Carp fishing in England

[spivak]

It's killing me to read about the ice breaking up on the Northshore and the spring fishing starting to get wound up. My family and I are in London for a bit and I took a cycle trip through some of the city parks. Ran into a cluster of anglers fishing in Victoria Park in one of the park lakes. Swans, coots, mallards, gallinules, tufted ducks swimming everywhere and vieing with the pigeons for crusts of bread. A fountain shooting up a tower of water was a particularly favored area for the anglers.

They used long rods which they place in metal racks that hold the rods parallel to the water surface. Small hook baited with a "boilie"; a spawn bag sized ball of crab flavored dough. They had all colors. A slip sinker which looked like a tear-dropped shaped purse of dark plastic. They used some sort of styrofoam which they could wrap around their line near the hook and just crunch it on with their fingers. The cast was very serious. A careful placing of the feet and measuring of the distance before letting it fly. They could really launch it. The angler that I saw placed a small sliding sinker on his line,ahead of his rod tip, after he cast to hold the line below the surface and presumably down below where paddling duck feet could intercept it. The rig was complete when he clipped a small sensor on the line in front of his reel which emitted an electronic signal if a fish moved his line. He wore a receiver around his neck so he would be alerted if he were out of hearing range. He said it can get a bit excessive.

This is all for the Queen of the Waters--the carp. Anglers are anglers everywhere and we fish for what's there and the English carp is no slouch. I overheard conversations which I believe I've heard on the Northshore. Just the names of the fish are different.

Hope the ice all goes out for all of you. I'll be there soon for the rainbows and the smelt.

[JBMasterAngler]

I seen that on in-fisherman like 10 years ago! They had an english guy (oddly enough) with them fishing with pretty much that same rig. They were fishing from shore on mille lacs of all places! Anyone ever think carp when they think mille lacs?

[Steve Foss]

Carp are tremendously spooky. They get to great size, are finicky eaters and awesome fighters, fish with great stamina that strip off many yards of line on a run.

It's no surprise they have a huge following in Europe, as well as a growing group of followers here in the U.S.

In-Fisherman was the first to really go in depth into tactics and techniques, featuring European/British methods, which, as you'd expect, work wonderfully over on this side of the Big Pond, too. I've used those tactics fishing with Stu McKay at Lockport, Man., and those were a wild couple of days. One of the noted British carp chasers has fished Lockport several times.

Long rods, light line, baitrunner spinning reels, and tons of muscular carp to 20 pounds and bigger. And then we switched to cats. Wow, what a weekend that was.

[Jorgie]

Thats a cool story. When I was a kid and before we had a boat, my dad and I would fish for carp and suckers on the Mississippi. We never kept them, we just wanted the fight, and we weren't nearly as serious as the British guys you described. Those were some of my first memories of fishing, and favorite times with my dad, so carp fishing is kind of special to me.