Julian Cundiff - Part Two

Part two.


It was really interesting to hear how Jules was dedicated so early in his career. He certainly is an inspiration to the carp world and so down to earth. I wanted to move forward and see how Julian tackled modern day carp fishing and asked him how technological advances has impacted on his own fishing.

"If your talking about technology then I'd say the things that have changed my fishing more than anything, number one it's fluorocarbon! I can't fish without fluorocarbon main line now unless I'm fishing say a really weedy water and it's hit and hold stuff. The first time I started using fluorocarbon I could 'feel' the bottom properly! I got a great idea of exactly what I was dropping on to. My casting became more accurate and that has really affected my fishing.

The second thing that has improved my fishing is the multi-rig. The majority of the fish I catch are on pop-ups. The old braided pop-up rigs would tangle and were a bit of a nightmare to tie but then I looked at the multi-rig and then I steamed it which made a massive difference and I never got a tangle especially with using bits of Solar foam. Everyone else does exactly the same thing. A pop-up rig with a pva stringer or pva bag hooked on and whack it out. I looked at that presentation and thought it doesn't sit properly. I started fishing single hookbaits with foam on the steamed multi-rig and you could see that when it hit the bottom it would kick out and sit perfectly on the bottom.

So I would say that fluorocarbon mainline, the multi-rig and pva foam have made more of an impact on my fishing more than anything else and that 95% of the carp I catch are on that. I fish my fluorocarbon mainline with a Nash Diffusion leader which you can not see under water!" 
I use these leaders as well and have to agree that they are extremely hard to see when they are on the lake bed.
"I still look at other peoples leaders and think why are you using that? They would say to me 'well you would say that being a Nash consultant' but honestly you if put one in the water and look away then look back to it, you will not see it in and they sink quite well. Those and a steamed hooklink that kicks away with a pop-up just off the bottom along with a curved shank hook, be it a Nash or a Gardner and a bit of foam. Those have made a big difference in my carp fishing."

Testament to this Julian has caught carp from 12oz all the way up to nearly 50lbs from venues up and down the country. Varying in difficulties from runs waters up to low stocked pits and with this set up Julian has caught a lot of fish. I have been using the multi-rig for all of my pop-up work since the beginning of the year after seeing an article on the Korda webpage. I have also created my own version of the chod rig incorporating a multi-rig arrangement which allows me to change hooks without having to break down my choddy set up. When I fish a coated braided hooklength I like to use the hooklink tails from Nash to kick my rig away from the lead system which I think creates the same end result as steaming it but Julian had another little tip for the rig.

"I use a Nash big ring swivel. If you watch it in the water it allows the rig to kick back towards the lead which means you will never get a loop in the hooklink. As soon as someone hooks a PVA bag on it ruins the presentation  This is because as the lead hits the bottom the bag will pull the rig straight down and you will end up with a loop in it! With this rig you have to use some foam and critically balanced hookbait and I guarantee you it will kick out fully extended. Its only 100% effective if it's fully extended. When the fish picks that bait up if the rig isn't fully extended the carp can get away with it. Once its fully extended and a carp sucks that bait up then the little bit of movement in the ring swivel allows it to go up in to the mouth at full extension then the hook will ping back and catch hold every time."

So as Jules has pointed out this rig needs to be set up properly for it to work effectively. If you browse through a magazine or on a carp fishing website you will come along many rigs that anglers use to fool their quarries from the humble hair tied to the shank to a Whithy or 360 rig. I asked Jules if he thought the world of carping has gotten overcomplicated over the years.

"I think its as complicated as you want to make it. The problem is that when you go fishing and you don't have an underwater camera you really don't know why you have or haven't caught, we have a good idea but don't know. I think that its natural for us as carp anglers to start thinking about it on the bank, ah I must have caught that because I used a yellow pop-up rather than a pink one etc.

