After a couple of carp less seasons at a local lake in Göteborg, I knew that there were certain elements of my fishing that had to be changed.
The 3 changes that I started with were my rigs, the swim & baits, but not necessarily on that order. My rigs were not really a concern as they were relatively advanced and I was confident that they were undetectable by the carp there.
I knew that other carp anglers were catching carp so I concentrated on what the 2 main problems could be, Swim choice and bait.
So for the start of the 2003 season I had decided which other swims to fish that year and bought some new bait.
The bait was Energy Baits Boilies and I chose the Scopex & Liver & Sweet Orange flavours to begin with. I bought a tub of Pop-Ups, dip & a 5kg bag of bottom baits in both flavours.
When the season came around I fished the new swim and tried out the new baits.
I stuck with my usual rigs for the time being to see what happened.
It was a weekend session from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon and I was hoping that my changes would make some difference to my results.
Well it did and I had 4 runs that weekend but lost 2 in snags.
The 2 carp that I did manage to land were a
7.8kg Mirror Carp & 5.9kg Common Carp.
Both were taken on the Energy baits Scopex & Liver pop ups (20mm). Now my confidence was returning slowly but surely and I was happy that the changes I had made were worth it. So now I knew that there were no problems with the rigs (as I knew really that there wasn't’t).
So was it the choice of swim? Maybe I had been fishing in a “Fishless area”? Which would be quite hard considering the size of the lake.
Could it have been the change of baits that turned the tables?
Well, over the next 2 seasons (2003 & 2004) I did a few experiments to try and find out what was actually the big change that had accounted for so many carp.
I fished Ballasjön a lot and had some excellent results.
In 2003 I had 7 carp in 2 nights. 5 of them were over 7kg. I thought that was quite good considering the lake record at the time was 8.2kg. The biggest carp of that session were 2 carp at 7.7kg and all the carp were taken on the Scopex & Liver and Sweet Orange.
Needless to say, but I have used Energy baits ever since and I am convinced that it was the change of baits that ended my bad luck streak.
On the 28th June 2004 I decided to have an overnight session at Härlanda Tjärn straight after work and drive straight back to work in the morning.
At 05:00 on the 29th June I was woken up by a Screaming Delkim and at 05:15 I was looking at a 12.2kg Mirror Carp and a new Personal best!!
Energy Baits Magic Fruit 20mm pop up was the downfall of that carp.
This Carp became known as “The Carp I never wanted” (Read the article that tells the story of this session in detail)
In July 2004, another great weekend at Ballasjön was on the cards.
This time I was using Energy Bait Magic Fruit boilies and so was my friend.
Between the 2 of us we landed 10 Carp and lost 3 in 3 nights.
Out of those 10 Carp there were 5 new PB’s.
I caught an 8.0kg Mirror Carp, which became my New Ballasjön PB (PB No.1), my previous ‘Ballasjön Best’ was 7.8kg caught in May 2004 (on Scopex & Liver). The friend I was fishing with caught an 8.0kg Mirror Carp as well, which became their New Balla PB (PB No.2) and also a New ‘Personal’ Best.(PB No.3).
Those PB's never stood long, as shortly afterwards were broken again by an 8.3kg Carp (PB’s No.4&5).
At one point we had 3 ‘runs’ in 15 minutes, where two of them were a double take and the swim became a little hectic.
Fortunately a good friend (and also an experienced carp fisherman) just happened to be visiting us at this time, and his help made it a lot easier to net the 3 carp.
After our results at this point, I definitely knew that the bait had played a big part in it all.
After this session I went home for a few hours. I replenished my food bag, charged all my batteries, re-stocked up on particles, grabbed what else I needed and headed straight back out again.
This time I was on my way to Härlanda Tjärn to see what surprises it may have in store for me.
I stopped off at the local tackle shop and loaded the car up with some more boilies. I chose a 5kg sack of Energy Baits Monster Crab 16mm but the pop Ups and dip were all sold out.
When I got to Härlanda and everything was all set up, I decided to fish the 16mm Monster Crab as the hookbait as well.
I baited up the swim with particles, pellets and a few handfuls of loose boilies. I knew that this swim had been “well Fed” by other carp anglers over the last couple of months so I was hoping the carp would now recognize this place as a free source of food and patrol the area on a regular basis.
Over the next 3 days I caught 3 Carp weighing 9.2kg (Mirror Carp), 11.4kg (Common Carp) & a nice Leather carp 7.3kg.
The 11.4kg Common was now my New PB Common Carp and also a New Härlanda Tjärn Common Carp Record.
I was more than happy with my results, and decided to try a little test to confirm my suspicions.
I tackled up a 4th rod and put on 3 different hookbait to the Monster crab baits that I was already using. These hookbaits were not Energy bait Boilies, but other popular brands.
What I then did was to cast the Monster crab rod into the middle of the baited area that I had been fishing and that had produced the Carp.
Then I cast out the 3 other hookbaits so the they lay in a triangle around the Monster crab hookbait (see pic)
