Inside Our Month For This Issue…
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The editor finally donned a wetsuit and went swimming with carp (not quite as glamorous as dolphins, but hey). Page 40.
Received a batch of ‘funnies’ off James Armstrong. We’re less impressed by Tom Dove’s sunfish and more with that fact he’s wear a shirt and a pair of white chinos! ‘Get the London look!’
CARPology On Tour flag turns up in America. Awesome, dude.
Another month, another instalment of Laney’s Column and yet another helping of whackers. How does he do it? Well, as if by magic, we’ve got the answers on page 54.
Got Gaz Fareham’s piece for The Rotary Letter (P69). Attached were yet more carpy shots – now there’s a surprise.
Organised the Fitty shoot, brought wine, grapes (reds too) and French stick, forgot to invite the rest of CARPology. Doh. Now on page 128.
CARPology meets Mitch Smith. Long-range casting now made easy thanks to our easy-to-peruse-illustrations. Page 47.
Ali Hamidi constructing this month’s rig for Advanced Rig Design (P24). Must be good, he looks strangely serious.
Met Nick Helleur: he’s the man who’s going to ensure you catch more this summer – as proven in his 11 edges for summer ’09 on page 30.
Our key feature this month, if I’m being totally honest, is one I’d rather you didn’t read. Indeed, it once again relates to Rob Hughes’ awesome Below The Surface (P40) series – the most sound and 100% correct words committed to ink – and once again I was the guinea pig. This month we carried out an experiment that I’ve wanted to know the answer to for sometime: how much bait do they eat before you get a bite. But before we could get the answers I had to get some rigs and bait out there. Hardened CARPology readers will know doubt remember my previous rig tests. Putting it simply: they tangled. Although I’m sure I can’t be the only one this happens to (after all, I was using a normal coated hooklink, helicopter set-up and semi-buoyant bait – pretty much like everyone else), I thought I’d cracked it with a set-up I’d used on my previous two trip to France with great success. Once again Rob and his camera proved me wrong. This month’s piece is truly amazing and from what we discovered this time, we’ll be putting into practise for next month.
Luckily thought (read: less depressing) I did get some joy from the feature: I donned a wetsuit for the first time and went in – literally swimming with carp. This is a key element to this year’s series – getting to know individual fish and learning their habits – something’s are already clicking into place… More on that next time, though.
Equally as impressive this month is the Cast like Mitch Smith feature on page 47. Unlike other previous magazine’s efforts, we’ve gone to trouble of having each stage of casting a lead 200yds illustrated to make understanding it a damn sight easier. It clearly works: he got a lady who’s never held a rod, let alone cast one, to put a lead over 150yds on her third attempt…
It’s now time to past the ropes over to Martin Locke (P8) to give you the rundown on the rest of this month issue. Enjoy.
Joseph Wright, Editor
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