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Friday, 18 May 2012
Marukyu Japan
Tim Hodges' Blog
Les Quis Carping
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I’ve just got back from another trip to France where I was doing some filming for the Les Quis web site (www.lesquis.com). The weather was ridiculously hot but the carp at Les Quis still fed well.

On this trip I was testing some baits that I had made by coating some Sanagi boilies in Concentrated Liquid Sanagi and then rolling them in some EFG121 ground bait. These were then left to dry for 24 hours. This left me with a boilie that not only had a coating of liquid Sanagi but had the added advantage of the ground bait coating too. This boosts the attraction in your swim with particles of ground bait that are soaked in the liquid Sanagi.

These baits caught me carp up to 37lbs. I am definitely going to be playing around with this type of bait more this season. I think it will be particularly effective in the winter when you want lots of attraction but not too much food content in your swim.

One of the things that I noticed on the trip was that double hook baits outperformed singles by about four to one. These doubles were either fished as critically balanced snowman rigs or just two bottom baits. There was not much in it between these two options, but I had slightly more bites on the snowman rig.

I had a few fish on zig-rigs during the week but I struggled to find any sort of consistent depth that they would work at. I had bites on baits fished a foot below the surface and also baits fished two feet off the bottom in ten feet of water, and a couple at random depths in between.

I find zig-rig fishing very frustrating as it seems to be fairly hit and miss to me. If you are fishing in 10ft of water, that’s a lot of water to find the depth that the carp will eat at. When I’m fishing on the bottom I will often tweak a rig by an inch or so and it will often make a difference. There’s a lot of inches in ten foot of water to play around with.

Also how long do you leave a zig-rig out for before you change the depth? Bottom baits often sit out there for hours before I recast. All in all, I find it all a bit of a mystery. If anyone can give me a definitive answer to zig-rigs I’m all ears.

Hopefully over the next few weeks I am going to try and catch some carp from the Great Ouse near where I live. Watch this space for news.

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Welcome
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Tim's blog Welcome to my new weekly column!
I've been told that this is actually a blog – but being a fisherman and not a computer geek… I don’t know any better!
So what am I up to this week? Well, for me, it’s testing testing testing!
This week I will be going to the fabulous Glebe fishery in Leicestershire to do some serious playing.
Really it’s all about the products we are developing. I have some lovely new sample groundbaits from Japan made to my (some would say fussy) requirements along with some exciting new hook baits.
The interesting thing is how the different baits seem to be performing in different ways and this is something I will report on further next week.

Weekend prospects
I have been following the forecast closely and if I’m honest, the weather is not the best for the weekend – but don’t let that put you off!
I’m often asked where to fish on a venue and at this time of year it’s easy to come up with the answer.
The first thing I would look for is fish movement – take a few minutes to look at the water before you decide where to fish – look for showing fish.
At this time of year the fish will most certainly be in the shallows – with three to four feet of water being the ideal depth. I would also head for the sunniest part of the lake, as this will also be the warmest part of the lake.
If it is a deep lake I would certainly target the margins on the bank that gets most of the sun as this is where the fish will be patrolling.

Baits
Certainly on the waters I have been fishing, the fish have not spawned yet.
This is an interesting time of year, as the fish will respond well to bait. They are readying for spawning and are most certainly on the feed – so don’t be afraid to give the fish something to get stuck into!
At this time of year fruit flavours are my own personal favourite – and I have been catching well on Shisho and Ichigo boilies… which I will report on in more detail next week!
 


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