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The Wels Catfish
Description
The Wels Catfish has a long, scaleless body like an eel, with a large head and mouth. The inside of the mouth has rows of 100s of tiny little velcro like teeth on the top and bottom of its jaw, these are used to hold its prey before passing it to the two sets of crushing pads at the back of the throat. It has six barbules, two long ones on the upper jaw for detecting its prey and four shorter ones on the lower jaw. It has a small almost pointless looking dorsal fin whilst the anal fin stretches backwards until it almost reaches the tail.
The colouration of the Wels can vary from fish to fish but normally they have dark eyes with a dark greeny black body with creamy yellowish sides creating a mottled effect. Albino looking catfish are sometimes found but are very rare, these have red eyes and a yellow/creamy colouration to its body.
How to catch a Wels Catfish
There are various methods to tempt the Catfish, one is to ledger deadbaits consisting of Roach, Rudd, Carp, Tench or eels. From the information i have found it is best to look for any likely feature that the Catfish would patrol like marginal shelves, deep holes, old stream beds and snaggy areas and place your bait here and wait.
Livebaits are another top favourite, fishing with the above fish baits but alive! The bait can be presented just below the surface using a dumbbell rig or if possible a weak link tied to the opposite bank. I have been told this method produces very violent takes, so make sure you are by the rods at all time!
Worms are a very underated bait and can be devastating if fished just off the bottom, only to be used at night though as every other fish in the lake will want to eat them during the day.
The most common bait to be used on most commercial fisheries at the moment is the Halibut pellet. The pellets come in various sizes and are best fished with a few large pellets on a hair rig over a bed of smaller pellets.
Location
Catfish like to hide away in dark quiet places until they are ready to feed, which is not very often. Look out for overhanging trees, weed beds, lilies and hollows under the bank, a bait placed near any of these areas is a good bet. Anglers do say that when a catfish is on the feed it will come to you and will not be a fussy eater either.
Wels Catfish uk record
62lb (28.123 kilo’s) 1997: R Garner from Withy Pool, Henlow, Bedfordshire.
Recommended Catfish Venue
Carpenwater, Clacton-On-Sea, Essex, England
Contact Phil on
01255 479918 or email to Carpenwater@btinternet.com
Source: www.welscatfish.co.uk
Many thanks to Phil at welscatfish.co.uk for kindly allowing UK Fisherman to use this article.
UK Fisherman would be delighted to here from you if you would like to comment on any of the fishing articles or if you would like to submit an article of your own.To do so, please visit the CONTACT page.
CARP FISHING WITH MARC - By Marc
Seasonal Changes 2006 - Part 2
Thinking About Baits
Welcome to part two in which I’m going to talk about baits & the successes I have had of late.
In the late eighties I never bought used shop made baits. I allways rolled my own & I’m sure many of you will appreciate just how long this takes. Many hours I spent in the garden shed after getting banned from the kitchen mixing, rolling & boiling boilies. Yes pre-made boilies have come along way since then but I just preferred making my own on the basis that I had control of what went into my final bait, colour, flavour levels etc.
Most of my boilies were made from BFM (big fish mix) with various flavours/colours, until I stumbled across the amazing flavour of cranberry. This flavour was & still is today a top fish attractor. I did mess around with maple too but it just didn’t match cranberry.
As you maybe aware BFM is a brownish red colour & with a small amount of red robin a lovely dark red colour was formed. Red, purple & brown are apparently some strongest colours found in the carps colour spectrum - worth remembering!
I wasn’t heavily into particles at this time, a few tiger nuts, sweet corn & hemp were used occasionally and I had massive confidence in my boilies so I stuck with them.
During my brief encounter with marriage I had to sacrifice a bit of my carp fishing, the long hours bait making was one of the first to go & my over night sessions were cut down too. The birth of my daughter Annalise really limited my time on the bank, but as many of you dads will agree is a well worth sacrifice.
This was when I really had to find a pre-made bait that lived up to my expectations!
