Fishing On The Whip!

This catch proves the more you know the more you catch! these fish where caught at Oak Hanger Fisheries near Crewe Cheshire. my mate and I had fished this on two previous occasions.

On our first visit we did OK! but as it was some time in January and the water was clear with ice on it! we decided to fish out in to the deeper water at about 10mt rs on the pole.

This was around about seven feet deep,a good depth for winter fishing! personally I expected to catch there but all we caught were gudgeon small Rudd and roach but as usual I had fed two areas as a secondary measure. At 10mt rs I had fed chopped worm and casters and at 3mt rs all I fed was some loose casters giving myself two options.

I had tried the 3metre line a couple of times during the day, but didn't appear to be getting many bites, so I persevered with the long pole, deciding to fish close in during the last hour or so.

This is a tactic employed by a lot of the top flight match men, and more often than not can provide you with some big surprises, and it did as I caught a carp of about 3lbs and some decent Roach on casters.

However we had a reasonable catch considering the conditions, but on reflection I felt that the majority of fish could be caught at close range! the picture above is the result. Although the weather had improved slightly this has reassured me that their are more fish to be had at 3mt rs.

Consequently after our second visit and always wanting to improve on the previous catch, I decided to feed hemp and casters and to try the whip but with a slight difference. I have just recently bought a set of whips and have substituted the top section of the 3metre whip, by incorporating a no: six to eight elastic in to a very fine hollow tip which I found in my garage

You might think this is somewhat unorthodox, however I can assure you it works and helps you to subdue those extra bonus fish that may enter your swim! it worked perfectly for me as you can see from the picture below, I was able to cope with small carp up to 1lb 8oz .

John and I fished with single red maggots on size 18 hooks, myself changing to caster later on because it seemed that I was catching far to many gudgeon. Although you had to re-bait up more often with caster it proved to be worth while because this change produced more Crucian carp which were bigger.

It was also an added bonus not needing my glasses for these! for a fiver a day it is certainly worth a visit, especially when you consider you are also able to see what you have caught at the end of the day, "as keep nets are allowed". John and I agreed it was a pleasure to catch such a mixed net of fish!! "Tight lines"