a MOVE TO ST JOHNS
25th February 2022
Ryan Richardson’s efforts to move from Hardwick to St Johns on the Linear Fisheries complex paid off in style!
February is without doubt one of the hardest months to be a carp angler, and any captures are very much hard earned. It’s often one of the quietest periods on the country’s day ticket lakes though, so there’s obviously some opportunity there for people who are willing to put the effort in. One such angler, who saw their late winter efforts rewarded was Ryan Richardson, who, after moving swims halfway through his session, managed to land a lovely February carp.
We kickstarted the bloodworm revolution with our Bloodworm Pellets and they remain one of the best products in the range to this very day. This is with good reason too; they are one of the most devastating feed baits available.
Ryan revealed:
“After planning a 48-hour social down on Linear Fisheries with a couple good mates, we decided to set off at 4am hoping to try get on the gate before it opened. We expected it to be crazy busy being a Friday morning, but we were both shocked to be the first and only people on the gate. After a quick lap of Hardwick and Smiths without seeing any signs to go off, I settled into an area that I’d done well in during past winters. After speaking to a couple other anglers on the lakes they informed me that the lake had been silted over the last couple days, and so, following a really quiet 24 hours I had a quick wind in and went to walk around a couple of the other lakes.
“I managed to bucket a good swim on St Johns where my good mate Adam and I could double up with two rods each to give us both a good chance fishing out into the main bowl area. A 30mph head wind and heavy rain made getting the rods and bait out tricky. Due to the bad weather, I decided to fish both my rods on the deck on small Mulbz hookbaits over 10 Spombs of Manilla Active boilies, Bloodworm Pellets and Active Mix.
“The night was eventful, but not in the right way as I got terrorised by trailers literally wiping both my rods out every couple hours. However, things started to look up as not long after a first light my rechucked left hander was away with an angry mid to upper double common. Buzzing to be off the mark, I redid both rods and topped up with a couple Spombs. A quiet few hours went by and a change of plan on the right hand rod was called for. I switched it to a black and red 6ft Zig soaked in Mulbz bait spray just off the spot. Not long after putting the Zig out the rod went into meltdown, flat rodding me at 110 yards I thought I’d hooked a dreaded catfish the way it was going.
“A good few minutes went by with the fish taking me wherever it wanted to go, until finally it popped up and I was shocked to see a lovely big mirror with the Zig dangling out of its mouth. Weirdly, we noticed there was some bright red braid coming out the net after Adam pulled the net towards us with my prize! He grabbed it straight away and could feel the resistance of a fish on the end! Between us we managed to hand line it into a spare net and after a bit of untangling we managed to free the poor carp. With about 100 yards of braid and a fish on one end with a large swan muscle on the other, it was no wonder I was getting terrorised all night long! Finally, it was time to get the decent mirror out, which went 34lb on the scales. I was made up, but it was a struggle to do the pics in the horrendous weather!”