Friends & magazines really made my decision easier; everyone seemed to be raving on about Mainline baits! So my next trip to the tackle shop saw me leave laden with 10 kilo’s of Assina8 (freezer boilies). They looked good, smelt good & tasted great, yes I eat my boilies. Not regularly honest, but I believe if I like them the carp will too.
I had some really good catches on this bait but something was missing. The carp loved the bait but often got bored & would start feeding in the silt around the boilies? I started asking questions, having thoughts about this to myself. I think it was a match angler friend who suggested loose feeding maggots & cutting down the amount of loose boilies offered. God did this work, the carp went crazy, the water was fizzing with activity & they readily picked up both baits. This is when I stumbled across chopping the boilies & feeding them with the maggots, yep I had cracked it. Bearing in mind this was during the nineties & I did get many a strange look from other anglers as I sat there chopping boilies into a bucket & mixing it all with maggots. Maggots are for Roach, Rudd etc aren’t they?
I skipped the introduction of the Activa8 although some of friends caught very well on them. I stuck with my current bait until Maple8 was released. This boilie was so close to my BFM bait I just had to move on to it.
There comes a time when every angler has to raise his targets & move on to new venues, I had six great seasons on Furnace Wood syndicate & Buckhurst Park Estate lakes, with me moving homes too made finding new waters easier.
This is where I found out about a 10 acre lake, little pressure from anglers & stocked with carp to mid thirties (Lake View). This was also around the time when I heard about a new bait from Mr Hearn, ‘The Source’ & I was lucky enough to get a few kilo’s before they hit the shop shelves. New water & new bait? After a few investigating walk rounds of my new water it was becoming clear that the few anglers who did fish here were getting smashed up the likes of sweet corn, hemp & maggot, this got me thinking about particles more.
So here I am sitting in front of a new piece of water, armed with ‘The Source’, a bucket of halibut pellet & a bucket of particles (sweet corn, maize, hemp, tares, chick peas & a pint of maggots). I was expecting too much on my first visit but after plopping the marker round around the swim I found three likely areas, one in the margins, so many still today forget how productive the margins can be. I love fishing the margins, you can guarantee your presentation is 100% & your baiting up is bang on.
I had very good night, very little sleep, an aching arm & two sacked up carp, I don’t usually sack for fish for more than a few hours but it was so close to day light & wanted to get some good pictures. I asked the first day angler on his arrival to assist me in accurately weighing & photographing the fish. He did look a bit bewildered with my request but agreed. On removing the first sack from the lake my new friend Gary asked how many fish were in the sack, I could only laugh & said “One Bro”, there was no reply until I transferred the carp from the sack to weigh sling then came his reply “Bloody hell, how big is that?” “The small one of the two” was my answer. The scales swung round to 24lb, pictures taken by a very excited photographer & the carp safely returned with the use of my floating mat ( I prefer to return big fish safely with the use of the mat, just in case they flip/wriggle).
The second sack was hoisted from the lake, I knew it was bigger, just how much I was unsure. On seeing the carp my friends comment is unprintable! The scales pulled round to 29lb 10oz, my heart sunk a little I was sure she would go thirty. Photographs taken, carp returned safely & friend asking all sorts of questions.
A year later Gary has become a total all out carp angler & has broken the twenty pound barrier, a very happy moment for both of us.
During the summer of 2005 a friend of mine bought two smallish waters (Hunters Lodge) & I was invited for a session in exchange for some work he wanted done. We only had rumours of twenty pound carp to fish for & we found some of them during the next few months.
I now had three new waters close to my home, not 100% sure of their total carp stock.
The start of 2006 I found myself using particles more & more, I changed boilies again due to ‘The Source’ becoming so popular (Top Bait). I was still catching lots of fish but the edge had gone, so I switched to Richworth’s ‘Multi-plex’. A truly worthy replacement to my last boilie.
My particle mix had now evolved big time with no less than 15 different pulses, seeds, nuts mixed within it. Four different sized, flavoured pellets were also introduced to the final bucket of goodies. It didn’t look very good but it smelt great & tasted even better. The safest way to get this bait into the swim was using a spod even though my bivvy has been covered with splatters & spills from casting out.
