John Claridge has been getting amongst this year, consistently catching on chod rigs from a couple of challenging south western venues. Here’s a brief report from John:
With the milder windy weather finally putting and end to the Artic conditions come the second week of February, I got myself a ticket for a local large Park lake and fishing at the end where the big South Westerlies were battering in had my best ever February’s fishing by a country mile. My tactics were fishing single hookbaits on chod rigs to a firm area. My Tectrix 3.25’s were comfortably casting 4oz leads 110 yards even in strong side winds. With my chods tied at 1 1/2 – 2 ” with the easily curved 20lb Bristle Filament to size 11 Uni-link swivels I had them spinning at the slightest touch to the virtually frictionless hi performance uni-link swivels. A 6′ length of E.S.P Camo Brown leadcore gave me a good abrasion resistance as well as blending into the silt brilliantly and sinking my buoyant pop-ups as putty added to the end swivel would detract from the effectiveness of a free moving swivel. Leadcore stop beads gave me an effective but safe set-up. In three 48 hour sessions I managed to land 8 carp, including thirties of 31-12 and 30-12 and this got 2011 off to an absolute flyer!
April saw me venture onto another notoriously tricky water and fishing in similar style on my first trip, after an early morning move saw me get off to a good start with a 28-2 mirror and the following morning bank a big fat 35-10 mirror which really scrapped in close, the Tectrix subdueing its lunges for freedom. The following trip resulted in hookpull before my zig-rig fooled a pretty 25-14 mirror.
The lake got busy over the bank holidays and it was hard to get back on fish, but when I got the swim I wanted, my chod caught one of my two target fish – The Big Common at a personal best weight for a common 39lb 6oz.
Fingers crossed I can keep up my good run of form!!
John.
For more info on the Tectrix rod, click here.