Good Evening!

Hey ho! It’s a jolly old life at the river and hard work too. The one thing I noticed the first time I ever carp fished on a river is how tough it can be. This is the biggest challenge of river carping. So many things throw themselves at you and the fun part I guess is overcoming them and catching a carp. The Czech guys further upstream are doing quite well. They are catching a small handful of carp each night, but by the look on their faces you would not believe it, because they are all average river size. The average size here is small for the ‘average’ French carp I suppose. Anything between 8-12kg is the norm and they have so far caught carp between 8-12kg. “At least you are catching,” I said. “Be happy about that!” It is no surprise to me that the angler out of the pair of them who is catching the most is the one who is fishing on the upstream side and practically all the fish are coming to his left hand rod. This happened to me the last time I fished here, and every time I moved a rod further to my left, it was this rod that caught the carp! A pattern is emerging and I like it! I will certainly be moving into their swim when they depart as it was my intention to fish there anyway, but in the meantime…..

I must persevere in the spot I am in and I have to say I am feeling confident of a carp very soon. The carp never seem to feed in the day here and the only action I have ever received was at night and very early in the morning before it got light. The rain is a big plus and I think tonight could be the night, but please don’t hold your breath! I am enjoying being here, which is the main thing. I am working hard though and the bait is going in regular as clockwork, as planned, and I am having to recast the rods every few hours due to the clinging debris that catches your lines. The raised rod tips are working to fend it off for a while, but eventually a small piece collects which then seems to attract other bits and before you know it you have a floating mass of weed, sticks and leaves pulling on your line.

Expect it fishing on rivers.

I am playing around with some coloured pop ups to try and see if that makes any difference tonight. I am using a snowman set up and switching the pop up to see if one colour will work better than others. I am a strong believer that when you are fishing you don’t need the same hookbait as your main feed. If the carp are there they will pick up your bait out of curiosity or because they are simply on the munch anyway.

Someone came to see me yesterday. An Austrian angler going by the name of Dominic rowed two kilometres upstream and we had a little chit chat like you do. He reads my blog from time to time and particularly liked it when I was fishing at Cassien. “Don’t you get bored fishing everyday,” he asked me? That is a really good question and maybe he should have read the blog earlier in the week!!! Motivation is my biggest problem and trying to keep the enthusiasm levels running when the carp are low in the tank or the weather is rather miserable! These are the periods I find the most difficult part but as long as I have nice food to eat, some writing to do, and an internet connection; then I am sorted. I like to watch DVD’s in the winter and I like to spend a bit of time cooking. You never know when that run is coming and a sudden hit of fish makes you suddenly appreciate the quiet times, when you can at least sleep and have a few moments to regain your thoughts. I was never under the impression that fishing for five whole years was going to be easy, but then I have always loved a challenge and I like the bar to be raised high as the feeling of accomplishment is far greater.

Stringers at the ready...in case it kicks off!!

This winter I will have plenty to keep me busy as I will be starting to write lots of extra ‘unseen’ material for my first book. This will be part one of my travels and adventures to date, and it will be out next year sometime. Angling Publications will be handling everything for me and it is something I am really looking forward to. The blog is a book in itself. I had a nice comment today from someone who said I put a lot of effort into writing it. The blog is my baby and I am very proud of it. The fact I have so many readers just highlights that I have achieved what I set out to do. To bring you a diary of a carp angler with no frills attached.

Tomorrow is TWP and I now need to eat some dinner. The dogs eat at 6pm and are now snoozing on their bed. They appreciate all the comments they get too, so keep em’ coming!!

Cheers for now.

Jake and the dogs!

Tags: blog, carp, cassien, jake langley-hobbs

This entry was posted on October 23, 2009 at 8:03 pm and is filed under River Adventures. 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.