Doing Something A Little Different

As a few of you will be aware I am very much a fan of the DNA Baits range. But I am also a fan of a little bit of pink and would like my hookbaits to be giving of the same attractions as my food bait and as DNA do not do a 'fluro' S7 hookbait I decided to make my own.

Here is a quick step by step on how I made a seasons worth of bait in about an hour.

First off you obviously need some ingredients. I am using the S7 liquid food, some sweet aide, Mainlines Polaris pop up mix and some red and white bait dye with a single large egg.

Once you have cracked your egg in a clean bowl add your liquids to it and give it a good thorough mix ensuring all of the egg is combined.  

Now add your colouring. I have added a red with a small amount of white powder dye. 

Now slowly add your pop up mix to the egg, combine it as well as you can with a fork but you will have to get your hands in there and bind it all together. 

It should then resemble a firm but not sticky mixture.

Once you are done mixing, transfer it to a plastic bag or similar to stop it drying out while you prepare your water for boiling. 

With the water on the boil it is now time to prepare your baits. I used a Gardner 14mm rolling table. 

Once the baits have been boilied for their allotted time, 2.30 minutes, let them dry out for a few hours on a tea towel before transferring to an air drying bag for around 48hrs before putting them in a pop up pot. I add a small amount of the liquid food to the pop ups which they will soak in pretty much immediately I then will add some more liquid to them again in a few days time. 

And that's about it. A quick break down on how I made a seasons worth of custom hookbaits in just a few hours. 

DNA Baits

If you have no confidence in your bait then your catch rate will suffer. Fact.

For the first year of my dedicated carp fishing I was unsure on what bait to use so I tried quite a few. I tried The Cell and Fusion from Mainline and had a few fish on them but nothing consistent. I was given a bait to try by my mate Doug at TMT Baits which was a Pro-Active Pineapple with a tiger nut base which produced a few fish as well. I tried Nash Squid and Scopex, Dynamites Scource and Halibut as well as others but I just couldn't single out why I wasn't 'loving' the baits I was using.

Anyway after a few more months and a new session I had heard that a local bait company had been producing some cracking bait and that they offered free samples. So after doing a bit of research I found them residing in the Maltings in South Milford which is just around the corner from me and I popped in for a few free samples.

I was very impressed with what I saw. No freezer burns for a start! A lot of the baits that get shipped around including, the Cell, I noticed had bad freezer burn! I don't know if it was due to the shops storing the bait or it being frozen after manufacture or what but it just puts me off slightly. Anyway from what I saw and the buzz from everyone on the internet the baits seem pretty special indeed.

So I took the plunge last year and decided that picking one of their baits and giving it a good try out was only the way to go! I put in an order for 5kg's of NuttaS along with some corker wafters, a kilo of 18x21mm dumbells and some liquid food.

After a quick overnighter to A1 pits with my daughter which resulted in a small common stalked in the edge and a lot of bad angling on my behalf I decided that I would spend a few hours one afternoon on a local lake in Stillingfleet. The plan was to use my usual tactics on one rod and DNA baits on the other. It was forecast to be the wettest day of the year so armed with a bucket of NuttaS boilie crumb, a brolly and plenty of PVA bags I was looking forward to wetting a line. Stillingfleet pond is not known for its big fish. Every time I have been it has not produced any fish over 10lb for me and they had all fallen for bright pops on multi-rigs, so this trip I was definitely not prepared for what happened.

On getting to the lake there were only a handful of other anglers there and they had set up on the newer side of the lake which suited me just fine as I knew exactly where I wanted to set up and the area was free of lines. I wanted to fish my normal multi-rig pop up PVA bag rig to the reeds and have a NuttaS bag with a Muzza style hookbait on a KD rig in the deeper open water. So out went the rods and up went the brolly and then all hell broke loose. I scattered a few boilies around the NuttaS bag and within half an hour it was away with a spirited little common a new bag and back out with another handful of bait. Again with in half an hour it was away with another little common and at this point I am thinking this is highly irregular for this lake, is it the bait? Is it the conditions? I wasn't sure.

Now I decide to move the high-viz pop and set that with the Muzza 14mm bottom bait and tried something a bit different on the right hand rod with a large 18mm dumbell balanced Muzza again in a bag to the same area. I had another common on the newly moved rod and as the fish was on its way home the dumbell rod rattled of at an alarming rate and as I hit the rod I knew something was very different. The rod bent double and it kitted to the tree bank on the right then came at me and back to the far reeds. After a great fight and seeing the fish on the surface a few times I was finally slipping the net under her I let out a huge sigh of relief and a woooop of excitement. As I set up the camera and scales a fellow angler came round to my swim and helped me with the fish. From a water that has not given me anything bigger than a high single fish because it, lets face it, is my back up runs water that sees more match/pleasure fishing than specimen hunters I couldn't believe it when I lifted her out of the water and weighed her at 21lb 6oz! Shocked and immensely happy!

I followed it with another high single fish before running out of bait and time. What a fantastic session! Sadly for me that was the last time before September that I managed to get back out on DNA baits. The next time I was using their new bait, the S7, which again I was feeding boilies but this time fishing just corker wafters. I had a few fish and some great action but unfortunately the big one didn't show herself this time. Now with the fish having a good taste for the DNA stable of baits then I'm sure she will grace my net again.

Since starting out with the bait in July I have used it on every trip I've been out on, obviously I am not the greatest angler in the world but have had more success than failure. Is it down to the bait or to putting something in front of a hungry carp? who can tell? All I know is the range is giving me huge confidence on the bank.