If you watch the Korda underwater DVDs the reality is that it is down to just two or three millimetres. The fish sucks and blows, sucks and blows and occupationally it catches hold. There wasn't anything on those that really made a difference between catching and not catching.

I think that every carp angler that has been fishing for a couple of years we will all fish about the same and that there are less and less advantages now. We have all got access to fluorocarbon. We have all access to this, that and the other and its those little bits and pieces that make all the difference. Everybody now can do literally what everybody else does and its trying to think of ways to do things differently that stand out, so yeah in some ways I do think its overcomplicated but with carp fishing, once you stop thinking about it then I think there is that danger of slipping into cast, coffee, read, sleep. Then its like 'where has the last twelve hours gone?'

My view is, and somebody said this to me many years ago but I forget who it was, what ever you do you need to understand why your doing 'that', that could be why you picked that swim, why you set your rods up there, why your landing net is there, why your bivvy is facing that way, why your casting that out, why your putting twelve baits out instead of seventeen. As long as you know why your doing it, even if your wrong, you will get better at it. Its better to do it and do it wrong but at least know why your doing it than to simply just go through the motions."

I get what Julian is edging at here. Too many anglers turn up at lakes and will simple pick a swim that is close to the car park or is an easy walk and cast three rods out without a thought as to where the fish are. The rigs and bait might be perfect for the fish in the lake but if the fish are in a totally different area to where the rigs are then you don't stand much chance of a good run of fish.

"Sometimes I'm the same as everyone else and I do cast them to the same old spot with the same white chocolate boilie or whatever with the same twister hook when I'm at Drayton, fishing at a hundred yards because sometimes I'm lazy and just want to social fish and relax. But that doesn't teach you anything and suddenly your like 'whoa why haven't I caught anything today?' Its only when you think about it and overcomplicate it that you actually learn.

I don't think we know, even with the Korda DVDs and all the best anglers in the world, that at the end of the day we can actually say 'that' was definitely A or B. Occasionally you can have a really good idea the reason why I had a multiple hit was X,Y and Z. I think a lot of the time we get the answer '4' and that it was '2+2' when actually it could have been '3+1.' We get an answer, which is either a blank or a catch, then we go back and ask ourselves a question 'was it  because of ................?'  and we come up with answers to our questions because that's what we do as carp anglers.

Its each to their own, it doesn't matter what you think as long as you enjoy it. Sometimes I just go through the motions, sometimes I have to really work at it and sometimes I think you know what, I could do without catching tonight and just sitting there reading and chilling then have a coffee and pack up at 6 o'clock without a wet landing net. So I do think carp fishing is overcomplicated but if it wasn't then you start going backwards."

Julian is well-known for his short session fishing. He finishes work and heads to the lake for twelve hours or less and tries to winkle one or two out. Gets up ridiculously early to head away for day sessions and if he is lucky a twenty four session. I asked him how he felt on getting on the bank for longer sessions and if that appealed to him.

"Well, yes. I have worked continuously since 1980 and now we are in 2012. That is thirty two years of work and I would say that 95% of the carp I have caught have been between the hours of 6pm and 6am. That is really hard work because I am missing out on what are potentially great fish catching times and now I've got to the stage where I would be going fishing and the chances of me catching during those times are grossly diminished, never impossible but less. I would be thinking if I could stay till ten in the morning or if I could be there at three in the afternoon then I would have had far more of a chance."

You could tell from the way he was talking that Jules really would love the extra time on the bank and he was frustrated.

"Yeah it does become frustrating sometimes. I go because I enjoy carp fishing but if someone said would you put your mortgage or house on catching a fish in these hours then I would say no!" He laughs "I'd rather get there at say 5am and fish till ten in the morning than get there at 5pm and fish till 6am because you miss out on great times. It is what it is though and I'm not complaining as I have caught a lot of fish but there will come a time that I will want to wake up at six and make a coffee rather than winding in and wait till 9 o'clock and see bubbles on the surface and think 'ya know what? I could stop another 2 hours!' It is so frustrating as an overnight angler having to wind in at 6/6.30am and then sometimes people might say to me the next day 'they were all over your swim when you left mate' I know they were!"

