eeeeee
Raymond Peters.

Winter Success 2007 Compas Lake, North Holland "UK42.68/lbs19.4kg Dutch kilo Common caught at 7am 3rd February 2007" "PVA Method Mix Bloodworm & Shrimp and Amino Crab sticks, boilie is a Tutti Megafish" Mix small amounts of amino and method mix in a separate pot to get the consistency right, its important not to put too much amino as this will water proof the PVA in oil and then cause the stick not to melt down all night. We have found the benefit of oiling our bags and sticks (not fish oils this brings the bream in fast, amino liquid is the secret) when fishing on large deep waters we have experimented on different breakdown times between 10 minutes and 8 hours. You cant put the method mix in dry as it will fall out of the PVA netting every time you tighten down to tie a knot and you cant mix the method with water, this will activate the anchovy cereal binder which is fantastic for making hand size balls with hemp to chuck or smaller balls to catapult in, but that’s not the problem it’s the water and as soon as the mixture hits the PVA by the time you’ve put the rod behind your back its fallen to bits or more embarrassing on cast into the lake.  First add a small amount of method mix into a pot, we used this old hooker jar, then pour neat from the amino into a cap or measuring cup, use this to measure how much liquid to how much mix. By doing it this way we know that the jar will make one perfect size stick and we can measure exactly what we put in and out to suit different lakes and river systems flows and depths. We advise not to pre-make the sticks this only allows the oil to waterproof the pva longer. If you make a sticky amino stick and leave it in the sun for 30 minutes then I put money that if you cast that out, in the morning you would wind it back in still attack to your hook link. You are looking for just wet enough to kick in the anchovy cereal binder and then you have so many explosive food attractants hitting the water and staying broken down around your rig all night and in perfect condition for that early morning take. The problem with ready made ground bait stick mixes is that its designed to come apart as soon as it hits the waters and your mind is constantly thinking about pva strength so that your package of bait you’ve just spent time making doesn’t burst open on its way down. With our method we have confidence that we know exactly by the second, minute and hour of when our pva will open. In cold water its always much longer than warm too so that has to be taken into account, which goes the same for deep water in hot lakes. All we want is our stick to land safety and breakdown leaving large amounts of attraction round our hook bait for much longer periods of time and to be constant releasing the abundance of food signals with irresistible solid hook bait doing its own important job. Well that’s what I want. And with the help of the method mix you can either use OF liquids or other flavours to make this work on your water and give you a new edge to instant fishing with high food source baits. February 18th 2007Two weeks after the first capture, this time Jeroen pulls in the same fish caught on the exact same setup. Last night Jeroen and I are once more at the waters edge excited with confidence we have found a winning method for big carp in the these parts of the country, which is not normal to catch 40lb fish.In the South there are many more possibilities but the north its much more difficult. We are in our sleeping bags early as the temperature is close to freezing and the dark night comes quickly.  At 3am the sounder box screams and a hard take means one of us is scrambling out if his bag to hit the rod and the other remains in the trapped heat of the bag until we know what we are dealing with. After a quick fight and netting we see a lightly scaled mirror of 7.6 kg UK16.7lb, after the weighing we slip the fish back into the water and hastily return to our sleeping bag for warmth. At 3am I was out of my bag this time to handle another carp of 10.6kg UK23lb, same procedure. Then that same morning much earlier than we expected the bite alarm goes off for the third time just after 5am Jeroen picks up the rod and immediately is in a hard fight which requires a lot of drilling in the freezing air. Finally after much pain and his arms feeling like they have locked up and turned into rusted bolts, we slip the net under another long big common carp. To our surprise this time my fishing buddy Jeroen has just caught the same carp I caught two weeks before on the same spot and same tutti megafish and method amino stick set up. This time the “Old Known” was down in weight, weighing 18.6kg UK40lb. Both anglers had now captured one of the known 40’s two weeks running in winter! We were told this water was strictly fishmeal only and you won’t catch carp on sweet baits, well we are happy to prove their 10 years of fishing knowledge of this water wrong and with this new approach we have landed the same 40 pounder twice in two weeks doing something different. I caught the same fish two weeks ago on 19.4 kg UK 42.6lb and later Jeroen re captures it at 40lb the carp are very hungry and on the move to find food to replace the lost weight. One thing is certain, this carp is addicted to our home made boilies using OF tutti megafish amino liquid. Now we have confidence finding other 40’s in our coming warming months when all the carp will start to move around the lake in search for food and energy to move quicker and feed harder to replenish the lost weight from deep water shoaling in winter.  I was just ready to send the first article about my capture, when my mate caught the same fish, whilst we were fishing last night. We know the new website is supposed to go live in March, maybe the northern OF team will be reporting more catch results before you see this story, we thinks hope so. Greetz Ray.