One of the biggest keys to successful fishing is being different! Many anglers insist the impact of this. But there is a big difference between knowing a concept, thinking and applying it and taking innovative steps with baits, methods and items of tackle, in order to keep ahead of the fish! Original thinking is essential...

What I mean is, the whole modern bait and tackle industries are supposed to be geared towards providing the modern angler with every ‘edge’. Now the paradox here is these ‘edges’ can eventually become the very reason anglers often do not catch more fish. Fish can very quickly adapt defensively to new ‘ultimate’ and ‘cutting-edge’ baits, tackle and techniques!

One of the most intriguing aspects of fishing for carp especially involves ways to tempt and hook those fish which rarely, (if ever) get caught. Trying a new bait concept, or new ingredients, alternative rig approach, new bait format, or method of baiting for the first time, has produced some of these more unusual catches for me.

It is the more rarely caught fish that tell you when you really have done something different in your approach, bait, rig or all of these (and more!) Some of these fish have a curtain of skin in their mouths. I’m not certain this is a sign that the fish have never been hooked before or not, (or not for a long time,) since I think it may be possible it could grow back given time!  

Whatever is the case, when I’ve landed such fish, they have stood out much more for being in absolutely pristine condition, than for being big. Such fish may not be big, but can be pretty old. I recall the exhilaration and astonishment at catching a carp under 10 pounds from a farm pond in 2005, that I last landed 30 years before at the same weight and it was in immaculate condition with a curtain of skin in the mouth...

Many tackle items are more short-term as opposed to longer-term solutions, without really being intended that way. Some fishing products tend to follow particular sales life-cycles and useful lives. Products which are longer-lasting often have the capacity to be added to, adapted or more easily re-designed to fit new applications, new purposes and fresh requirements. It’s rather like the basic design of the legendary much loved ‘Spitfire’ war plane. Although this has a very recognisable outer appearance, it has had so many new ‘reincarnations’ to prolong its functional life in battle situations, it lasted up to 4 decades, even well into the jet plane era!

Fishing baits, items of tackle, associated methods and techniques are no different in terms of functional life at defeating the instinctive or conditioned defences of carp and their behaviours. A new product’s first introduction can generate excitement, even anticipation and elevated demand for it. The period after initial introduction can often be when anglers’ demand for a new product is at its highest.

Now, most anglers appear to want the easiest ‘instant edge’ to keep them ahead of the ‘crowd’ (if not the fish.) Sometimes some fishing products certainly ‘look the part’ and if there was a prize for stylish looks they would win. But the true impact of looks as opposed to function upon results is often questionable. It’s like those flashy rods with fashionable handles, brightly coloured (or camouflaged reels,) brightly painted floats and other things designed to catch the eye of the buyer. But just how many more fish does a stainless steel bite indicator catch as opposed to one that looks like its part of a shrubbery? (There’s a Monty Python joke in there somewhere!) Most of the time, the ‘real edge’ is one you cannot see. The highly refined vibration sensitive part of a bite indicator that can register a ‘bite’ when others may not sound anything at all (being less sensitive.) is one practical example. A new special non-light reflective hook is a another good example.

Carp eyesight up close is obviously pretty good in certain light and water conditions and I’ve seen carp take a bait in the side of its mouth while hovering in the water on its side, using one eye to study the bait... (They can take baits while almost up-side down too, which is amazing and thoroughly unnerving to watch when you consider its full implications in regards to ideas about ‘self-hooking’ and ‘self-turning’ rigs!)

Constant fish exposure to a new item of bait or tackle as used by the majority of anglers can change results on them dramatically. This is a reality check. What is sold to keep you ‘ahead’ can lose its edge incredibly quickly. In carp and catfish fishing this might mean a genuine edge such as a new rig or bait may only produce dramatically improved results lasting a matter of weeks or months before catches return to ‘normal’ levels.

That is why bait company ‘field-testers’ hate to see their new successful baits marketed, with a consequential drop in their results by comparison to when they were the only ones using it! The basic ‘hair rig’ is another prime example of this principle, where things have frequently gone full-circle even to the point of such rigs resembling the original side-hooking methods of old.

Virtually any part of tackle and bait and fishing activity, like casting heavy leads into your swim or ‘spodding baits’ with a ground bait loaded ‘bait rocket’ etc, can affect fish behaviour and  responses in negative not positive ways, given time. Even using commercial readymade baits that have nothing but well-recognised successful ingredients and flavors can cost you fish. It’s not that they are a bad thing at all, but the fact is that these can all be associated with danger, due to fishes’ experiences of previous captures or simply of being hooked and lost!

On that point, you never really know what you lose; some fish which do not get caught for years may have been hooked and lost repeatedly without the angler realising what has been lost. (I know for certain I lost a 43 leather at Darenth around 2003 but in hind-sight, it’s probably best to not know what you lose!)