I was lucky enough to fish a swim with shallow clear water within the margins. I introduced a few handfuls under an overhanging bush & watched. After a short wait the water fizzed into a cloudy mess, the carp loved this stuff big time.
I added two more ingredients to the mix during the late summer - mashed up sardines & aniseed extract. The extra smell & oil content meant I could now use the mix as a sort of ‘Stik mix’ (oil based baits don’t melt pva bags/mesh).
To this day I’m still catching well on the baits.
Just to be a bit different I have fished some of the particles from my mix on the hair & the results have been amazing, the bigger fish seem to prefer small particle baits placed just off the baited area.
Up to this date I have safely landed fifteen different twenties, one thirty & numerous doubles from three venues.
I am sticking to my particle mix for the coming season but I’m looking into a new boilie for the coming season.
I hope you have enjoyed my latest article & found it useful. If you contact Paul @ Uk Fisherman I’m willing to share my mixes in more detail with you, but I recommend experimenting yourselves. There is nothing better than making your own bait mixes & catching big-time.
All the very best & tight lines as ever
Marc
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A quick jaunt down the M25 and I was soon driving down quiet country lanes just outside Reigate in Surrey, on my way to sample the excellent fishing at Priory Farm Fishing Lakes. The sun shone through the window and I was full of the joys of spring and looking forward to some well earned time away from work.
Priory Farm Fishing Lakes offer superb coarse and carp fishing on four lakes, all well stocked with crucian carp, roach, perch, tench, rudd, bream, and of course, stunning carp to 30lb. A mere 20 miles from Central London, Priory Farm Lakes are within easy reach and members only fishing means the lakes remain under fished and the quality of the fish is always second to none.
I met up with Ian Ford, the Fisheries Manager at Priory Farm who drove me up to the car park. He suggested I try out Priory lake, as despite the recent cold weather, it had been fishing reasonably well.
The fishing on Priory Lake offers great year round sport and according to Ian, the carp, which are close to the original wild carp, will definitely give you a good fight !!
Most baits had been working well Ian remarked and taking his advise I set up two rods, one with a method feeder and single boilie cast as near to the island as I dared and one with a waggler fished hard on the bottom with pellets for hook baits. I offered only a few morsels of loose feed as I expected that bites might be hard to come by after a cold night.
Bites were indeed hard to come by, in fact they were pretty much non existent. I was also troubled by the resident swans who were certainly in feeding mood, even if the fish weren't. After a couple of hours on Priory Lake with no action whatsoever, I decided enough was enough and moved the short distance to Hogtrough Lake where I hoped for better luck.
Hogtrough lake is the youngster at Priory Farm although the lake is maturing nicely with the island and bank side vegetation growing rapidly. Apparently the fishing can sometimes be a little harder than the other lakes although the rewards are well worth putting in the extra effort, especially if targeting the resident hard fighting carp which go to 30lb.
As I neared Hogtrough Lake, I noticed there was one other angler trying his luck so I decided to pick his brains about what methods and baits worked well on Hogtrough. The angler in question turned out to be George, a regular at Priory Farm Lakes for many years. George was fishing the pole at 4m and because of the cold weather, with water temperatures not much above 0 deg c, he was using extremely fine tackle and tiny baits.
He explained that he always fished a different swim at Priory Lakes, still keen to learn as much about the fishery as he was when he first fished the lakes over 16 years ago.
Although he was keen to pass some of his knowledge onto a newbie like myself, he certainly wasn't going to reveal all his secrets that he had amassed over many years of studying and fishing and the lakes at Priory Farm.
He was keen to retain a certain edge over everyone else ... and who can blame him.
George estimated that a crowded day at Priory Lakes would see a maximum of around 10 anglers on each lake. Compare this to a day ticket commercial fishery and you can see why this members only fishery is so attractive.
I could have stayed talking with George all afternoon but I had come to sample the fishing, so decided I had better get back to it. Using the same two methods I had started with on Priory Lakes, I recast my rods and hoped that as temperatures had risen slightly from the morning session, I could tempt a few fish to have a quick meal.
