Historic Information Wanted

The author of the book History of Carp Fishing, Kevin Clifford, is teaming up with his friend, Chris Ball, to produce a limited edition updated version of the book. If anyone has any information (letters, photographs, anecdotal stories, etc) about the following famous carp fisheries/anglers they would welcome hearing from you.

Croxby Pond &  Otto Overbeck

Cheshunt Reservoir

Mapperley Reservoir & Albert Buckley

Dagenham Lake & members of the Becontree & DAS (particularly George Draper and John Lenton)

Redmire Pool

Billing Aquadrome

The Peterborough Cut

Woldale

Wadhurst

Stoneham Lakes

Horsham

Westbrook Mere

You can contact Kevin and Chris at carpercfn@btconnect.com or on the phone at 01430 440624. You can also write to Kevin at Carp Fishing News Ltd., Newport, East Yorkshire HU15 2QG.

Four Seasons of Carp Fishing

Double DVD

Follow two of the UK's leading carp anglers, Jim Shelley and Jerry Hammond, as they pursue their quarry throughout the year on a diverse range of venues, from winter on Ringland to spring on Yately and Waveney, and summer into autumn on Carthagena.
As the unique footage unfolds you have the opportunity to watch as they discuss their approach and then put it into practice with a string of fish in a variety of different and frequently difficult conditions.

Wherever you fish yourself you cannot help but learn as they discuss in depth the tactics they use to stay one step ahead of the fish at all times.
Location, feeding, fish behaviour, bait, bait application and rigs are all examined critically before being applied in static and stalking sessions by two undoubted masters of their art. Approximate running time 175 minutes. Four Seasons of Carp Fishing is available now from the Carp-Talk shop for 12.99 + £1.50 p&p

New Steeped Black Tigers

This exciting new product from CC Moore

has created huge waves throughout the

'higher echelons' of the carp angling world.

Ever since the first batch was produced

they have attracted interest from virtually everyone who has seen them. Hardly surprising when you consider that from one of the first six bottles produced, Ben Hamilton caught 'Arfur' from the Car Park Lake at over 51lb. At the Sandown show in December 2007, many well-known anglers came to see the awesome nuts on the CC Moore stand and make sure the one new product they left with was the New Steeped Black Tigers.

These legendary nuts have been plant-bred as black and are not dyed to achieve their colour. Cooked in the container with a specially formulated 'steeping' liquid, they are incredibly attractive, very big-fish selective and vastly different to anything else on the market. One of the greatest assets of this product is that it has such a natural appearance. You can easily imagine fish mistaking it for a natural food item that has fallen into the water or a type of larvae that becomes an available food source at certain times of the year. A 2.5 litre container retails at £8.99 and is available now directly from CC Moore.

Above you can see the stark contrast between the two normal nuts and the new Black Tiger Nuts

49lb Christmas Day Common

One lucky angler had a great Christmas Day present while fishing the Ebro in Spain, when he banked commons of 38lb 2oz and 49lb. Both fish came within twenty minutes of one another. Hopefully we’ll have further information in the coming weeks.

Fred J Taylor MBE 

On Friday 28 December 2007 the New Year Honours list was published and it was pleasantly surprising to see the name Frederick James Taylor in the list to be made an Ordinary Member of the Civil Division of the said Most Excellent Order of the British Empire: For services to Angling (MBE). Further detail of Fred’s honour will appear in a forthcoming issue of Carp-Talk

A few weeks ago I brought up the subject of moon phases and I asked you to send in your opinions as to whether you thought the phases of the moon had any influence upon your captures. I invited comment following a debate that had started in the Carp-Talk office (which was triggered by the article Crowy’s Anecdotal Pants by Tim Paisley, which appears in this week’s Carp-Talk alongside Simon Crow’s response Tim’s Lunar Y-fronts). Neither, I feel offer any conclusive evidence either for or against the cycle of the moon having any influence upon carp anglers’ catches. There is a huge box currently sat at the end of my desk that contains all the catch reports for the last 12 months. I’m really intrigued by this recent discussion and I’m tempted to compile all the information on said catch report forms. I could then compare the facts with the phases of the moon over the last 12 months. But why stop there; I could also compare the facts with other various atmospheric conditions for the last 12-months. The trouble is all of this would have to be done during my own spare time which is always at a premium. I also feel it would be rather more interesting if I knew the time of capture as I could then analyse moonrise and moonset and more precisely look at weather conditions leading up to any given capture. Which in turn would create further problems, as often weather can be quite localised. So what area of the country would I use as the mean data? As it’s all about accuracy, I see no point in wasting my time scrutinising the vast amount of data involved when there would be too many generalisations. Perhaps in the future Carp-Talk could include Time as a category on the catch report form and I could compile the data on an on-going basis throughout the coming year to ease the burden of the whole task. But I still feel there would be slight inaccuracies as I would be reliant upon anglers to provide their information accurately in the first place. I know in the past I’ve caught fish sometime in the early hours of the morning, but come dawn I’d be guessing to try and tell you the precise time of capture. Perhaps I’m going a little over the top? Having been a precision engineer and having done a lot of critical inspection over the years I’ve come to depend on hard facts. Nevertheless, even a table with elements of inaccuracies might at least help us to begin understanding whether or not moon phases had any effect upon captures, and even more helpful would be the ability to predict the best times to be out chasing our quarry. I’ll have a look at the possibility of compiling the data during the coming weeks and if I decide to undertake the task, you’ll be the first to know the outcome. Anyway we’ve had several responses with slightly mixed opinions, all but one dismissing the claim that moon phases had any effect upon catches. However, none of the letters we received, read particular well and the opinions of many are summed up reasonably well by the responses submitted by two members of Carp-Talk staff.

