Behind the scenes

Behind the Crafty Carper August “Just the ticket” feature.

This session you find me fishing the Big Lake, a 10-acre, tree-lined water at my local day ticket venue, Willow Park Fishery, in Ash on the Surrey / Hampshire border. I’m a regular on this family run mini complex of three lakes set within 22-acres, and it comes complete with one of the best cafés you’ll find anywhere, plus a well-stocked tackle shop and all the banter that flows from a fishery that provides the personal touch. For those school night sessions you can even have a shower before you leave for work, and if you have time for a rightly famous Willow breakfast, there’s no finer start to a day.

The Big Lake holds a good head of carp with some stunning scaly mirrors and old school commons. For me, you can’t beat a classic dark common, preferably those that don’t see the bank too often. I’m still missing a few of Willow Park’s confirmed characters, so lets see what the day brings.

Do your homework

The key to success on any day ticket venue is knowledge, and doing your homework is the only reliable way to gather what you need. Ask questions, politely of course, and tap into the know-how of staff, bailiffs and other anglers. Day ticket fish are often heavily pressured, so the more time you spend finding out what works and what doesn’t, the more likely you’ll be to put yourself in the right place at the right time, under the best conditions to catch. I hate spouting hoary old clichés, but effort really does equal reward and the importance of being on the fish cannot be over-stated, especially if you’re fishing short sessions.

Session study

This time around I have chosen the end swim on the Culvert Bank.  I’ve seen no fish on the walk round, so I’m going by the knowledge gained from visiting the venue during the last few weeks. This swim allows me to fish one rod towards an out of bounds area and the other in open water, giving me options. The swim also provides a great view of the lake, so I can watch for signs and move quickly if needed.

The open water rod goes out a short chuck of 9.5 wraps. This is just shy of 9ft deep and at the base of a 6ft bar running left to right. The other side of the bar is a 7 to 8ft plateau, so I have some great features to find a patrol route into the out of bounds area. The rod fished towards the out of bounds area is just off the inside marginal shelf, but I’ve scattered bait along the boundary rope into deeper water. The rod is then clipped up to get as close as I can to the rope, but I can always move this one into the deeper water if the margin doesn’t produce. The open water rod gets 30 baits as tight as I can to the spot with 20 scattered along the bar.

Tip: To get the best out of your swim flick a lead around, pull back slowly to find those areas you can present your rig perfectly. Use marker elastic or distance sticks and take note of distance. Add to this a skyline maker and day or night you can hit that baited spot and be back in the zone.

Simple stuff

I tend to keep baiting as simple as possible with small bags of crushed boilies or pellet. Casting these regularly will allow you to build your baited area without making too much disturbance. Back this up with 10 to 15 boilies put out as singles every hour or so and it’s a winner in my book. On higher stocked waters this can often create a bite and it wouldn’t be the first time I had the buzzer go into melt down half way through pinging singles over my baited area.

Tip: A little tip for getting perfect mesh bags every time is using a lid or cap off a glud or dip bottle, fill the cap with pellet, boilie crumb, or what ever bag mix you’re using, and use it to fill the bags with exactly the same amount each time. This ensures a consistent cast whilst allowing the bag to fit into your bottle of glug or dip.

Going well

My session is going well so far and I’ve managed a dark, fin-perfect 19.08lb patch common, along with a jaw-dropping, 15lb starburst mirror. Could the session get any better? Well it did and I even got to do battle with one of Willow Park’s ‘koi-type’ commons. These beauties are jet-black with pearlised white bellies. This one is a proper gnarly old warrior and a target fish for many.

The kettle goes on and time passes with nothing but sunshine seen for the next few hours. So while we enjoy the sun and a cup of tea I will let you into a lesson I learned the hard way.

Lesson learned

I fished a swim for 36 hours, up every two hours baiting and recasting. All for two bites, only to lose one at the net and I was eventually beaten down to that point where we start to question what we are doing.

I woke the second morning at 5am with plans to pack up early and enjoy a breakfast in the local café. Mist is covering the lake, but I can hear the sound of fish boshing at distance. At times like this you don’t think you just do, so in 15 minutes I’ve walked half way round the lake with two rods, unhooking mat and fold-down landing net.

I’ve got pots of pop ups in every pocket and a rig wallet between my teeth. No one is on this side of the lake and I’m standing in an open water swim watching fish show, one after another, after another. The excitement, after all that time in a bay trying to make things happen, is like no other. With as much speed as I could muster a couple of supple hinge rigs go out bang on the money. Within an hour I landed a 20-plus mirror and common. The lesson I learned was another cliché but entirely valid, in that I needed to fish smarter not harder. Don’t be afraid to move; just don’t go crazy chasing fish. Remember the lesson, and use your brain before your barrow!

Time to move

With that lesson in mind, but no fish showing, it’s time for me to take a little walk round and see if we can find some. I don’t get far before I find a group of 30 fish, all 20s or very near offer, sitting in the out of bounds area to my right. I’d fished the inside margin and out to the middle of the deeper water with no joy, so clearly I’m missing a trick because they snuck in here somehow and none of my rods had intercepted them!

No one is fishing the swim on the opposite bank, so it’s a few casts to a 4ft area on the far margin. Feeling the lead down I soon find a ledge and drop-off about 8ft off the bank leading round to the bay. So this must be how they are gaining access and avoiding my traps. The bottom of the ledge feels like big chunks of gravel, so a small hinge rig on a 10-inch supple boom seems like a great option to get the best presentation I can.

Tip: Being able to react to changing conditions is what separates you from a quiet session to a Red Letter day. Make it count. Remember it could be as simple as changing the colour of a pop-up or changing to a zig when the weather warms up in the day. Like me it could be simply realising that the fish had found a way around the traps.

Last-gasp cuppa

Time ticks on and we are edging closer to that time when the guys have to leave. The motorways are congesting nicely, they have a long journey home, and to be fair to them we’re already well past leaving time, but I sneakily put the kettle on and no one turns down a cuppa before a long journey.

It must have been all of 15 minutes before the, “We really have to go” comment, and my Solace alarm serenades us with its single tone, followed by the shouts of “fish on!”  This is the rod I cast to the margin drop-off not that long ago. The fish knows exactly where it wants to go and aims straight for the brambles at the back of the swim, then out into open water. As I start to get the better of it, its final act of defiance is to dive for the near margin and under the trees. The rod tip goes down and a finger is applied to the spool. I’m not losing this one! Even the first gulp of air didn’t hinder this common’s effort to evade me and it showed me it still had more to give under the rod tip. That tip goes up and slowly, slowly, it’s drawn across the net cord, followed by a restrained air-punch and a sigh of relief. Peering into the net reveals a chestnut woodcarving of a common. At 22lbs it’s an awesome finish to an enjoyable session.

Tip: Tea solves all problems and keeps the camera crew in your swim longer! Use it to your advantage.

Reflections

To reflect on my session, I’ve fished a new swim and caught two target fish; the starburst mirror I’ve been after since Dean Macey had it when down doing a feature, and the koi-type common. I still have two more of these to go after and they are both over 25lbs.

See you on the bank sometimes and it’s white with one sugar if the kettle’s on!