The fluro range of pop ups and wafters come in great colours, sizes and flavours. A personal favourite of mine was the Milky Malts but they have been pushed aside now by the amazing Wraysberries! Soon to be one of the greatest baits to come from the north with out a doubt.

Their food bait range is growing thick and fast. With new products and innovations coming from the brains of some very talented individuals it will not be long before they are a big player in the UK and Europe bait scene. A score of consultants and fieldtesters work all year round testing the products that Jason Trought, the 'big' brain behind DNA, creates.

2013 will see DNA Baits release several new concepts that are to change and evolve the way we see and use bait. There is only a bright future ahead for this company. I have 100% confidence in them and for me the first choice of hookbait will be DNA. I am not a fieldtester or consultant, just a customer who knows what I like, what I have faith and confidence in.

Whats yours?

Matt

Nash Entity Rods and NXT D-Cam Line! Combo!

So for the past few years I have been using JRC Defender rods in 2.3/4lb test curve as they were all I could afford at the time. I kept them as I really enjoyed the fish playing action of them and at the time saw no need to upgrade. It got to the point however that they couldn't stand up to the fishing that I am doing now and I wanted a rod that could handle a large pva bag at 70+ yards.

As I was doing the marshalling for the BCAC and UKCC last year I was earning Nash vouchers and had been to a few road shows that Nash had at various events. After talking to a few of the guys they recommended the Entity rods in a 3.5lb test curve. So I bit the bullet and got a pair with the vouchers I had earned. Not long after the order was put in I started to hear stories of the rods snapping on people and thought I had made a bit of a blunder with the choice of rod. Later I found out that the rods that were snapping were the 3lb test curve rod and this was because people had been overloading the rod. Trying to cast large bags, heavy leads etc as if it was a 3.5lb rod so that put my thoughts at ease.

I received my rods on a Friday and sods law I was working all weekend so it wasn't until the next week that I managed to get out on the bank and have a go on the rods! So it was early December and cold and I decided to go to a large lake and fish the far bank so I could get some longer casts in. When I took the rods out of their bags I was taken aback by the satin finish and carbon weave, it looked stunning along with the Nash engraved butt caps. I screwed my Shimano 10000's on to the Fuji reel seat and they fit snug as a bug. I fed my line through the 50mm butt ring and then the remaining rings with ease and tied my favoured loop knot ready for a Nash Diffusion leader. I attached my leader which was set with a 1.5oz in-line bag lead shocker style and a short KD rig with a DNA Baits PB fluoro wafter. The lot was then bundled in to a PVA bag and tied of ready for casting. I estimated that the tree line to my right was around 70 yards so I got out the ESP Boilie Pult and spread a few handfuls of S7 14mm boilies along the tree line and then lined up my cast. Now, in hindsight, I should have attached a lead and had a cast out to get my distance right then clipped up before tying a bag on straight away but we live and learn! Anyway I loaded the rod and soon had the bag flying effortlessly out over the lake and straight in to the overhanging tree! Luck would have it that I pulled out of the tree and the bag landed about 5 foot off the bank! Lucky!

The rod felt beautiful in my hands. After using the 2.75 rods for so long I was scared that these beefier rods would feel heavy and clumsy but I couldn't be more wrong. They weigh less than my old rods and have a great through action which makes them 'feel' like a lighter test curve.

So I repeated the process with my second rod but attached my Choddy leader with one of my multi-chods and a DNA Milky Malt pop up. Time to test the rods casting power. Straight in front of me is the no fishing bank and about two thirds of the way across is a plateau which I guess is at around 100 yards. I attached an  Avid 2.5oz distance lead on the end of the leader and picked a far bank marker. Loaded the rod and let forth a mighty cast! Feathering the line as I felt the lead running out of steam it landed on the plateau bang on, now I'm not a great distance caster so was utterly impressed that I hit 100 yards!

Early December Frosts With The Entitys On The Sod Pod

Anyway after an hour or so the chod rod ripped off and from the take I could tell it was one of the smaller fish in the lake as it came in fast and then went mental under rod tip. Again I was very worried that the rods would be too powerful for me and I would bump the smaller fish with their fast lunges. But I should not have worried as the rod performed brilliantly and the fish was soon in the net. Unhooked, weighed and photographed for our records the fish was returned and again the rig was sent out to the plateau. The weather started to deteriorate and get a bit colder just as the choddy went again with another small but angry carp. With two fish in a few hours fishing I was more than happy and too hit 100 yards was even better!

I managed to get back out on the bank with my daughter a few days ago and decided that while I was only using the one rod then it was a perfect opportunity to respool my reels with the Nash NXT D-Cam main line.

NXT D-CAM Line As Good As Subline? We Will See

 I followed the instructions and the line went on my reel very nicely, the low diameter of the 12lb line letting it sit perfectly. After respooling I made a few casts to the far bank so that I could retrieve and bed the line down even better. Coupled with the Entity rods the leads landed exactly where I wanted them to every cast. So with new line and rods now all I need to do it actually catch something!

Entitys With My Shimano's Loaded With D-Cam

Anyway with the rods all set up I tested some line in the margins and if you have not used the Nash Diffusion stuff then you probably wont believe me but it disappears the second it touches the lake bed! I've been using Subline for the past year and while I do like the colouring and how well it sinks I found that it got rough quite quickly and had some bad twists in it after getting a run. I hope the Nash line performs better. From what I have read the D-cam line is very durable and sinks just as well. So here's hoping that a few fish fall foul to the camouflage line and the Entitys guide them to the net well.

Can not wait to get out to Q lake next month and give everything a good old run out!

Till next time. Matt.