Unfortunately, this was not the case and the net stayed dry all day. George did manage one perch of around an ounce but I'm sorry to say that was all. Strangely though I was not too disappointed. For a townie like me, being in such stunning countryside with only the sound of the trees rustling in the wind and the odd bird singing was pleasure enough. Of course I would have liked to catch some fish, but that can wait until next time.
So what are my first impressions:
- Stunning location
- superbly maintained lakes and pegs
- un crowded and under fished
- easy to find and get to (even for me in West London, the drive was only around 45mins)
- really friendly and helpful fisheries manager (Ian Ford)
I can't wait to get back to Priory Farm and try my luck once more.
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by Ralph Dennett
Lac de Orient – France – 9th to 15th September
Sponsors – Carl (The Baitmaster) Edwards - Carple Baits & Lewington Homes Berkshire Ltd
I don’t normally fish matches but this event is something else. The whole atmosphere is charged with excited anticipation as anglers from 14 different counties come together to face the challenges of this fantastic water, all 5000+ acres of it.
Looking up towards the Dam
It all started back in January when my fishing partner Steve booked our place for this year’s event and from there the build up started. Every article we could find was read several times to glean as much info as we could and before we knew it the event was nearly upon us. Boats, engines & fish finders all needed checking, batteries charging and tackle checking. Nothing can be left to chance as the mighty Orient will punish any careless mistakes.
After a long chat with Carl (The Baitmaster) Edwards he kindly agreed to sponsor us with our bait requirements, Red Lobster Seaweed being the bait of choice, a cracking bait which we have full confidence in. This was supplemented with Carl’s excellent prepared particles namely the Maize and Hemp plus I already had some 30k of Carl’s mixed pellet - some 80+kilos to hopefully see us through the week. As promised everything arrived on the Wednesday and went straight into the freezer so that it would be in prime condition when the match started.
Everything ready, checked and double checked, Steve was picking me up around 5.00am on Friday as we were booked on the 10.00am ferry from Dover and another team from Reading Paul and Darren who were to be our travelling companions on the journey had to collect their bait on the way down. Friday arrived and I’m standing by a mountain of bait and tackle when Steve pulls into the close, with everything loaded and roped down we are on the road, meeting Paul and Darren as arranged and then heading down the motorway to Dover. After a long uneventful trip we are nearing our destination, we pass by Troyes and turn onto the N19. Shortly the Dam Wall appears and it seems to go on for ever, then as we turn off the N19 towards Mesnil-St-Pere the lake appears. Did I say lake! - inland sea is more apt, an immense daunting piece of water ... let me at it. As we pulled into the Headquarters area we realise we are the first competitors to arrive so we pick our spot and park up the motors right opposite the little Bar & Café ... well sorted. The next couple of days were to be a chill out and social before the serious fishing started on the Monday so up with the Bivvies and everything sorted, home from home.
Mesnil-St-Pere
Now that we are sorted its over to the Bar for some food and liquid refreshments where we meet up with Ross Honey and his Team. Ross is the organiser of the event, also there is Andy Chambers who is Head Marshall for this years event, a man with immense knowledge of the lake.“Buy you a drink Andy ?”, gotta pick this mans brains.
It’s now dark so suitably fed and watered we make our way back to the Bivvies, break out the kettle and sit around chatting and drinking, by about 1.30 in the morning we have been joined by a couple of lads fishing for Scotland and the beer is flowing. About an hour later about 8 Italian lads turn up and quickly join us with Salami and wine, shall we just say that a good evening was had by all.
The format for the event is to be as follows, competitors arrive over the Friday, Saturday and Sunday, register at the HQ and get all boats and equipment safety checked. Sunday evening we have the welcome dinner with local dignitaries and the draw for swims. The competition starts at 3.00pm on Monday with no broken water before that time and ends at 8.00am on Saturday. This gives us a reasonable time on Monday to find our swims and get the gear to them as some are only accessible by boat. In the meantime we can have a look around get any last bits of shopping from the Intermarche and generally talk Carp. All the research we had done indicated that it normally takes a few days for the fish to get on the bait and the proven tactics are to get a good bed of bait built up and wait for the fish to move in, we also needed rough weather and big winds to get the fish moving. Several chats with Andy Chambers have confirmed our thoughts so we are feeling reasonably confident.
