I’ve always been a fan of not putting too much bait out when fishing for carp. Not for the reason I’m tight but because I will always fish where carp are in the area and try not to just cast out for the sake of it.

So the only food I want them to try is the one on the end of my hair!!!

As I have said in my previous blogs, I do like using oil in my bag mix. This is for a few reasons; carp and most fish in fact need a certain amount of oils in their diet and will feed on all kinds of food to extract this. So I try to present  them in a little bundle of oily food so they don’t have to try too hard to find it. The other reason is that oil will keep a column of natural flavour and scent to my bag and hook bait for hours. Win Win!!!

After having a little chat with my old mate Ian Day about hook baits and oil he asked me if I had ever tried using the S pellets as hook bait because of the oil content. I hadn’t for the simple fact most of the lakes I fish have quite a high number of small fish. By having a hook bait with only a pellet on all night would not make me feel like I was targeting the carp and chances are it would have gone in the morning wasting valuable fishing time.

I knew Sonu had started making the new tuff S pellets but I still didn’t feel like this was the way forward for me. Then I started to think about a way to incorporate an S pellet with a standard carp hook bait. This idea was knocking around in my very little brain for a few weeks so I made the decision to give it a go.

I arrived at Par Fisheries run by Brenwood Angling Centre at around 6pm and opted for a swim with the wind blowing right into my face. I sat and watched this area for a while and saw two carp stick their heads out. That will do for me!  So after a little marker around I found a few lovely spots at the bottom of an island shelf and planned to fish two rods in this area and one rod just roving around. I made my usual bag mix of Hemp and Hali crush but dropped a few tuff 8mm monster crab S pellets in. The hook baits on two rods were a piece of real maze, 8mm monster crab S pellet in the middle and topped off with Korum artificial corn. This looks fantastic when in the water. If you put it in the margins as a test the oil will slick out of the pellet for ages. I always try and make my hook baits as visible as possible so with the yellow from the corn and the green pellet sitting in the middle of a little bag of dark bag mix I was feeling very confident indeed. The other rod was just maze and a little PVA bag of standard trout pellets. I wanted to see it there was any difference to the S Pellet to normal trouties.

At about 9pm I had a massive drop back on one of the island rods, I picked up the rod and leaned into a snag!!!! Well, I thought it was a snag at first until it started to strip line from my reel at a fair rate of speed. I must have had a puzzled look on my face for a while as there was no way I was stopping this fish. Then the penny dropped. I have spent a little time on the Ebro and remembering what the cats fight like over there it could only be a cat I’d hooked.

As much as I love catching fish of all manor, words will never describe what it’s like to hook a cat fish. All hell brakes loose and you are definitely no way in charge in any shape or form. And this fight was no exception. You think you have got them beat in the margins then off it goes on another 60 yard run. So after about 20 minutes of getting battered, I finally saw the cat on the surface. I put its head on the spreader block and watched as it's tail was about a foot out the back of the net cord!!!!! So with a little panic netting, she was mine.

With the cameras, mats and water all ready she was popped into the sling and weighed. She went 22lb 8oz on the scales and I was a happy boy. So a few quick snaps and a good covering of slime (I hadn’t missed that bit) I put her back. I must admit I have had cats up to 130lb in the past so this was far from the biggest one I have ever had, but it was just so out of the blue and unexpected that I was completely chuffed to bits.

I had three carp up to 16lb in the night all to the same set up so the S pellet theory may have a little more to it than I had thought. What I was pleased with was how good the tough ones stay on the hair. I’m still not sure if I would fish all night with just the S pellet on, but I will now use this method of putting it in the middle of hook baits more often. Incidentally I didn’t get bites from just the Maze and I was the only angler out of four to get any fish in the night. Makes you wonder eh?

And it was a good job Ian wasn’t the one trying to net the cat. He lost one over 100lb for me in the Ebro because he got scared. But I ain’t mad at ya!!!

Have a go!!!!

Slack lines

Lee