The tackle and bait industries are forced to give anglers what they want because that’s how selling works, right? Well the reality is different to a degree... It is the fishing companies’ marketing, advertising and sales departments’ jobs, to ensure the majority of anglers use their company’s products and some will do almost anything to make this happen as is human nature I suppose. The days of the blatant ‘hard sell’ have been replaced by far more sophisticated indirect and multi-staged techniques of marketing and selling.

This means in the case of the most effective marketing methods, that you probably will not even realise you are being sold to, at all! What I’m getting at, is not the skills and arts of marketing, selling and promotion. Modern companies need them just to survive and keep market share. But I’m referring to a more subtle kind of reader and customer ‘conditioning’ of attitudes and outlooks. Certain articles and advertorials can bias reader’s ways of thinking about brands of tackle and baits. It even changes key attitudes and ways of looking at fishing methods and their possibilities and limitations.

This information and how it affects readers has often appeared to manifest itself in limited thinking, limited beliefs and even scepticism among anglers on the bank and negative snobbery about certain brands and methods. This is a shame because to get really good fishing edges, you need to have an open, not closed mindset.

I get the feeling that we are merely touching the tip of the ‘ice-berg,’ of what is possible in fishing, tackle, baits, methods and thinking approaches. Many anglers’ success is being limited artificially because they feel the need to use what they see in adverts and ‘advertorials,’ instead of really considering solving their specific fishing problems their way, using their own original thinking. Often an angler will reach for the nearest glossy magazine for inspiration and copy from that rather than look at their fishing problems from a genuinely fresh angle.

How many anglers row out a very light lead (as opposed to a heavy lead,) 200 yards in order to solve specific problems and be different to the common approach in order to get results? (Terry Hearn is one example.) Such guys are thinking for themselves, not hanging on every word of their fishing heroes! They are actively identifying key problems, thinking and solving for themselves, ‘doing it their way’ and catching incredible results, (but this is possible for anyone!)

Incidentally, on many highly pressured waters, fish will take a free-lined bait and immediately bolt, out of pure fear, just from the action of picking-up something potentially dangerous, although nutritious. Leading anglers will take great pains to ensure that carp have as little reason to treat their baits with suspicion. Some will spend many weeks and months preparing and conditioning the fish by baiting, to the point that they make it look easy when they do catch them!

The most popular baits and methods can become seriously anti-productive for the ‘average angler.’ If the greatest edge in fishing is being different, then it is certainly often being under-sold. You could say it even being ‘over-sold’ in terms of practical products that lead to a uniformity of any key aspect of fishing. Sometimes, ‘touch-ledgering with a centre-pin reel or float fishing and the use of fast reactions can produce easy results compared to using ‘big pit’ reels and a conventional ‘static’ approach.

Perhaps it is time that more anglers got the message that ‘easy fishing success’ is not easy at all, but does require extra thought and attention to details, which must be very specific to any problem at any particular moment in time on their water. Constant adaptation in response to ever-changing variables takes thinking and often original thinking is the missing ingredient in success. Often we may just be a hair-breadth’s distance from great solutions but stop before reaching the last break-through step...

If most of your fishing problems (and their solutions,) are really to be found between your two ears, then better catches are just a thought away! ‘Original thinking’ in fishing is not necessarily about what you know, but how you look at what you know and apply this know-how in fresh new ways. For example instead of settling for a barrel or round shaped bait on a single hair on a form of ‘stiff’ rig, why not experiment much more?

Look at the ‘bigger picture’ as it were. Remember carp can practice 24 hours a day and 7 days and nights a week to identify the common characteristics of baits and rigs etc most used by anglers and they get very skilled at avoiding them. Carp can get off a hook in a fraction of a second or half an hour or more. They ‘know’ they can do it and how to do it, even to the point of deliberately searching for your other lines to cross to tangle and use as a fulcrum!

A simple idea is usually the best and can spawn further simple ideas. Exactly how your hook baits move in the fishes’ mouths is an easy ‘danger reference point’ to alter to make a difference to your catches.

Using an innovative new hook link material such as a monofilament with a braided material coating for example, is something I’d take a look at. It is so adaptable for stiff and flexible rigs. Making instantly changeable ‘hinges’ and stiff and flexible sections, so the bait moves differently in the mouth and making hook turns faster, is easily achieved. Maybe you could also use it in conjunction with an elasticized hook-link material, plastic-coated braid or stiffer ‘stiff-rig’ materials?

Many anglers are now using the ‘chod’ type of rigs in fishing situations that do not necessarily suit those best; when other rig designs can work better. But then again, even where chod rigs are highly successful now, anglers like Terry Hearn will be catching on the next innovative edges, ages before the ‘herd’ ever hear or read about them... I hope this makes you think about readymade baits and any popular currently method and ask yourself if and how YOU can do better!?

By Tim Richardson.

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