Hi Guys (&girls/ladies)
Sorry about the short post to say thank you, I was in a bit of a rush, so
anyway, thanks to all that helped me on my posting.
Well! I took to the waters for the first time in over 25 years yesterday,
and I was amazed at how things have changed, all these high protein baits
for carp are very sophisticated indeed and the tackle has changed a great
deal. I took my pair of carp rods out of the bags and thought "this is a
bloody beach-caster, the fool in the tackle shop sold me the wrong gear" But
hey, aren't they light, and very good action on them, certainly a lot easier
these newer carbon fibre than my trusty old solid fibre-glass rod. Made my
tried and tested split cane look like something out of the museum. :-))
I didn't do too bad at all considering my long gap since my last outing. I
caught a good bag of roach all in the 8oz to 20oz bracket, the best being
19oz-8grm, I used my good old 13' match rod for those along with my equally
old Mitchell Garcia match reel.
Then I tried for carp on my new gear, I was soon into a 11lb mirror using
simple floating bread on the surface. Hey, I thought "this is great" I had a
couple of smaller ones under 8lb so not too bad for my first venue
(Cefn-Mably lakes South Wales)
I thought if I may, mention what I used to use for carp-fishing 40 years ago
as the baits nowadays have changed dramatically and in my opinion, are a
little expensive although they are very good.
One trick I used to use for carp was to make the usual ball of bread for the
ledger, but first flatten the bread in the palm of your hand, moisten it
slightly and sprinkle either sugar or a bit of the herb (basil) onto the
bread then make up the bread in the usual fashion. Worked very well and I
would expect the carp haven't come across that one recently. Another
brilliant bait in those days was a simple single "Sugar-Puff", we used to
pull the hook & line right through the s/puff leaving the hook about half an
inch in front of it. we never had hair-rigs in those days :-) If I recall th
e old carp had a very sweet tooth so to speak and sugar etc was used quite a
lot. As you know these species like natural baits so a great deal of the old
kitchen spices were used in the bread-balls for the ledger, they were/are
easily obtainable and cheap enough, and omit quite a strong smell to attract
the buggers.
I thought I would mention these old baits as from my experience the carp do
tend to get a bit lethargic in the summer and also tend to get a bit wary of
the same type of bait if used to often.
Oh! before I go, one last good old tried and tested method was to fill your
swim feeder with sage and onion stuffing, put in about 6 maggots as well to
help the stuffing break up when in the feeder, on your hook put luncheon
meat/sweetcorn or whatever, used to do well with that. don't forget NOT to
cook the stuffing mix though, just mix it up fairly thickly at home with
boiling water let it cool and stick it in a bait box or something.
OK, that's me finished Sorry if I bored anyone.
good-luck
regards
Ray

"RJ" wrote in message
...
Cheers guys
Thanks for your help.
best wishes
Ray