My view on the possibility of moon phases directly affecting how carp feed is one of muted scepticism on the basis that no one as yet has adequately explained how the process can possibly work on small stillwaters, provided a proper scientific analysis of their results, or used it to efficiently predict when to avoid blanks. Whatever influences the moon may have on stillwaters appear to me to be extremely small and vastly outweighed by similar and more pronounced influences produced by other means. Nonetheless, I’m not prepared to dismiss the possibility completely. Anyone who’s been fishing for any length of time will have observed events which have shaken their previously held beliefs.

Kevin Clifford

Lunatic fringe

Does the moonphase influence carp’s feeding patterns? I really don’t know the answer to that one. I cannot spot any correlation between the phase of the moon and my catches made over 20 years of carp fishing (I kept detailed diaries, so I can check), but that doesn’t put me in a position to state categorically that, no, the moon has no influence.

In fact, having fished for barbel on the tidal Trent, I know that their feeding is definitely influenced by the tides. I also know that tides are caused primarily by the moon’s gravitational pull, and whether or not we are conscious of it, we are all subject to that gravitational pull. Are fish any more conscious of it than we are? I’ve no idea!

When it comes to lunar angling anecdotes, the ones that stick in my mind most are the catches that seemingly broke the ‘rules’. The first was in September 1980 when I hooked three carp between 1am and 6am one cold clear night that was starkly illuminated by a full moon. All the available books insisted that cold, clear nights were rubbish, yet I’d never previously hooked more than one carp in a night!

The second was in the summer of 1988, again on the night of a full moon, and an exceptional one at that as there was also total lunar eclipse. It was a clear night, though quite balmy, and I hooked one carp roughly every hour right through the hours of darkness. It was the most prolific night I’d ever had at the venue and I got no sleep, but I did get to see the eclipse in its entirety!

However, there are facts relating to these two catches that are of far more significance than the moon phase or atmospheric conditions. That night in September 1980 was the first time I’d used a new bait with which I’d prebaited the swim over the previous week, and that gave me an exceptional result in spite of the conditions. The night in 1988 was the first time I’d fished with slack lines in the margins of that particular swim, and fishing the margins meant that rebaiting was spot on and quickly done after each capture.

I discovered very early on in my carp fishing career that much of what is written in carp books and magazines does not necessarily tally with what I’ve observed on the bank. “Carp follow the wind” was (and still is) a much-quoted aphorism. Odd then that most of the carp I ever fished for seemingly ignored it! Of course, the wind direction and strength in combination with other meteorological conditions have a massive effect on carp feeding and location, but “carp follow the wind” is simplistic to the point of being nonsense.

In a similar fashion, stating that carp are/are not affected by moonphase is also far too simplistic. What about moonrise, moonset, zenith, etc?

However, this is all pretty academic... The overriding factor in whether or not I caught carp was the time I could devote to fishing for them. I’ve always been in full-time employment, so I’ve only ever had holidays, weekends and the shorter periods between shifts at my disposal. I either went fishing then, or I did not go at all – moonphase never had any bearing on it! Atmospheric conditions certainly affected where and how I fished and what I could expect to catch, but again had little bearing on whether or not I actually went fishing.

My advice is go carp fishing when you can. Look for the carp rather than making assumptions about where you’ll find them, then use the prevailing conditions to determine your tactics and expectations. Include moonphase as one of the prevailing conditions if you want to, but don’t let any supposedly unfavourable factor stop you going in the first place.

Paddy Webb

If you do not agree with either of the above responses and feel strongly enough about the subject, to put pen to paper, then please do, we’d love to hear your opinion on the matter. Even better if you have any concrete evidence to support what you believe then please submit that as well.

From all of us here at Carp Fishing News, have a very happy 2008.