The Formalities Begin
Sunday evening arrives and we spruce ourselves up and put on our Carple shirts and head for the welcome meal and draw, as we enter the sports hall the clammer of 186 Carp anglers is deafening as the excitement and anticipation grows.
With the meal over the formalities begin with speeches from various people including the local Mayor followed by the local children parading all the participating countries flags.
The Draw
Then comes the draw. Paul and Darren are first up, Section 7, peg 10 not a bad draw its facing the dam.
Steve and I are next up Steve draws Section 4, peg 7, Italie Point about halfway along, not a bad draw if the weather breaks in our favour.
Time to get our heads down
Now the formalities are over it’s back to the bivvies to get our heads down as we want to get an early start in the morning to give ourselves time to get sorted before the off, as soon as the start is signaled it’s into the boat to do a serious reccy of our swim.
We are up and packed away by about 9am, later than we wanted, but never mind. As the boats are already inflated we take Paul and Darren’s on our motor and drop it off for them and then go on to find our swim some where along here.
Italie point - 1.5k long
It took a couple of hours to carry all the gear to our swim and with clear blue skies it was a hot sweaty job, by about 2.00pm we are all sorted rods up and baited and buckets of bait ready to go once we have found our spots. Before we know it the rocket signals we are off and a myriad of boats launch into the lake all looking for those tell tale signs on the fish finder that show up a potential feeding spot. Steve’s out in the boat thoroughly scouring our swim for features. After about 2hrs he has found what we wanted, distinct features going out to the left of our swim. The peg next to us is vacant so we ask the marshals if we are OK to fish into the vacant peg which they confirm we are. By 7.30pm our spots are baited and the rigs are out. Now we can sit back with a cold beer and relax, it’s been a very busy day, come on you fish.
Set and ready for action
Nothing showed during the first night and in the morning we learnt 2 fish had been lost, 1 about 6 pegs along from us and 1 by the dam. By the end of Tuesday 4 fish had now been lost in weed or snags, the good news is that they are all from different areas of the lake. We continue to stick to our plan and steadily build up our swim. We have seen fish on the finder and we are getting line bites so we know we have fish in the swim, but we don’t know what. It has been another warm clear day, we need the weather to break and the wind to get up, unfortunately the promised weather isn’t materialising and it continues hot.
It’s now Wednesday and it’s 8 – 0 to the Carp, so it’s still all to play for.
Early Thursday morning the first fish is landed by John Lilley’s partner, George Csonka, at 11.5kg it is a nice fish but not big by Orient standards. Still, first fish so well done guys.
Thursday night sees more action with a 22.1kg fish to Jean Pierre Becker of France, a 15.4kg fish to our travelling companions Paul and Darren, putting them in second place and a 9.3kg fish to Rob Tough and partner places them third, so things are starting to happen.
With the final day and night ahead of us there is still everything to fish for, we have fished hard for 4 nights although the results don’t show it, but that’s Carp fishing especially on waters like the Orient. The weather is showing signs of a change so hopes are high for the final night, with everything ready we sit back to wait events and talk over the week. Whatever the outcome we’ve had a great week and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.
Last night
As we sit chatting and watching the water everything feels right, we have done everything we can it is now in the lap of the Carp gods. Everything is still, the only sounds come from the Wild Boar searching for food in the woods behind. We turn in about 12.30, but I lay there unable to sleep.
I must have drifted off as the next thing I remember is flying out of the bivvy. The barometer has dropped and monster Carp are crashing everywhere in front of us, Steve is standing some 50 yds down the bank. When I get to his side he says that Steve Howard and his partner in the swim to our right have a big fish on, minutes later it snaps the 35lb braid like a piece of cotton, the Orient tree stumps win again. They are understandably gutted.
