GREAT SCOTT! - Carp-Talk Xtra

Tackling midwater
of miscasts it’s easy to think
the nearest will do, but it won’t
for me. Most of my big carp
captures have come from the
pursuit of the perfect bump
down!
The same level of attention is
applied when I’m in action with
the spod rod. The last thing I
want is for spodfuls of bait to be
scattered around the area, so
any cast that is going off course
is stopped mid-flight and
retrieved. I thought I was okay
at spodding until I fished Elstow
1. Spodding is a way of life on
there and some of the other
members could rock the marker
float every time at 90 metres.
Practice makes perfect and
after a while I was accurately
hitting the spots in the same
way.
When it comes together
A perfect example of getting
all the small things right
and reaping the rewards
was a session I had on a
Cambridgeshire syndicate last
year. I often spend a lot of time
searching out the spots that
I fish. Sometimes during the
warmer months these could
be shallow margin spots or
areas the carp like to visit, but
later in the season when the
weather starts cooling off, I like
to search the deeper areas
of a lake for hard clear spots
because experience has shown
these to be a good place
to bag an autumn whacker.
Regardless of the time of year,
however, nothing is written
in stone so I always keep an
open mind. On this particular
occasion I’d found a small
hard, clay patch in around
A worthwhile
reward for taking
care of the small
things
14ft of water in a gully, which
ran for quite a way, a few rod
lengths off an island. The wind
and undertow were causing a
few problems with having the
marker rod in situ, so after the
fishing rod was clipped up at
the right distance, the marker
was removed from the swim.
The bait was an 18mm
Scopex Squid corkball popup
with a three-bait stringer
attached. It took about a
dozen casts to get a satisfying
bump down – with the hook
sharpness being tested before
each cast and a fresh stringer
attached every time.
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