Match Fishing’s Joe Carass looks at the Japanese bait revolution Marukyu!Do you believe bait makes a difference to your catches? The reason I ask is that I have been fishing with many Marukyu backed anglers recently and I have also been experimenting with a bit myself. I must admit to been a bit sceptical at first when I heard about Marukyu bait, but I am not naïve enough to believe that it doesn’t work so over the past 12 months I have been giving the bait a good go and I know it has been said a million times but it is all about the science! A recent trip to the Glebe confirmed this to me; I was fishing the long pole on a rock hard day. I initially fed the swim with EFG 161, 2mm pellets and fished a standard 4mm Bag Em expander on the hook. It was just rock hard and I could not get a bite.
Thinking angler Giles Cochrane takes you through a simple yet deadly approach that just keeps on winning him matches!
When tackling any commercial in the winter there are a few basic approaches that work well and have done for years but, due to the popularity of certain methods, ultimately they lose their effectiveness. Perhaps it has more to do with the ease and convenience of the approach and the number of anglers using them that leads to fish wising up and becoming more difficult to catch.
The Method feeder and pole, for example, now result in much lower weights than they did in previous years and consequently, I seldom set up either through the winter. Chucking the Method through the summer does account for some respectable weights of fish but it’s nowhere near as effective as a straight lead and loose-feeding approach, simply because the fish have associated it with danger and have learned to avoid it.
We join MAP’s Matt Pillay at the awesome Messingham Sands, where he reveals how he catches big weights of silver fish on the waggler and expander pellets.
Joe Carass has been back to do battle in the Tunnel Barn Farm Winter League with a hint of success too!
The Tunnel Barn Farm winter league is now fast approaching its climax and with four rounds to go it was all to play for. In the last round we managed to whittle away at Barston’s lead and had reduced it to just five points.
We were all looking forward to round seven but sadly the arctic conditions put paid to that and the match was cancelled. Nevertheless the following week the snow had melted and it was game on!
However what hadn’t melted was the ice and every one of us was going to have the lovely task of creating some ice holes.
So it was here, the first Fish ‘O’ Mania qualifier of the year. I always get excited on qualifiers for these big-money matches. They can be a bit of a lottery, but if you draw a decent peg you can be in with a chance.
For the last four years I have been trying to get a ticket for Partridge Lakes without any luck, but this year I managed to get on both qualifiers.
Welcome to my first blog entry as I’ve now returned to Match Fishing magazine as editor, after leaving just over 7 years ago. From the September issue onwards I’ll be at the helm with the highly respected Joe Carass as my wingman. I’ll be making some considerable changes to the magazine and you’ll see the return of some faces who’ve not appeared in MF for a while. So what’ve I been up to over the last few weeks?.
What a week it has been for features! The cold weather is truly making its mark with Sheffield and other areas in receipt of snow. Typically this is always a tough time for angling as the 'change' is upon the country. However, once things have stabilised and the fish have become accustomed to the cold the fishing should pick up again. The features have been tough and in a very short space of time the weather really has turned against us.
I hear so many people using the word to describe people these days that the word has almost lost the impact that it once had. Who are the ACTUAL legends of angling? Some that spring immediately to mind are: Ivan Marks, Kevin Ashurst, Alan Scotthorne, Bob Nudd, Denis White and John Dean are all legends from various era’s of match fishing. But one man who really has changed the face of match fishing and fishing in general and is often overlooked is Peter Drennan. All of the Match and Pole team recently had a very enjoyable trip to Drennan HQ to spend a day with the main man himself.
This morning I had a lengthy chat with Wayne Swinscoe about his colossal 53lb of roach from the Town Welland and it got me thinking about the species in general. The lowest weight in his six peg section was 40lb – all roach and the average weight in the 38 peg match was 28lb. it was literally roach soup for the anglers on the match and was possibly the best roach match in this country ever. Interestingly though I asked Wayne whether the length had produced again this week, I was shocked when he said that all of the anglers had blanked! The venue had literally thousands of roach in it a week earlier and was devoid just seven days later.
Jon Whincup reveals some findings from his winter commercial campaigns!
F1s – Simple Is Best
I spend most of my winter targeting F1-style venues and one thing I have learnt is that simple is by far the best. A simple bait choice with a simple match attack will always beat a complicated multi-bait approach.
There is definitely a need to fish several lines by the end of the day, but on larger F1 venues such as Decoy Lakes, where I am today, three or four lines will often be enough.
I am very happy to be patient and have found success by being far more patient than some of the younger anglers around.
Top angler Nick Speed visits one of his favourite haunts, Worsbrough Reservoir, for a frustrating silver fish session where Mother Nature had the last laugh.
