I did a bit of surface fishing the other night. Several hours of anxiety, tension, and screaming frustration, as fish after fish came through under the bait.
Sometimes looking, and bumping at the bait, (but mostly not :( )
However eventually the fish began to roll, and look a lot keener, much nearer in than before. Sometimes slurping up baits that had drifted right into the weed in the margin to my left.
So eventually I pulled right into the near margin area, casting actually on the top of the margin Canadian Pondweed. Almost at once I had a hump of weed form under the bait, which slid from sight, and I missed it! :rolleyes:

Then a few minutes later, I missed another take. :unsure:

Then again! :(

And again! :angry:

The next one I missed the rod went up the bank, the unhooking mat went the other way, and I stormed off for a few minutes cooling off. :angry: :angry: :angry:

Thirty odd years Carp fishing and they still have the ability to rev me up like this. Bless them! :D

Eventually I settled down, and not long after I had another hump form next to the bait. Within moments it had dissapeared, but this time I waited till the line actually dragged across the surface before hitting it. Then of course all hell broke loose as I tried to keep the fish away from all the roots and other underwater rubbish.
That fish seemed determined to burrow its way INTO the bank. Only briefly at the end of the stuggle did the fish come away from the margin and into clear water.
It was then that I realised the reason for my difficulty in initially hooking the fish. Each time the fish lifted its head, I could see it it had a bad case of Parrot mouth. At the same time I could also see that the hook had barely penetrated the scarring, and promptly had a dose of the wobbles. I did however manage to land the fish (at the second attempt).



It wasnt large at only 10lb 9oz, but it was a tough old blighter, and I am pleased to have caught it (particularly on a size 10 hook and 4, yes 4lb leader).
But please the next time you catch a young Carp, take a few minutes to unhook it carefully, and dont do a bodged job.
It's a few seconds to us, but that fish will have to live with the consequences for the rest of its life.

BOF ;)

good story bof:}
i fished hayfield lakes a fair bit last year and 95% of the fish had parrot lips:{ a friend of mine said that it was caused by pole fishing, using tiny hooks makes it easier to pull through the fleshy lips. not sure if he is right but sounds feasable.

Nice story mate. Proper old warrior look about that fish. Had a similar experience at Thorney pond last year, the larger fish (just into doubles on that lake) would only take the floaters that had drifted into the weeds, managed an 11lb common by fishing in said weed, well chuffed.
The only current stories I have following my opening day blank are tales of painting decorating and renovation on my future pension (current house).
Still, the rods will travel on the familly holiday to the Vendee, where Wildies can be had from the little river at the bottom of the site (River Vie). Will also chance my arm on the big res upstream of there L'ac Apremont.

Only been to the area once, (quite a few years ago), at La Roche sur Yon.
All I remember are big dunes, and loads of Caravans. Not much in the way of fishing though, Martyn.
Do tell where your spot is.

BOF ;)

It`s a shame to see fish like that bof would have been a nice looking fish if it had a proper mouth :( . Martyn good luck with the fishing for wildies hopefully a few pics would be nice :fish:

Nice looking body on the fish tho bof.Its a shame that poor(mutant)carp has been abused.I hope you gave it a love before you put it back bof

The old warrior was quickly checked for any more hooks, (none), photo taken, and returned a quickly as I could manage, Dudster. It deserved some respect and tlc I thought.

BOF ;)

I came across this a couple of days ago at Gerrards in Maxey. I visited this place for the first time merely to put a couple of cane rods through their paces. I managed to land two of the four fish I hooked.The lost fish simply dropping off, I'm sure only because of the mouth damage I witnessed on both of the fish landed.



