• What are the best tactics
• What are the best baits 
• What the hell am I going on about

• Well in general the best tactics are whatever the hell catches you fish. No seriously most mornings you will find the dams are quiet and calm, ideally suited to a fairly light float my own preference is for something like a stillwater blue. On most days though , you can expect the wind to get up at some point and then you need to re think. One method that I use extensively  is to use a small snap link on all my floats. This allows me to change floats very quickly but a snap link is far more secure than some of the shop bought quick change float adaptors. Yes I have cast out only to watch my float leave the float adaptor and sail through the air landing well out of reach leaving me cursing the various tackle manufacturers. So now you can either step up to a larger float or if the wind is blowing hard it may be time to consider the quiver tip. The most obvious alternative to this is to use bite alarms (like the big boys do! ("o") joke joke ) of course not everybody considers sitting in a bivvy next to bite alarms real fishing but each to their own.  Lets just have a quick look at scaling up. I generally fish quite small hooks but if you want to scale up then the tactics are a bit different.  With large hooks it may well pay to fish a   hair rig  tied with a  knotless knot.  Generally it is just not necessary to adopt these tactics yet. The fish are not that shy. I like to adopt the KISS principle that is Keep It Simple Stupid!

Well I  wish I really did have a magic bait that always works but there just is no such thing so  I could say whatever catches you fish but I wont. Generally if  I had to select just one bait it would be without question sweetcorn. There are other baits that on certain days will out perform the magic power of the yellow stuff but only on certain days. I have developed some specialist pastes that work well on individual dams.

Lets have a look at some of the baits that work well:

Maize: Well I owe this one to our American Carpers, they tend to use large quantities as loose feed and then fish boilies over the top. On our dams such great quantities (we are talking 5 gallons at a time!)  are not needed but I am a follower of the little and often loosefeeding method. As long as you have a reasonable amount of bait out , you should be able to hold any patrolling Carp in your swim when they arrive. You then have to be able to keep them there. As with all particles you must soak maize , probably the best method is to boil it for an hour then soak it for at least 24 hours. You can leave it to ferment providing you have understanding neighbours! I leave it for at least a week and it really does smell but the fish go crackers for it. Personally I dont use this as hookbait although you can if you want. I prefer sweetcorn for the hook.

Trout pellets: Well this is a tried and tested bait and attractor. Loose fed pellets is one of the best fish pullers around but you must make sure that you have proper trout pellets when you come to Cyprus. You will find suppliers selling what are supposed to be trout pellets but in fact they are something called marine pellets. These are just not up to the job, after a short time of being exposed to the air these pellets float and are then next to useless. There are few suppliers of REAL trout pellets on the island fortunately we are able to obtain the real article, it is very difficult to tell the difference just by looking but generally marine feed is made in Cyprus, the pellets are lighter in colour than trout pellets and do not have as distinctive a smell as proper trout pellets. Dont find out too late that you have bought the wrong thing either bring the pellets with you or contact us and we will be happy to supply them to you. The cost is £1cyp per kilo and these are guaranteed to be the real genuine imported pellets as used by our own Fisheries Department. Once you have obtained the real McCoy you can either loosefeed them or make a paste out of pellet powder. Mix this powder with an egg to get a sticky paste that will stay on the hook really well. Again we have developed our own paste based on pellet power this is only made by us as we are the only manufacturers of ready packaged baits and groundbaits on the island. Trout pellet powder is just one of the ingredients of our own Supermix groundbait. You can of course use pellets on the hook but this requires the use of a pellet band.

Boilies: These will take fish but are not a favoured bait, however it will probably not be too long before these baits start to come into their own as they are now being introduced in increasing numbers. We are the only producer of boilies on the island.

Meat: This will often take fish when all else fails. Try luncheon meat or one of my current favourites is salami the spicier the better. Available from most supermarkets. We also make a meat based paste. This is only availabe from us.
 
 
 
 

What am I going on  about :

Well thats a bloody good question so lets get the hell on with it and find out just what it is I am trying to convey to you

 
 
Hair rigs
 
Knotless knot : This is one of the most popular knots in use at present and this is how to tie it.