have to come clean at this point and tell you that I no longer spend hour upon hour in the kitchen cooking up hempseed and annoying the better half; the fact is, I cannot source better quality seed, or prepare it any better than the team at Carbon Baits are capable of doing… Picking the phone up is considerably easier, and saves me the inconvenience of rattling Mrs C’s cage by stinking out chez Cottam!