The lake has a barbless hook rule in place but tbh I don't think barbed or barbless makes a difference in the majority of cases.Two other anglers opposite me were fishing 2 rods each on pods with buzzers which somehow told them it was ok for them to take turns in each others swims away from their own rods. A number of times I saw one or other of them on hearing their alarm walk over to their rods (they were both ,lets say,getting on a bit) then strike like they were hitting into a Marlin at 300 yards :o :angry:

IF the fish was still on they then proceeded to wind like buggery whilst lifting into the fish then drop the rod down to the water giving totally slack line before repeating the process again :o

Amazingly some fish were landed but I couldn't see how the hooks were removed which is the other area of concern for me.On other waters (day ticket) I've seen people literally rip the hook out. I did have words and tried to show them how to remove the hook properly but I'm sure there are hundreds of these people all over the country :(

Its unbelievable how many anglers go fishing without a pair of forceps/disgorger or the like within their armoury. Just as we have seen unhooking mats and in some cases antiseptic become compulsory on many big fish waters, why is it no fishery (that i am aware of) stipulates in their rules that these valuable tools should be carried and used when nessary. Some hook holds cannot be accessible or safely removed without them and could see the angler just pull or work it till loose creating a large wound :( . For the sake of a fiver from each and every angler the majority of this damage could be a thing of the past. :fish:

Mouth damage is heartbreaking to see, but common on heavily fished waters.
Bet you got some odd looks using your vintage gear Chris ? Good on you.

I occasionally use my centrpin, and have had a few doubles; in no way I ever feel in control, they usually got fed up and swam into the landing net. Got to re-learn the art.

I couldn't wait to get rid of my cane rod when I first started, it wasn't a mk iv though, just a coarse rod, fibreglass was a revelation to me, you could actually hold your rod all day.
Then Carbon fibre made fibreglass feel like sh*t. I loved my Tricasts. I now have an Infinity, saving up for the other one, which makes my Tricasts feel cumbersome.

Just sold my Mk 4 Carp to Guy Nicholls who I met down at Drayton.
He's a man after your own heart Dontknowmuch, as I met him fishing in the margin, with a built cane rod and Centrepin.
But coming back to the Parrot thing, it was noticeable that several of the fish in Drayton had been carelessly unhooked, or maybe just played a bit too firmly too often, and showed early signs of this dammage.
Which is a bit of a shame as Mark the bailiff does all he can to ensure the fish are well looked after.
It may be that even match anglers may be forced to treat each hook hold with Klinik before long.

BOF ;)

is that a mitchell 300 in the picture?

That looks like a Garcia Mitchel 300 to me.

BOF ;)

It sure is,as far as I know its the first version of the "300" dating back into the 50s. The model before it was just a "mitchell" but had the full bail arm by then.

I forgot to mention on my earlier post that I think the high incidence of parrot mouths in the match type pools occurs when the fish are still very young. The "speed" aspect in matches I'm sure leads to many hooks being ripped unceromoniously from the mouth whilst the tissue around the lips/mouth area is still soft. Once carp have reached a certain age the mouth tends to harden up (possibly due to toughening up with feeding but also I think that scar tissue plays a part after they've been caught a time or two).

I remember how unfortunately easy it is to remove the lips of small roach and rudd with an over zealous strike and I think the same result is all too easily achieved with poor hooking of the pasty sized carp :(

The original Mitchell did have a half bail arm, but then the 300 with the full bale arm came out it was still made and sold as a Mitchell 300, only changing to Garcia Mitchell 300 in the late 70's, (ish) when the American company bought them out.

BOF ;)

Oops,you're right BOF, well sorta

The one in the photo is the Garcia Mitchell 300 which came into being in 1963.I've got two other full bail Mitchells one of which is definately a 50s model as its still named as just "Mitchell", the other which has the 300 tag could be from 1959(the first year of the 300) to 1962.

BTW these are all recently bought like my half bail as I'm not quite old enough to have bought them new :D .My own 300s/410s and Mitchell Match reels were from the 70s and 80s.

These have been around for years now (the first half bail 300 shape model was out in 1946 :o ) and its worth remembering the part these reels played through the 40s/50s/60s/70s and 80s when we talk about Shimano & Daiwa as the best carp reels.Maybe now but will they manage 5 decades at the top?

Anyhow,I'm well off topic now :unsure:

Hmm, I'd say your on your way out to sea, given how far you've drifted :wave: Ahhoy there!

OK getting back to the parrot fish. Have we debated the Barb-less/barbed hook theory before? I've too confess, I've seen more parrot fish on waters that practice the barb-less hook policy then I have anywhere else. I have a theory and think I can back up this with what I have seen.

