Good Evening.

England have romped into the lead in the Gigantica European cup, but there is plenty of time for the other teams to catch up, so there is still all to play for. As I published last night’s post Danny Fairbrass had another fish; a beautiful linear and then Ting Tong had a fish just after dark. This brought them level with Ben-Lux, but by the morning a couple more carp had fallen to the rods of Danny F. and by breakfast England had secured the lead.

I have spent the day writing and stalking. The stalking pond is situated yards from the lodge and it has been a case of write a paragraph, stalk a carp! They are going mad for the dog biscuits and after I introduced some at first light, practically every carp in the small pond were loving them. My target fish was swimming around with its shoulders out of the water and looked like it might be easy quarry. However, as is normally the case with stalking carp, they often lull you into a false sense of security; as soon as you introduce a baited hook they all clear off! I will come back to the stalking later.

Todays Profiles.

Representing Germany.

Name:Jens Berntsen.

Age: 34.

Hometown:Emmevich.

PB: 24.8kg.

Occupation: Mechanic for knitwear development.

Funniest moment in fishing:I was having a sexy moment with my girlfriend in my bivvy whilst fishing the river Rhine. I had a run and had to exit my bivvy partially clothed and it was very embarrassing. There were lots of people about!

Why carp fishing? Because they are a difficult fish to catch.

Rig for the competition:Running rig. Small hooks. Braided hooklinks.

Representing  Ben-Lux 

Name:Mario Gijbels.

Age: 25.

Hometown:Dilsen, Belgium.

PB: 28.1kg common!

Occupation: Owner of Dream Baits.

Funniest moment in fishing: Caught a very big carp and had to go into the water up to his chest to land it. His phone was in his trouser pocket. Oops!

Why carp?Went with his father to the Kempish Canal when he was seven years old. Hooked ever since!

Rig for the competition: Snowman.

Representing England.

Name: Tom Dove.

Age: 20.

Hometown:Brentwood.

PB: 57lb 5oz The Manor UK

Occupation:Product developer for Korda.

Funniest moment in fishing: When Tom’s mate James Armstrong fell in whilst setting up his rods at Sky Lake very recently!

Why Carp? Loves the peace and loves the carp!

Rig for the competition:KD rig aka the muzzer.

At the moment in the competition England have pushed well over the 100lb mark in total. Ben-Lux are still on 63lbs and Germany are still to get off the mark. There will hopefully be some more fish caught tonight and it would be nice if the people that are still yet to catch get some action soon! I am sure they are feeling that way too.

Back to the stalking….

As I explained at the start of this post I have got the fish in the small pond happily taking dog biscuits off the top. I have one particular fish that I am focusing on and it is the largest! Trying to draw this fish away from the rest of the group is part of the challenge and a couple of times it looked like it was going to plan. However, there are quite a few hungry mouths in this pond and I didn’t want to ruin my chances by accidentally hooking one of them, which would scare the big girl. I was happy to watch them confidently take the free offerings, building up their confidence, but as time went on the smaller carp started taking over and my target fish sloped off into the background.

I kept popping over throughout the day, introducing a few handfuls to keep the interest levels up, and within minutes of throwing in the biscuits the usual greedy suspects appeared and gobbled them down. They did move with caution however and I suspected they wouldn’t be as easy to catch as they made out. Eventually I could take it no longer and I had to have a go for one of them. The bigger fish was nowhere to be seen, so I figured it wouldn’t spoil my chances of trapping her another day; possibly tomorrow!

Finding a spot to lower the bait is difficult and the edge is very steep. The margin drops away sharply, so care has to be taken, so as not to fall in. It wasn’t long before a few fish appeared and I watched as a pretty mirror approached my floating hookbait. It opened its mouth and took the biscuit, and sunk slowly away. Hooked! The fish fought amazingly hard and gave me a real battle. It was great fun and this is my first fish caught off the top for over 16 years. What a buzz!

Once I start this kind of fishing I find it incredibly addictive. I love the rush you get from observing the fish at close quarters and it really does get the heart beat racing. It wasn’t long before I was back to have another go, and just as it started to get dark I found a slightly larger fish which was having a late evening snack. The approach was slightly trickier as the bait had to be lowered over some bushes. The fish took the bait after a couple of tense minutes and then it was hit and hold. I reached for the net and got her in quickly before she even knew what was going on. A lovely way to finish off the day!

There is always the possibility that tomorrow I will get my chance for my target fish. That is the other thing I do like about stalking; all of a sudden the fish you really want is there and catch-able, right in front of your very eyes. You just have to be in the right place at the right time.

Tomorrow I will post the final team profiles and give the results of the last 24 hours. I will also post some pictures of some very big Gigantica carp that have been recently been caught from the lake, just to wet your appetite.

Cheers for now.

Jake Langley-Hobbs & two Doberman dogs!
Team Imperial Fishing-We love to fish!!…..
www.carp-gps.com

Tags: carp, Gigantica, imperial fishing, jake langley-hobbs, mirror, stalking

This entry was posted on June 23, 2009 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Gigantica. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.