The end of last year was quite productive for me, I changed the club that I was a member of to local waters rather than having to drive a long way to get to the lake. This meant I could start getting some bait into the waters. I started fishing a day only water, which was only ten minutes away from my house, perfect to go to after a night shift, rods out and dose on the bank. I had some lovely carp from this lake, a spot I had put a few kilos of the A2 baits, creamy toffee boiles.
I found a spot furthest away from the car park that I had noticed hardly got fished (too much of a long walk!). The lake didn’t have too many features on the lake bed, just a smooth clay pit, so the fish tended to hang around the one island, which every man and his dog fished and to be fair produced carp but I hate having to compete for swims. The swim I had chosen to concentrate on had plenty of open water and a small set of pads providing the only bit of natural cover for the carp this end of the lake. It was the pads spot that proved to be very successful, actually to be fair I didn’t have one fish in open water so I concentrated both rods to the pads using back leads as I was fishing so tight. I caught all the carp on a combi rig with a A2 baits 70/30 tipped pink wafter.
It was time to pack the car and drive due west to see all my mates from Team Catch and Release in the first social of 2015 in Wales. The social was great but despite all my efforts I think peg twelve was no carp bay for the weekend also very cold with the wind blowing into my swim all weekend.
Back from the social in Wales and a week to dry out my gear in the glorious South East sunshine!!! It was time to concentrate back on my fishing at the club. The day only water is now closed for a couple of months so I decided with a mate to go and have a look around a public lake that is on our club ticket. It is a water that I have walked around for nearly 26 years and to be honest never took any notice of the water!!!! Once having a proper look round at different swims with the marker rod we decided on a spot that we could pre bait with the A2 CT that we could both fish too. We took it in turns over the next three weeks topping up on boiles and a little amount of particle not too much as there are a lot of bream to contend with. It was time to fish our chosen spots. I didn’t get to the water until 2pm and had to leave early next morning but with the effort with pre baiting I was confident for a bite.
The weather was blowing an absolute gale it was a struggle to stand out on the platform to cast but after a couple of casts I was on the spots. One rod on the pre baited spot in open water, one roaming rod put to the middle of the lake and a final rod just to the right of me two snags that I had also been trickling bait into.
The first few hours I sat huddled in my mates bivvy as he was just enough out of the wind to put the bivvy up I wasn’t even going to attempt putting mine up. Then the sound every carp angler hates the sound of the bobbin being pulled up slowly and dropped could only mean one thing; Mr Bream had
found our baited spot. This carried on for a good few hours and to be fair if I was fishing for bream it produced some massive slabs!
It was the turn of my right hand rod fishing to the snags to pull up tight and almost pull the rod off of the delkim. I knew this was not a bream after a brief fight my first Common carp slipped over the net cord. Nothing massive, not even a double but was very welcome confirming there was carp in the area and they had found my CT boiles.
With the rod back on the spot it wasn’t long until it was pulled off of the delkim again this time producing a bigger common at 12lb, a lovely looking carp I wouldn’t go as far and say uncaught but well looked after!!!
Rod back on the spot and after about an hour the right hand rod screamed off again producing a lovely delkim one toner, which sounds lovely but when fishing to snags your listening for a couple of bleeps and that’s it. This could only mean one thing I had forgot to lock up after resetting the rod doughnut!!!!!! I lifted up and felt a fish and then that horrible feeling of grating and then the
inevitable snap of the line! Lesson learnt always check if you had locked up when fishing to snags!! The snag rod produced another run at about 11pm this felt a decent fish after a fantastic 30 second fight I could not hold it any longer and it got into another snag and just went solid left the rod for a good half an hour but nothing.
The rest of the evening and early hours did not produce anything I was up at 06:30 redone all my rods just to check the rigs were not tangled etc. After about ten minutes the snag rod was off again this time I lifted into what felt a lot better fish. The fight was not as erratic but he was just plodding about. Managing to keep him away from the snags one of the better looking carp slipped over the cord of my net. A gorgeous looking mirror carp with Apple sliced scales down its flank weighing 23lb dead on but when a carp is that good looking weight to me is irrelevant. This was the cherry on the cake for my first session at this venue.
This carp confirmed to me the water I will be concentrating on for the next year. I have been researching forums and speaking to a few people there are stories of two forties in this water one being a fully scaled. So there is my target for this year to prove the rumours correct of the two forties to be continued……