I fish two different fishing clubs water's. Both clubs have the barb-less hook only rule, but one of them actively promotes the use of barbed hooks when fishing for carp. There were two reasons for this club opting for the use of barbed hooks when fishing for carp, which I will explain.
The water in question is very weedy and anglers were found to drop fish when fishing barbless, it was also found that the fish being landed were showing signs of mouth damage. Because of this the committee opted to allow the use of barbed hooks. As a result, less fish where dropped, but more significantly the mouth damage became less obvious.
What I think happens is, when a barbed hook is set, the barb acts as an anchor point and will prevent a hook rolling around and slipping inside the mouth whilst the fish pulls in a different direction to angler. On heavily weeded waters the angles in which the line can run at will constantly change. In the event of a barb-less hook being used in these circumstances, the hook is permitted to rotate and roll about, tearing and ripping the hook hold point. I therefore think that this eventually leads towards parrot mouthed fish.
Going back to the water where the barb-less only rule applies. This water has no weed beds, or underwater snags to talk of. To date I've had several fish from this venue and you have to question how some of them even manage to feed. I only hope the originals aren't as badly disfigured so that once I've caught the target fish, I can pull off, probably never to return. It's also convinced me to use barbed hooks as I believe they do less damage.
If I get pulled up for it I will argue my point and I'll even show them antiseptic and forceps, which you can garentee none of the other noddies in their club will use. let alone know what its for :unsure: .
Just out of curiousity, how many of you have seen a rule which asks that you apply antiseptic to a hook hold? It doesn't appear in any of the rule books I've got. Why is that?

I'm definately a believer in barbed hooks being better for their mouths Big Iron. I've seen the differences on quite a few different waters but the two worthy of note are our syndicate water in Lincs where barbed hooks are used.Some of the fish are proper old warriors over 40 years old, all of them have perfect mouths! One of our fish can be a bit greedy at times and sometimes appears on the bank as much as 4 or 5 times in a month,its mouth is in perfecr shape. Barbed hooks and anglers who know how to remove them properly.We make sure of that.

Last year I fished a lake nr Peterborough which had a barbless rule.The lake was shallow and weedy. In June I lost a couple of fish because of the barbless rule.It turned out that I just needed to use the right pattern of barbless hook.I'd made the mistake of trying to use barbless versions of my regular hooks. Another angler on the lake put me wise to the Mugga hooks from Gardner and I didn't lose another fish. As the weed got heavier I had a couple of fish which had damage in the scissors of their mouths,one of the fish just on one side,the other on both sides. It transpired that in the previous week an angler reported losing a couple of fish "in the weed".

At the end of June the weed was getting really thick and the last fish I had in June came in with a load of weed attached. On pulling back the folds of the net and the weed covering the fish I immediately noticed a big gauge in the scissors of the mouth,with my hook at the end of it :(

I pulled off for the rest of the year not happy to think that I could be doing damage to any of the fish because of the barbless rule.

Oh, BTW Big Iron , we do have a rule on the syndicate lake about klinic,medi carp etc B)

Dontknowmuch, it's nice to hear that others are/have drawn the same conclussions as myself, perhaps with time we can change the mind set of many club and day ticket run waters. As you rightly say, it all comes down to knowing how to correctly unhook and handle fish on the bank. Unfortunatley the monthly publications aren't tackling this area and all tend to glamourise carp angling, making it appeal to the less educated who want quick results. :angry:
I can remember cutting my teeth many moons back fishing for gudgeon, roach, bleak and snotties (pope). How many kids want to do that now days? Not many I suspect, even now I have my sister's kids are asking me to take them carp fishing, yet they've not grasped the basics, tying hooks, casting, setting up a rod, etc. :o

Just what are these publications doing? Ooops, I'm drifting now. Anyway, rant over.

With regards to the medi-carp, klinic, etc. I think that it is safe to assume that if a fishery is run as a syndicate this rule will exist, what I should have said was how many club run waters have this as a written rule? (which was my mistake ;) )