Carp fishing is a sport that has seen record growths over the past few years. Its popularity has spread to all parts of the UK and going from a handful of known anglers and magazines to stacks of both. I asked Jules if he thought the sport would level out or keep growing.

"I do think it will keep growing, you can't put the genie back in the bottle! Look at what is on the front cover of the Angling Times and Angling Mail nowadays it is usually a carp but when I was growing up it was nets of 3oz roach or such and such angler with a pound chub but today what sells magazines is bigger fish.

I think the only struggle we have got is the recession, it will hit hard. My view on the recession is it will go on for at least another five years if not more and I don't think it will ever come back to what it was. Cars last longer, there are not as many jobs to go around, people are not inventing new things and there are a lot more people in the country. There is more unemployment, less people paying taxes. They can dress it up as they want but the recession will last a long time. More people will go carp fishing but I think its becoming harder and harder as there are only so many people who are going to buy carp fishing magazines, there are only some many people that are going to buy more carp fishing tackle.

Eventually the margins will become smaller and smaller that some companies will disappear and I think the golden years have gone for a lot of people. I think it will get bigger and bigger though. I have heard for a lot of year people say carp fishing will blow out blah blah blah but there are more people carp fishing now than there ever has been because its attractive. Why would you want to sit trying for a 4oz roach when you can go and catch a bigger carp? I'm not saying that a 4oz roach is a less valuable catch, it may well be more but the only person who can decide is the one going fishing and if he gets a kick out of a 10lb carp then he will keep fishing for them. I don't think carp fishing will ever get smaller I think it might become out priced for some people but it will only get bigger and bigger.

Companies are prepared to accept smaller margins now. At one time it was growing and growing and growing but now I think there is a limited amount of people who will buy carp fishing magazines, carp fishing DVDs and carp fishing books. I don't think if we had five times the number of people fishing next year that you would sell five times the amount of magazines etc, the two are not linked together."

If it wasn't for the internet you wouldn't be sat where you are reading this and there is a lot of information out there for us all. Does it have an impact on the other forms of fishing media?

"There are people that want to read and there are people that want to browse the internet. At one time the only magazine out there was Carp Fisher which came out twice a year or quarterly. Nowadays there is probably too much material out there for us to read but you've got to look at it through the eyes of other people and who are we to say what is right or wrong? For somebody coming into carp fishing would pick up different magazines to what you and I do. The internet has cut down on magazine sales but I think the internet has driven interest in to the sport. Again you can't but the genie back in the bottle.

I prefer to read. I don't have a kindle. I like the feel of a book and I think it is a decreasing market but I want to read  the Telegraph newspaper, not on a kindle or the internet and that's me. I don't think you will see the death of magazines or books but I think they will become a harder and harder media and they will have to move with the times. The days of magazine and book editors being lazy and putting anything in they want are gone. You need to retain sales and people are becoming choosy about what they buy or don't buy."

I had a really entertaining night talking with Jules. His journey from the kid riding around on a push bike and not bothered at all in fishing to a carp fishing guru is quite an interesting one and his knowledge of the sport is mathematical, precise and extensive. Time was getting on and Julian was soon due to be on call so we decided to wrap it up but before I went Jules gave me a quick sneak at his carp study. Wow! What a room. He has kept every clip and magazine that he has done an article or snippet for. All his books and presentations and concert passes litter the walls and desk tops and it was awe inspiring to see them all. 

Jules and his books..

Kiss fan.... just a small one.

We wrapped it up there and I made my way home listening to an album from The Answer with a grin on my face. I had coffee and a chat with a hero of mine and it was one night I will remember for the rest of my days. 

I hope you have enjoyed reading folks and be sure to check back or like us on Facebook to keep up to date with what's happening. 

Thanks again Julian.

Matt.