The hair rig is the most popular and effective hook setup in carp fishing and an essential part of the carp fisherman’s armoury.

Enjoy….

Six pairs of carp anglers braved the often atrocious conditions in
Heat 2 of the competition.

Position - Team - Weight

1 - Ian Carter & Paul Hatton - 237lb 15oz

2 - Gary Wady & Pat “No Fingers” - 137lb 6oz

3 - Steve McCreadie & Reece McCreadie - 122lb 15oz

Paul Hatton, one half of the winning team, had this to say about the
event and their victory:

“We decided to enter after watching the event last year on Sky
Sports. We thought the Carp Masters would be a break from the norm, a good experience and also a chance of winning a great prize. We have met some great people and had some good laughs with the other competitors and the guys working at Celtic Lakes.”

“We only had time to get down there for one practice session before
heat two as we live near Manchester. We organized ourselves well
though and got to know the lake quite well in a short space of time.
When the time came to qualify we had done our home work, had our
tactics and bait sorted and managed to get the peg we wanted”

“The weather was described by every team I think to be the worst they had ever fished in, including us! Heavy rain and winds you could
hardly stand up in! We refused to let it beat us though and battled
through it, we were soaked like we had fallen in but managed to keep
spirits high and keep working for the fish”

“I think we had about 25 carp in total, we lost a few and I also
caught 2 catfish which were a bonus although they don’t count in the
match. We caught all our fish on our own home made boilies: that’s all
I’m saying about the tactics! The marshal’s did a fantastic job as
well, it was hard for the anglers but wasn’t easy for them either
that’s for sure.”

“We are really looking forward to the final now, whatever the
weather!”

John Carney, who heads the Wales Carp Masters team, was delighted
with the second heat of this years event:

“After all the months of hard work and planning by my team, Its great
to get this years competition up and running with the second heat now
completed. As always I would like to thank the whole WCM team (with
special thanks going to the marshals who spent most of the weekend
trying to dry out) for their hard work and dedication. Congratulations
to the winning two pairs who we look forward to seeing back here at
Celtic Lakes in the final in August”.

There are still places available in the remaining four heats. Heats
three and four at Celtic Lakes were both won last year with weights
topping 500lbs and 600lbs respectively. So if you fancy some amazing
carp fishing and a chance to be crowned Wales carp Masters 2008,
please visit our registration page to find out more.

For more information and to register, please visit:

http://www.walescarpmasters.co.uk

Check This Out

Quest Baites ahve just released a great vdeo - this is part 1 of 2 - about long distance casting.

The film features World Casting Champion Mark Hutchinson and will give you some extra knowledge to help you fish for carp at long range.

When you’ve checked ou this video, visit Quest Baits for a whole load more carp fishing videos.

I hope you find this extremely useful

“Two Tone” has been caught by “Little” John Bird at a massive 67lb. Although the scales have yet to be checked by Weights and Measures”, the weight eclipses the previous best (Two Tone again, caught by Simon Bater) of 65lb 14oz.

John took the massive mirror carp at Conningbrook using a snowman hookbait on a John McAllister Rig with a Size 6 Mk2 Stiffrigger hook, 15lb JRC Coated Hooklink and JRC Leadcore. The winning bait was an 18mm Winter Seed Mix and a 16mm Essential Baits Cranberry Popup.

John has been fishing Conningbrook for 8 years and has captured 25 different carp from the water. Conningbrook is a tough water when you consider that no carp had come out of the water since October 2007. But John’s patience paid off with the cature of “Two Tone”.

It was a pretty cold day at my local carp fishery, but I had been catching carp regularly over the winter, so I was confident of banking at least a few.

There was nobody else about as I scouted the lake, searching for signs of carp. I decided to set up at the sheltered end of the lake as there was a fairly brisk wind blowing, and I’d seen a few signs of movement.

I set up a pretty standard pop-up rig with  Active-8 pop-ups and attached a PVA stocking with a mixture of pellets, crushed boilies and groundbait. I wanted a tight lump of bait on the lake bed that might entice a carp to have a snack.

This was cast to the sheltered side of an island and another dropped close in to the bank where I knew there was a slightly deeper gully. I was pretty confident that I’d see some action.

A while later, a young lad came down to the lake. We got chatting and it turned out that he’d been fishing the lake for a few months and had not yet caught a carp. So I got him to rig up near me. Once he’d set everything up, I took a look at his rig. First thing I noticed was a huge bit of monofil sticking out of his hook knot, so we snipped it off. Then we sorted out the weight, which was more like a beach casting lead, taking it down to a 1oz flat weight.

Once we had his rig sorted out, I asked him where he was going to fish to. As is often the case, he wanted to lob it out as far as it would go into the middle of the lake. So I suggested that he walk 20 yards down the bank to an overhanging bush, drop in half a dozen boilies that had been cut in half, then manually drop his end tackle right on top.

Give him his dues, he did this without any complaint. About 20 minutes later, his bite alarm screamed and he hooked into a decent carp. After a short fight, with a little more instruction, I slipped the landing net under a beautiful mirror. It actually tipped the scales at a shade over 14 pounds. As the rest of the day wore on, he had another couple of carp, a 5lb common and an 8lb mirror….

I caught absolutely nothing.

But I will always remember that session as one of my favourites. I’m sure that I have helped a young lad catch the carp bug. And the look on his face when he posed for his trophy shot was one of pure joy.

I’ve often wondered, when soaked to the skin on the lakeside, “What am I doing here”. But I realise that carp fishing is not just about catching a few fish and putting them back.

Carp are special fish. Many are even given names. Some are legendary, like “Mary” the former britich record carp that used to grace the occasional landing net from Wraysbury.

Of course, part of the lure is that, other than the occasional catfish, no british freshwater fish grows as large as the carp. There are several carp in UK lakes over the magical 50 pound mark, and if you venture across the English Channel to France, carp of this size are almost common place, with 60 and  70lb fish regularly caught - often by British anglers on a carp fishing holiday.

Carp are clever fish too. One of the reasons that we try out so many different rigs and tactis is that we know that the carp have learned to be wary of certain types of baits and presentations. That makes it a battle of wills between you and the fish. I know of guys who have targetted a particular carp and not been satisfied until they have had it on the bank. Often they have spent a whole season (in the old days when there was such a thing) pursuing that one fish.

And of course, when you are lucky enough to hook into a decent sized carp, they fight all the way to the net.

But carp fishing is even more than that. The social side of things can be great fun too. A couple of lads in a bivvy, chatting over a brew. A fry up by the lake on a cold winter morning with a few mates. It all adds up to make carp fishing a great way of making friends for life.