So, I had been fishing for a few weeks in the canal and river and been catching small fish and it was not enough. If I was going to carry on I wanted to catch something bigger and a bit more interesting and thought about the club’s still waters. I wasn’t feeling confident enough just to rock up and start fishing so I spent a couple of days driving round to find the lakes and chat to anglers there, at a social distance of course!
It was all quite interesting, it was clear that carp fishing was the “in thing.” Every lake I visited had their fair share of carp anglers with their alarms beeping every now and again and I saw some good fish being caught and thought that I would like to have a go at that. I also looked on YouTube and other sites and fishing forums and was getting overwhelmed with information! Let me give a shout out here for Carl and Alex as I spent a lot of time watching their YouTube videos and learnt a lot. In case you don’t know them they are two brothers who have been posting videos since they were kids and now that they have grown up have gone full time. They are well worth a watch.
What I realised was that if I wanted to catch bigger carp then I needed a stronger rod and a suitable reel. I was still not sure at this stage if angling was going to be a permanent thing for me so didn’t want to spend too much money. Normally I would have gone into the local tackle shop to support local business but as we were shielding I decided to buy online. I did some research and it was then that I realised that I was a tackle snob! I could have bought a rod from Sports Direct for under £20 but I didn’t want to be seen on the bank with really cheap gear, I could imagine the pitying looks that I would get from proper anglers! I ordered a 12ft Daiwa Black Widow rod with a 3lb test curve which I thought would be a good allrounder along with some method feeders, hair rigs, boilies, pellets , line and other bits and pieces that I thought I would need and they all arrived within a few days. I also ordered a baitrunner reel, a NGT Dynamic 6000 from Ebay at a reasonable price and when it came I was all set to go.
I had a practice at rigging up in my garden then I was ready. The plan was to go to one of the club’s smaller, less popular waters and catch a carp. Whether I did or not you will have to wait and see in the next blog entry!
I will leave you with a picture of one of the more exotic inhabitants of the canal!
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