This small member of the carp family has in recent times been overlooked or forgotten about in the world of more commercial angling and clubs moving with the times wanting what anglers demand stocked natural lakes with hard fighting large growing carp. The crucian carp for years faded into the background and was replaced by carp that formed crucian hybrids or brown goldfish as they are known. Luckily recently the love for true strain crucians have got some forward thinking clubs restocking these little bars of gold. The trouble is they don’t mix well and some clubs have gone to the extreme of digging crucian lakes and thank god they have. One such club has a lake only thirty minutes from me so my mind was made up. This closed season a big crucian was the target but how big?
Being bold I decided three pounds would be my target but realistically a two pound fish would be a fish of dreams. So how would I achieve my target? I had not had a crucian for over thirty years so catching one would be a start. Luckily the methods used are quite simple and this is a theme in all my fishing that I put more thought into my location and feeding than I do fancy rigs. Understanding your quarry is the first step and crucians are well known to be delicate feeders with only small mouths so big hooks and thick lines can be left in the tackle box.
Thankfully they don’t grow to a great size so using smaller hooks and lighter lines are not a problem. Where to fish dictates that we still need to use line suitable to land a fish if we are lucky enough to hook one. My choice of hook link is the Korum power mono in four pounds this is a abrasion resistance line perfect in case it rubs against any pads or branches in the water. This is tied to a specialist size sixteen hook a perfect size for a variety of baits. I use a medium power type float rod with the perfect match of a soft tip so I don’t suffer hook pulls but a bit of backbone in case I need to bully fish. Three floats cover all conditions two insert waggler's and a pole float fished on rod and line. The pole float I favour is one where the line runs through the body I find some floats with a small glued in eye has a tendency for the eye to pull out when used with a rod while the inline pole float has no eye. My two waggler's both have inserts one thicker than the other. I always start on the thinnest insert but if the wind picks up or causes undertow I will switch to the thicker insert to stop the tip pulling under. I lock my floats with two float stops and attach my float via a quick change swivel. This serves two purposes one its easy to change patterns and secondly the float collapses on the strike meaning a more positive contact with the fish.
Shotting again is simple both wagglers take the same amount of shot so I bulk my shot at three quarters depth then add a couple of number eight or ten droppers spaced below. The float is always fished at dead depth or if im using the thicker insert a couple of inches over depth. On the subject of depth I carry two sizes of plummet the reason been I want to find the area of clear bottom where the lily pads end and to do this I use a light plummet to find the depth. The light plummet is perfect as it will sit on any underwater obstructions and allow me to find the clear areas. A heavy plummet would drop through ant branches or cabbages on the bottom giving the impression that the area is clear and there’s no point trying to feed of fish in the middle of snags. The heavy plummet has its place though because once I am happy with my spot I put on the heavy plummet and drag it around the swim to make sure the area is clean of detritus. The small plummet would just bounce over snags and give you the wrong impression. So where to target the fish? I always look for features either lily pads overhanging bushes or a marginal shelf these areas id target. However some lakes have very shallow margins and no bankside features so how would I approach these?
The days of split cane rods and center pin reels are lovely to think about but not always practical, that’s when I move to a more “modern “method of light Avon type rods and small method feeders. I still like to keep things light and use a six or eight pound mainline to the same hook link as I use on the float. Bait wise I hair rig my baits and find the thirty gram Korum dura feeder or grub feeders perfect. Hookbaits and ground bait are the same as my float fishing. Baitwise is really simple always red maggots to start with but if silvers become a problem I will switch to a single piece of corn or a soft pellet. I always use ground bait when fishing but mix it very sloppy I find this way the bait spreads over a larger area and stops the crucians feeding in a really tight area. My choice of ground bait is the Sonubaits worm fishmeal its dark colour helps to blend in with the bottom and is packed with attractors. To this I add a good quality micro pellet such as the DNA crayfish mini-mix or any decent two mill pellet will work. I add the pellet directly to the sloppy ground bait as I’ve always found the odd micro pellet will float so adding them to a sloppy ground bait makes them damp so they sink. Groundbait for the method is exactly the same just mixed dryer.
So my closed season has drawn to a close now and I am pleased to say that I completed my mission not only to get a two I ended up with nine over two but I managed to get one at bang on the magical three pound target. All the fish falling to the float less than a rod length from the bank. Mark Dunwell
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