This week I shall be mainly eating dumbell hookers!!

Week 5 saw Dave Manning take a stunning catch of 99 carp from peg 30 on Dreamlake 2. Dave tells me he used simple tactics, like a plain boilie, no plastic corn attractor or such, fished hard on the bottom over a silty area, he’d put a marker, catapulted 7kgs of bait to start with, then kept it constantly topped up during the week. Range and accuracy are important, Dave also used over 240 P.V.A. bags for the session, he was up at 5-30am for a recast, had 10 rigs set-up and ready to cast. I advocate changing hooks for every fish; Dave on the other hand being a good old Northern Lad prefers to touch his hooks up each cast with a hook stone sharpener, to be honest every time I use one of those I make the hook blunter. As you may recall Dave is also the guy in some of our adverts with the haul of 95 carp last year from peg 16, his Dad I believe also had 57 carp that trip. Dave tells me the quality of fishing has really improved since we went boilie only, the water is clearer; the fish are pristine and seem to fight even harder!!

Now the weather has warmed up, it would appear that some of the lads who have been baiting up rather heavily have been reaping the rewards of late. Personally I’ve found that the more fish you seem to catch the action tends to deter the bigger fish, for instance a 50 fish catch does not automatically equate to a few monsters in the net, sometimes a shed load of 30’s and a spattering of 40’s. What I tend to do as I like to cast one rod away from the action hotspot or baited area in the hope that this rod could reap the rewards with a bit of a lump, as ever though with fishing, the next guy will come along and bang out a shed load of fish and a few biggies, and make me look a liar! That’s the story of my life!!!