Underwater - Norton Disney is out now!

Underwater Norton Disney immerses you into the world of the carp and allows you to see their every move and reaction to rigs and bait, accompanied by expert commentary from Danny Fairbrass and Tom Stokes, as they tweak their tactics in pursuit of the ultimate set-up and a 100% conversion rate.

New camera equipment for clearer footage

This Underwater has been filmed using by far the best camera equipment that we have ever had, thus giving a much clearer view of everything that was going on and clearly showing which bits of the rigs, hookbaits and even the baiting up approach needed to be changed.

Colour plays a big part

The first thing that became very obvious is just how much of a difference the colour of your hookbait can make at times, and certainly these fish in Turner’s Lake on the Embryo Norton Disney complex expressed a clear preference for one particular colour – you’ll have to watch the film to find out which one!

Perhaps more surprising though for people watching this Korda Underwater film will be the way they responded to the buoyancy and movement of the hookbait, and especially these days when so much carp fishing is focused on the use of wafters or critically balancing baits so they only just sink. The carp definitely had different ideas when it comes to all of this!

Choose the right lead set-up

Just how wary they are of certain items of tackle on the lakebed was also a real eye-opener and highlighted why your rigs need to reset if they do get ejected and ideally always land in the perfect position and be set up in such a way that it doesn’t matter which direction a carp approaches them from. Tom was shocked at just how badly his favourite lead set up performed both in terms of hooking them and also his chances of getting another pick up if the rig did get spat out.

Finding the right lake for an underwater film

During the filming, Danny is adamant that he wants everything to be as close to a real fishing situation as possible, which involves actually casting the rigs and baiting up as normal, rather than using a baitboat or a diver to place them. This means having to land the rig – or even rigs as for the first time ever each angler fished two different rigs side by side, less than a foot apart – within a very small square in order for it to be in shot and close enough to the cameras for a good view of it.

There are always obstacles to overcome as well, and just finding a lake that is clear enough - and stays clear once the carp start feeding on the spot – and has spots where the cameras can be placed, that can be cast to accurately enough, and where the carp will also feed, is far from easy. The first lake these cameras were placed into and where we had hoped to make the film, yielded no carp traffic at all after days of watching empty screens and uneaten bait.

Even during filming once you do find the right spot and have good clarity, things can still go wrong to ruin or delay filming – such as daphnia blooms or carp feeding heavily elsewhere in the lake and clouding it up, with the wind then pushing that coloured water down to where our cameras are.

When anything like this happens the rigs have to come out of the water and filming stops, as the whole point of this project is to show how carp react to our rigs, and there is no point hooking them if the footage isn’t clear enough to see what has happened.

As if all of that isn’t enough, once the cameras are in place you are literally locked into fishing a two foot or so square in front of them, and the carp definitely do seem to be very much aware that something is there and isn’t quite right. This does mean though that if its working in front of the camera, then it should work anywhere, in a similar situation in terms of the type of spot and size/stock of carp in the lake.

Honing their tactics and tackle

It can also be incredibly frustrating for the anglers whose rigs are in front of the cameras, to the point that they feel like giving up, when they are putting out their favourite presentations, that they’ve caught loads of carp on in the past, and then watching it being picked up and spat out with ease, multiple times, and not a single fish being hooked.

But that is all part of the fun and learning process which is Underwater, and when they make a change that works it is not only incredibly rewarding but evolves their future fishing and ultimately leads to more carp on the bank for them, and of course you, if you follow what they’re doing!

The ultimate rig?

We don’t want to ruin the Underwater film for you by giving everything away, but the eventual evolution of Dan’s rig results in something which is so effective at hooking them, compared to everything else that he and Stokesy had cast out beforehand, that he even describes it as having “almost the same impact as the hair rig had when it came out”!

He has been using this rig, and especially a couple of aspects of it, in his own fishing ever since, as has Tom Stokes, they were so convinced by what they saw on the cameras and have both landed some very big fish on it.

If Danny is that excited about the rig that he came up with and believes that it will change his fishing that much, then how can you afford not to watch this Underwater film!