Whip Fishing

[Joe Angelucci]

Hello

Hello

Just a quick question. Does anyone have  any experience whip fishing for Bluegill. I have been using a 12 foot telescopic pole with fairly good success. I have a buddy in the UK who suggested a whip pole.

 

Any information is appreciated

[Mark Barrett]

what is whip fishing?

[Joe Angelucci]

Mark

Whip fishing is using a telescopic pole for bank fishing but the tip is elasticated instead of a metal ring. My understnding is the elastic allows for catching larger fish and provides for extra play. I've never seen one in the US but interested in purchasing one to use this spring.

 

 

[Tomas Daniel]

sounds interesting...and possibly a blast. id like to see one.

[Joe Angelucci]

Here is a link, looks like a normal telescopic crappie pole .

 

http://www.fishingdirectuk.com/Lineaeffe+5m+Elasticated+Pole+PWN6TX...

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

Looks can be deceiving, as we know. What I'm interested in seeing is the tip up close, to see how they "elasticate" the common telescoping pole. My guess is that the tip section is not as we imagine ours to be. This strikes me as a hybrid between the telescoping pole and the segmented match pole.

[Joe Angelucci]

Dave

 

Thank you for the reply. Please find attached a You Tube of the whip rigs. The elasticated section is at 2.25 minutes. It has a good view of the tip. I really like the way you can mount a ready rig.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGcMokPhxt4&feature=relmfu

 

 

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

This is a nice video, Joe. I watched a lot of these when I first learned about European style match fishing. Several things stood out as meangingful-

1. Min 0:30 - he suggests three pound test line, size 18-20 hooks and mentions fishing with maggots as bait! That is some small, light stuff by most standards we accept. You'll pay the Dickens to find this stuff; maggots (called Eurolarvae here), for example, usually have to be mail ordered if you aren't winter fishing iced over lakes in the north.

2. Min 2:30 - you're right; he has an 'elasticated' pole. I love that turn of phrase! And as he noted, these are not like our common metal eyelet poles. He referred to it as the "other" pole, meaning a long reach segmented pole. The elastic remains inside the end of the pole tip on this one and extends in and out as the fish is played.

3. Min 4:00 - here he mentions the main line leader arrangement: 3 lb main line with a 2 lb leader. He also weights or "shots the float" in two ways. One is to balance the float itself in the water correctly, with only the tip protruding above the surface. The second part of the shotting process is to use minute split shot. These make even our small BB shot look massive. They help bring the hook bait down to the fish, but at the same time allowing it to fall and behave more naturally - slower, in other words.

Brits like this guy fish differently than we do. This is important to understand when you want to adopt their methods

a. They fish from the bank for 'rough' fish. These are the familiar carp, and the not so familiar tench, roach, rudd and perch. The tench is like a large bullhead and the latter three are like our native shiners. In this country people who fish for such fish are in the minority, and often scoffed at. There is very little equipment available specifically for such fishing as this.

b. They use subtle technique as opposed to heavy armament. This is where their methods can help us. Panfish, and especially large sunfish, are wary fish. Almost any nimrod can snag a nesting male bluegill off his bed, but it takes subtle presentations to consistently catch them the rest of the year. The Euro gear can let us present our baits more naturally when pan fishing.... if you can find it.

c. They go for total weight and are oriented towards quantity fishing "matches." We Yanks are interested in high-tension tournaments, and success means half a dozen massive hogs in our live wells. On the other hand, live wells are rare for them but they might have fifty, sixty or more smaller fish in their catch bag to make their total. They like to catch large carp, certainly, but smaller "panfish" sized fish also count in their esteem.

He ends by saying it pays to mind your rig - small hooks, tiny floats and precise shotting patterns. "These things," he says, "mean more fish in the net!" He's right, I suspect.

P.S. You might also enjoy searching out videos by a another British chap named Bob Nudd. He is both entertaining, and a world champion match angler.

[Joe Angelucci]

 

Wow, thank you for your time and my education. You certainly gave me something to think about. I watched about six videos in the series and was amazed at the systematic approach the English have to fishing. I have to admit ,I'm a fan in it's simplicity.  What struck me was the similarity between their coarse  and our hard water  fishing. Both key in on vertical presentations, micro baits and small hooks.Not sure why  that does not translate into open water technique in the US. I'm looking forward to the spring to try a few of these methods. I'm a bit suprised no one established an european technique group.

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

We have one guy here who is really an expert on Euro technique here at BigBluegill - Johnny Wilkins. He has fished internationally in the match style and knows his stuff. He runs a "fishing school" in Chicago (don't ask me how that works), organizes match fishing events and even has an internet radio show.

He is trying diligently to bring Euro techniques to the US, but it is a slow process. We are resistant to change and their tools and methods are so very different from ours. The closest we seem to get is among carp sport anglers, which fishing seems to be gaining a toehold here. Yet, even they seem to universally prefer the method feeder, to the exclusion of most other things.

You asked why we dont transpose the Euro techniques into our waters. I think the answer is mainly because we are a land of expansive waters. We are simply not accustomed to thinking small. Even when we do, it is in lieu of bigger and better things. When I was in Britain years ago, I only rarely saw what we would call a "decent" lake in the whole of the country. All the videos from Jolly Old also seem to bear this out.

Simply put, they are geared far more towards quiet, backwater fishing. They really are specialists at it. And while this excludes them from the mind of most Yankee fishermen, it is a great aid to the panfisherman. We only have to work at meshing their techniques with ours.

PS Good work on the ebay hooks. Thats where I get most of my stuff, too. Frankly, its the one place I can find what I want. You just have to watch shipping. There are some tackle sellers that have wide range, though, so you can load up. Look into them.

[Dwayne Denison]

the way I understand it is the elastic runs down center of the pole. Johnny is the man when it comes to this style of fishing. If we knew what he forgot about pole  fishing, we would be smart.

[Joe Angelucci]

Dwayne- Thank you for the reply. I look forward to meeting Mr Wilkins on the board.