Monday 11 October 2010

01/10/10 – “Lake 55”

Well I’ll be honest its been a very interesting week, something I’ve tried to stop myself from doing for years is from becoming a carp angler, because I know when it takes hold I won’t be able to let go. What made a little spark for me over the weekend was reading Terry Hearn’s book “In pursuit of the largest” and it’s these sort of stories I love, not what’s the best bait, what’s the best rig, what current bait is ripping waters apart, it’s the stories about old big wise carp and the trials and tribulations Terry went through spending weeks, months and years in search of these myths and making them reality and its all about effort = reward (which at the moment isn’t working for me) but also I came across “thecarpcatcher” on youtube, and it brought me back to when I used to fish the mere almost every other weekend with me carp angling mate mart.


(Terry Hearn) Could easily catch the bug looking at this

Right, this week I decided to head to “lake55” in search of its bream. I don’t know much, well I don’t know anything really about the stocking just that they’re in there and go big! So that’s all i need to book Friday off work and get out fishing for 24 hours

Now I had planned on getting to the lake as early as possible so I could have first pickings on a spot, get the marker float out and have a feel about, then get a bed of bait out. But as usual things don’t go as planned and after a manic morning of heading into the town centre twice I was back at home by 10am loading up the car


Everyone has a loading system

With the lake just being a short drive away I was soon lugging my gear around to a chosen area of the lake I was hoping the bream might travel to. There were 2 anglers already on the lake that were fishing for carp at range but so far without any success. This was there fourth session they had done on the venue and between them they hadn’t yet had a single fish. So things weren’t looking good from the start

I didn’t let that put me off as I know the lake has a reputation for being difficult and I went about putting up the “Hotel STI” because it was starting to rain and heavy!


Why on earth the tent is called “STI Rapid Erection” is beyond me


Next step of the session was to sort out where I was going to put my baits, marker float gave me a reading of 2ft of water close in sloping off sharply to 6ft then gradually declining to13ft 50yards towards the island. Now I’d planned on putting both rods on a big bed of bait in deep water so the 13ft seemed spot on.


Spod and Spod mix ready to be air lifted to my spot

The main base of the spod mix was party blend, which I had boiled up a couple of nights before, and added to that was 10mm boilies, half tin of corn, mixed pellets and the biggest mistake some method mix .

Why I put method mix in it I don’t know!! Because all that happened was when the spod hit the water the spod mix wouldn’t come out because it was to sticky! I probably managed about half the bucket emptied in an hour of spodding (bucket was only half full anyway) and I had no confidence in my spot at all! Decisions had to be made so I decided on a rod over the spodded bait, then put a rod on the 6ft shelf where I could catapult some spod mix onto it.


Pathway leading upto my swim

Rig for the session was something I have full faith in after catching three 8lb+ tench on it. Its something I was shown when I first started on my fishing syndicate by a very good bream angler and I haven’t looked back since.



Two of the 8LB tench from the past few seasons, both weighing 8lb6oz


The rig consisted of a coated braid which I strip back the last 3 inches, size 10 esp big t, some shrink tubing, size 10 popup and a piece of shot on the shank of the hook. The first 3 inches of the coated braid is heated over a kettle so it makes it solid which helps eliminate tangles, when the fish picks up the bait it hasn’t got much movement before the whole rig tightens up to the 2oz and at this point the hook has pricked the bottom lip because of the shot.

The Business End


With the rigs out and the baits in position all that was left to do was wait.


Wet and grim, but it did feel breamy

The evening went very quickly and I hadn’t had a single beep on the rods, bream are active nocturnal feeders and the light was starting to fade so to try and give me a bit more confidence during the night I decided to dampen down some ewe nuts, lace it with the remainder of spod mix, and ball it onto a kitchen table (small kitchen table) size area, hoping that any cruising bream will be lured into the area


There a carp anglers nightmare but it will be my dream if I wake up to a snotty in the dark!

The nearby road which had been deafening all day was finally starting to ease a bit the night light on the buzzers started glowing and I started getting sleepy, I got tucked up in the sleeping bag with a brew and contemplated what could happen during the night.


No bream, so a fresh brew to get my thinking


Tip to remember about night fishing is keeping everything you need to hand, and this example is the tea making kit. All I need is 1 arm to get the kettle on the go so I can stay nice n cosy and reflect on why I’m nice n cosy because I shouldn’t be. I should be covered head to toe in bream slime with eyes like pea holes in the snow because I’v been up all night netting bream.

I recast with fresh bait at 7am, made a few changes with the close in rod in which I changed over from a pop up to a bottom bait rig and put it 60 yards to my left towards the back of the island with 50 10mm boilies as free offerings over the top, I did this after seeing a few shapes disturb the surface, it could have just been carp moving about or maybe even bream rolling just under the surface.

With that job done I once again had to sit back, be patient, watch the water and eat a load of cookies


Well there’s another session down, nothing happened the rest of the morning and I packed up midday so I could go and have a stalk about the rest of the lake to see if I could find any carp. The 2 other guys on the lake paid me a visit as I was packing up and they hadn’t had a single beep between them either.

Conclusion

I still think this run of bad luck is because it’s a build up for a special fish capture when I take my trip to Portsmouth in just over 2 weeks! where I will be heading out to catch my first zander and get on the Stour and Hampshire Avon. Only annoying thing about all this blanking is I know I’m fishing really well. Sometimes you just know when you’re fishing like a plonker. Something good did come from the session though and that’s after 5 years of cooking eggs on the bank I think I have finally mastered the art of doing fried eggs with only a fork as a flipping tool!!

Next week, well I feel I deserve another shot at these bream now I’ve got 2 freshly spooled reels with 10lb line. But there is a lot of good barbel coming off the Severn at the moment and I really don’t want to miss their feeding spree! Sooooo I could be favouring the barbel. Until next week


O0o0o0o0o0o0hohhhh rrriighhhtttttt!!

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