Ben Wales

Above are the trio of thirties I caught in one day last May, exhilarating stuff

Spring will soon return and with it the world will start to wake up

These two prehistoric looking mirrors are just a sample of some real characters in Tiles, hopefully this year I’ll manage to capture a few more of the lakes inhabitants

Wakefield AC bans night fishing

News has reached us that Wakefield Angling Club have banned night fishing from their Horbury and Wakefield Lagoons - the only waters where they allowed night fishing. This will come as a blow to local carp anglers, and the reason given by the long-established Wakefield AC, that they have been closed “due to the activities of a minority of so called anglers who have caused a disproportionate amount of damage, bother criminal and environmental” will be a hard decision to accept.

The view amongst many local anglers is that whilst there have been odd night anglers who misbehave, the vast majority of the problems were caused by non-members. The fisheries are known to have a long history of problems which included the drowning of a young man whilst messing around on a quad bike and serious vandalism to the Sailing Club property. Certainly the banning of bona-fide night fishing will not stop the activities of non-members and criminals, and there is a valid argument that stopping responsible anglers being present during these times will take away any chance of miscreants and criminals being reported to the authorities. It may therefore exacerbate the problem rather than diminish it.

WIN a Holiday Worth £1350 from Angling Lines

Ever fancied a French lake, including luxury bankside accommodation, exclusively for you and your family for the week?

Well here’s your chance. Simply visit the Angling Lines website and enter the free competition.

The prize…

A week’s fishing at Mas Bas in France

for a party of 6 (2 anglers and up to 4 non-anglers). The smaller Lotus Lake will be exclusive to you with full use of Willow Cottage, your ferry crossing (one vehicle, Dover to Calais), 5kg of Quest boilies, pop-ups & dips. Total prize value - £1350!

So we are into another year; we are past the shortest day and all the festivities are but a memory. Therefore, by my calculations it is time to start thinking of the coming year. In 13 weeks time it will be April and the lakes will be starting to warm up. The carp, consequently, will be starting to move around a little more adventurously. So come April where will I be focusing my efforts? Well, I guess in the same places I did last year. I will still be fishing on Tilery and, no doubt, I will be revisiting Fairview even if it’s only to once again experience the thrill of all those carp gorging themselves on the floaters. However, apart from those two waters I really don’t know where I will be spending my time. There are a couple of syndicate waters near by that really I should be giving some serious consideration. There are also a couple of club waters fairly locally that contain some lovely fish, and when you consider the price of fishing them they seem even more appealing.

I’m being a little vague about naming waters I know and I’m sure many of you will understand. As I have no passes for any of these waters I think it’s best for the time been that those waters remain nameless. A water I was giving plenty of consideration up until very recently was the CEMEX Angling venue, Hykham. Unfortunately, there has been a recent stocking, which for the moment means Hykham is a little less appealing. My main interest with the water was its low stock and size, which would have made it an interesting challenge. Perhaps I should not have said ‘unfortunately’ regarding the stocking, after all CEMEX Angling are only trying to improve the venue for the future and I wish them good luck. Perhaps in several years time I may once again consider fishing at Hykham.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been enjoying much more success fishing short sessions on a local day ticket water, where I’ve caught several nice fish to 17lb. I’ve found most of my action using a couple of grains of sweetcorn on the hair, fished over a small PVA bag of hempseed. I am getting a lot of interest from some very small bream but it’s not as bad as when I use a bag of small pellets, so I’ll be sticking with the hemp. The bream do not really bother me because it’s very easy to get the rods back out as I’m only fishing in the near margin. I’m surprised as to how much I’m enjoying these short sessions. The pond is only a few miles from my home and by carrying only the very bare essentials it takes minutes to get set up, move or pack away. I may have mentioned this before but I finally finished reading the new Micky Gray book, A Merry Olde Dance over the holidays and all I can say is if you do not already have a copy then make sure you get one - highly entertaining!

So what of the year just gone – I’ve had some very pleasing results. I would even go as far as saying I’ve been very surprised by what has ended up in the folds of my landing net. A personal highlight of mine came in early May when I landed five carp in less than 24 hours - three of which were over 30lb. For as long as I live that day will put the biggest smile across my face. Spending the best part of a month on the banks of Lac de St Cassien, with good friend Derek Fell, was a real revelation. I had to consider using some unusual methods to put any fish on the bank and it was great to once again be really thinking about my angling. Another real achievement for me this year was qualifying as a level two angling coach, which this year I intend to put to good use by introducing many local youngsters to the wonderful world of fishing.

I hope you have all had a good year and here’s to 2008 - may it bring you many adrenalin-fuelled, rods-bent-double, carpy moments.

Tight lines,

Ben Wales