Tree Stumps are everywhere under the water, hiding in the weed
As fast as it had started it’s over, about 15 minutes in all, the fish just disappeared again back into the depths, the weather had changed again and so had the fishing, it looks like our chance has passed us by. In the morning we learn that the same phenomenon had occurred in several areas around the lake, although no fish were caught. One final fish was caught on the Sat morning which had Paul and Darren on edge as it was 15kg+. Eventually it was confirmed at 15.1kg so they have retained second place.
Final result, 83 pairs (166 anglers) fished their hearts out for 6 days and 5 nights and the score was Carp 25 anglers 5.
We packed up, loaded the truck and made our way back to the presentation. Although we hadn’t caught, it was great to see our friends Paul and Darren on the rostrum in 2nd place. Well done guys and congratulations to Jean Pierre Becker & Yves Hauk, the winners making it a home victory for France.
Well done to all the prize winners.
As we make our way home we are happy, we know we fished well as many others did, it simply wasn’t our turn this year. We have had a fantastic time and met some great people from all over Europe, brilliant!
A special thanks to our sponsors, Carl ( The Bait Master ) Edwards whose support and excellent baits gave us the edge we needed and to Lewington Homes Berkshire Ltd for the loan of the transport that made life a lot easier with all the gear we took.
Now to start planning for next year Lac de Madine is the venue, can’t wait.
See you on the bank somewhere!
Cheers, Ralph Dennett
Editor: Thanks to Ralph for this excellent article and good luck next year mate!!
UK Fisherman would be delighted to here from you if you would like to comment on any of the fishing articles or if you would like to submit an article of your own.To do so, please visit the CONTACT page.
Using Brilliant ‘Natural’ Extracts!
There are many ways to make very successful fishing baits without using flavours; why not try using very powerful ‘natural ingredients and extracts!
Freshwater flies, bloodworm, insect larvae, water snails, and all kinds of sea and freshwater shellfish like mussels etc, can all be incorporated into your fishing baits, giving a natural taste and crunch factor, and are available from many pet and fishing bait companies.
It is important, to make your bait as different as possible from the ‘normal’ for your water, to give you a competitive advantage.
As an example, I used a bait which was purely based on proprietary ‘coldwater goldfish food’ which instead of being the usual pellets form, was based on natural nutritional extracts like spirulina, impregnated into rice flakes.
I was using this bait as a test bait to find a successful alternative protein based bait. It incorporated daphnia (water fleas,) and spirulina (algae,) together; forming a truly ‘unique’ natural, alternative boilie.
I mixed the flakes with a small amount of semolina, as I did not know how much the flakes (based on ground rice,) would bind. After taking what seemed like literally hours to mould each individual bait by thumb and fore fingers, I convinced myself it would all be worth the effort!
I did not wish to ‘contaminate’ the bait with extra semolina binder and reduce its effectiveness. I prepared ‘hair rigs’ in advance of fishing and carefully dried the paste hook baits until they went hard and tough enough to stay on the rig.
At the lake, as it turned out, within half an hour of casting out, I hooked the lake record fish at that time weighing around 35 pounds in weight.
It was a valuable lesson in the attraction of alternative protein based baits, and the benefits of their use! This was on a fishery where extremely good quality milk protein and fish meal baits had dominated catches at that time!
The author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges’ up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches.
By Tim Richardson. ‘The thinking angler’s fishing author and expert bait making guru.’
For more expert bait making information and ‘cutting edge’ techniques see the expert acclaimed new ebook:
BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!
Tim Richardson is an internationally acclaimed carp and catfish bait-making expert, and a highly successful big fish angler. His best selling bait making and bait enhancing books / ebooks help beginners and experienced anglers alike, to improve and enhance their baits achieving far greater catches of big fish.
His books are even used by members of the ‘world elite’ “British Carp Study Group” for expert reference. Your catches could gain from more understanding, expert bait making experience, powerful insights and cutting edge fishing information and techniques; take a look at Tim’s dedicated fishing bait making website.
<UK Fisherman would be delighted to here from you if you would like to comment on any of the fishing articles or if you would like to submit an article of your own.To do so, please visit the CONTACT page.
