It’s been a few weeks since I’ve put some words together regarding my recent bankside exploits so I’ve decided to break it down into manageable material for you guys to digest and not only that but my memory is awful now I am the wrong side of 30! So just a few days ago myself and Mark of Bradwin Rods visited a local’ish day ticket water known as Longleat. I say local because of the never ending spate of roadwork’s that seem to be apparent around this area diverted us the long way but eventually we arrived to some stunning scenery. If you have never been to this water it is basically 3 lakes situated on the grounds of Longleat Country Park which is a very popular tourist attraction just like the lakes. The one lake out of the three we was going to fish was the top lake which is reported to have 500+ fish and a lake record Ghosty that goes 35lb+. Its shape is more long than wide with an island at the shallower end and a dam at the other being the deepest end around 6/7ft we were told. Upon arriving an idea of location was already in the forefronts of our minds but already seeing two bivvy’s plotted up as we drove down towards the lake put an end to those plans. We parked up and decided to go for a quick walk anyway taking a couple of buckets with us as being half term we didn’t want to miss out on any other potential areas and one thing that was apparent was a very strong crosswind blowing from right to left ploughing down deep into the dam end which had a minimum of 7 lines in this area of water so we opted for a large double just 3 swims up in which we had a lot of water to fish at our disposal and also a far margin reedline as long as no-one else fished that side.

So the barrow loaded my thinking of tactics whilst walking down was on one rod a solid bag set-up with a bright slow sinking bait which would be a roving rod cast every hour either to showing fish or different areas and the other being a more static spot with a bait and wait approach. Minutes upon arrival back to the swim a fish decided to say hello and show itself no less than 3-4 rods lengths out so quickly rigging up I dropped the static rod on its head and decided to give it 30-45 mins whilst I sorted out the other rod and made the standard morning carp fuel, COFFEE!! Sat in the swim the sun was rising beautifully but knowing blue skies, a cold crosswind and high pressure are not favourable conditions we decided to make the best out of a day on the bank.

To my right I had a little bay corner that the wind was sweeping past missing the best part of it making it a bit of a suntrap so opted for this to be the first spot for a solid bag as it was seeing the first part of that rising morning sun. An hour passed and nothing happened on either rod so after discussions over a cuppa and 2 shows off the reed line directly in front of us we decided that would be the area to Spomb out some chopped, whole baits and pellet along the same line with one each of our rods and hopefully pick off one or two that obviously seemed to be patrolling that area. With a rod each and the Spomb rod all clipped up to the distance it was a battle of the Bradwin Rods against wind. So with all 4 rods now out it was a case of waiting to see what happened throughout the morning with further shows along the reeds a matter of hours passed with nothing to show off the baited spot and not a lot happening on the solid bags either.

We agreed to stick by our guns and carry on with what we had discussed. Through-out the morning we knew just one fish had come out from the dam end to the lads arriving a little earlier than ourselves which gave us a little confidence that we could also maybe pick one off through the day if we remained motivated and pro-active with the re-casting approach and trying to work at keeping the swim alive with the fresh application of bait periodically. Again hours passed and the afternoon seemed to be disappearing rapidly as between re-casts we continued to tweak baits within the solid bags to see if we could manage that first fish of the day. We both covered so many options different coloured baits, smells, Goo/No Goo etc.. As with the reported amount of fish

within the water we believed that we would at some point unlock what they would finally want to take a sniff at and this to my surprise would eventually come around 20 minutes before the light started to fade. It was on the solid bag rod cast to the right hand area of the reed-line that had seen a few hours’ worth of regular re-casts and if I’m honest it took what felt like a lifetime for the run to register in my head as I stood there in disbelief that I had a fish on due to the fact I genuinely thought all opportunities had disappeared. Gently playing it back I prayed that it wasn’t to come off until it was swooped up into the depth of the net. Finally a reward for the hard-work and determination of the days efforts. Not one to be worried by weight I was buzzing that I managed to nick one right on last knockings and what a little stunner it was. A beautiful little Longleat scaley mirror. It wasn’t to be the Ghosty on the day of Halloween but it all come good in the end.