Jack of all trades
In Daz Horner’s first blog for Haith’s, he shares the results of his fishing trip to France - accompanied by his Dad and others – blends a nutritious Nectarblend base mix and found time to slot in a half marathon. Let’s find out more…
“I recently went over to France for a week’s holiday and fishing trip as well, we normally go over in late September as the fish are a bit heavier and the early night's return. So, Dad and I were lucky to get a week early in the season - plus the rivers in England are closed!
Regards the bait:
I only had 5kg of Haith’s Euro Mix and 10 kg of boilies with me as there were others on the break with us so weight was a bit of an issue, ideally I like to have between 10-15kg of Euro Mix with me whilst I'm abroad as I find it's easy to mix and everything feeds on it, I don't tend to add anything with it apart from boiling water then just check it, and top up the water so the seeds are covered then just leave it in the bucket overnight to go gloopy!
For the boilies, I had some unused Robin Red and fishmeal from last year, so I mixed it up.
400 gram Red Robin and Fishmeal
10ml FeedStimulants Liquid Goose Liver
10ml FeedStimulants Corn Steep Liquor
10 drops FeedStimulants N-Butyric Acid
15ml Hemp oil from the local supermarket!
I mixed the liquids with 4 eggs and 30ml of Nutrabaits’ Preservative then rolled them out and boiled them for 60-120 seconds.
The second mix was something I had been testing over the last six months – ok, testing a new bait over the winter isn't ideal, but you have to start somewhere, I kept with the same liquids as above, nothing drastic and nothing over the top, plus it didn't stink to high heaven, which was a big relief as I was allowed to mix it indoors instead of the shed!!
My mix currently is:
250 gram Haith's Nectarblend
100 gram Haith's Prosecto Insectivorous
100 gram Haith's Fishmeal
100 gram Lamlac
100 gram pea protein Isolate
50 gram Haith's Red Robin
50 gram Brewer’s yeast
40 gram Bulk Powders Whey Protein Isolate
30 gram Coconut flour
10 gram Feed Stimulants G.L.M
The base mix!
This is more a paste bait I use but the higher level of Nectarblend gave the bait a harder skin of which I felt was ideal for where I was going, it mixed well as well and after leaving it to stand for 30 minutes as it gave it chance to absorb the liquids and dry a little, it was easier to roll.
I vary my baits for boiling times - some soft, some harder etc., whilst abroad I tend to just make 16mm as I find the Carp, Bream, Chub & Barbel, will fed on them.
After mixing both baits I jumbled them up as they were all going in one or two buckets anyway; two different base mixes, same type of Liquids!
They came out better than I expected!
We travelled to Brittany and fished the River Blavet, I bought our fishing licences off the Carte de Peche website, as we were fishing a river I know we were likely to be checked – see http://www.cartedepeche.fr/
We arrived at the river and set our gear up, the only thing I set up initially was a marker rod to lead the River, I plumbed the river finding an average depth of 7 feet with a few deeper holes to 9 feet on the far bank, only an 80 yard chuck as well, thankfully no snags either, as the bottom was mostly gravel!!
We initially just set 3 carp rods up and 2 bream rods and just put the carp rods out on P.V.A bags, I soaked the Euro Mix in a bucket for spodding with the Spomb the next day!
Just an overnight soak in boiling water!
Ready for spodding!
The first evening of fishing, we heard 3 decent carp top but couldn't see them, over the next few days the same pattern emerged carp topped but not showing over the baited areas, we had, had a few bream out by now, but not too many on the bream rods as the bream were on the carp rods…
Tuesday: With time moving on as it was Tuesday afternoon and the majority of the bait still sat in the bucket I decided a change of tactic was required, I spodded 3kg of Boilies in and an hour later the left alarm decided to wake up and a 4lb Chub was landed, doubt it had ever seen a hook before, 2 bream quickly followed then nothing, on rods 2 and 3! Surely, I thought, that can't be it, we put a 4th Carp rod out and put the bream rods away!
We were only fishing up to 11pm as we were on ‘holiday’ as well as going home on Friday night as the ferries were better timed for our return, plus I had the Windermere Half marathon to run on Sunday when I got home!
Wednesday: I had thrown everything I could think of at it, pop up, wafers, crumbed baits, paste baits, glug baits.. Brainwave not tried a bigger hook with 2 boilies on, Rod 4 new carp rod Size 1 hook, 2 Boilies..
Typical 3pm after it had been in the water for 15 minutes off it went, a short tussle followed and the hook pulled, I saw the fish come up it rolled over and waved goodbye as the hook pulled… and it looked over 30lb of lovely Common, but not in my net! After that, I re-tackled all the rods with Kryston Jackal 30lb's hooklink and size 4 hooks, then tested the points for sharpness, by sticking them in my finger (don't ask!). Cast all of them back out staggering them by 15 minutes each on purpose, all rods were now been re-baiting every 20 minutes on rotation!
From 8-10pm it was a bit mad we had 4 carp, all common's 12lb, 14lb, 15lb & 17lb's! We were on 15lb's mainline and each one put up a hell of a scrap, we then had a 26lb's Mirror at just after 10pm, which when you have sat for 3 days and done very little is great to see, even better after a 15 minute scrap and the net goes under the fish.
Result, we caught something! A 26lb mirror!
Thursday: I was running out of bait as I only had ½ kilo left and no Euro mix and it was the afternoon, so back to P.V.A. bags, I knew I was in trouble but loathed to go and buy any bait, no Bream or Chub and no Carp, we kept 2 rods on the fed area on Thursday evening the other 2 went searching for carp with stringers on, it was a little desperate but I was sure I could get one more...
9pm... Rod 4 woke up, I knew as soon as I picked the rod up I had hooked into something that wasn't too happy, it decided to just come straight at me! I managed to catch up to it, it turned left it headed straight for a tree...I couldn't stop it, I clamped my hand over the spool as the drag was pretty tight, the Century AK47 bent a lot!! I told my Dad to Duck..... Crack! it was like a shotgun had just been fired, the line went limp, fish gone!
We didn't catch anything after that and packed up on Friday and made our way home, I did the “Windermere Half” on Sunday and finished 24th in 1.36.22 out of 403!”
Written by Daz Horner
