Chasing Shadows pt1

As I have alluded to in previous posts I have decided to try and track down a river carp from the Bristol Avon, hence the title as I am currently working on hearsay and myth.

My latest trip saw me get to the river for around 10 in the morning, and as soon as I crossed the footbridge I spotted a possible problem, there were a number of volunteers cutting massive gaps in the bankside vegetation with strimmers and lawn mowers in preparation for a boat race in a couple of weeks. This would have been a problem if I didn’t think that the fish were subjected to worst on a daily basis so I had a bit of a chat and was able to move into the swim that I had been prebaiting.

This was a nice plan and I soon had my rods up against the far bank weed with a trickling of live system over the top and I was confident for about an hour and a half then the carp gremlins started their little dance in the back of my mind.  I was wondering about the location that I had chosen as just about everyone I was talking to was saying that all the carp came from by the foot bridge or further down by the weir, I was battling the gremlins when a large fish rolled about 8m out in front of me….. Well I didn’t need a second invite and I quickly put a large pva bag of boilies and pellet with a 15mm hookbait over the top and decided that I would give at another hour at least before going for a look about.

I believe that the fish that rolled was probably a bream as within minutes I had small fish pecking and pulling at the rig, if there were carp there the small fish wouldn’t be so time for a move.  I decided to follow quite a strong recommendation from a guy that I was chatting to, he told me that lots of carp copuld usually be seen from the footbridge just upstream and that people fed the ducks bread from the bridge, always worth following where the ducks get fed and as I was packing down half a loaf got chucked at some mallards from the bridge.

No sooner than I had 2 baits in the water and the house up but the heaven opened as you can see above, I was quite happy though as I had a bait under the far bank canopy and a bait just upstream in a gap in the weed. I had leaded about briefly and not found any snags so I was happy with where I was set.

People continued past and conversations along the lines of “I did 2 nights here earlier this year and didn’t catch a thing.” Started to get banded at me and it transpired that for the early part of the season there are usually a few carp anglers along the stretch I started to see that it would not be as easy as first I thought.

The gremlins were in full flow again when a bizarre incident happened a little girl and her mum came along for a quick chat and the next thing that I knew the girl was winding my upstream rod in, still in the rest. Mum apologized, I thought nothing of it until I lifted the rod and found it snagged fast in some unseen obstacle. I was not happy.

To prevent temptation I moved downstream in darkness to a spot off the path where I knew the carpers would have been baiting, two rigs were swung 2/3 of the way across and about 100 baits followed them.  I was desperate for a sign of a fish and bite off anything would have been welcome, so the hookbaits were reduced to 15mm live system on both rods and pellet was in the pva bag. The night passed without incident apart from the party in the play park behind me... Sounded like fun. It didn’t take me long to get settled due to the fact that I decided against setting up the bivvy Less to pack up in a hurry.

I had agreed to meet up with Tony at Withy in the morning and as the fishing was hard this was not a chore, so just after dawn I was on my toes again driving across Wiltshire. I had to stop off at home to swap boilies for pellets and also to pick up a couple of secret weapons but I was at the fishery for just about 8am, Tony was due in about an hour so I did a quick lap of the lake, paid for my ticket, another lap of the lake and I found numbers of fish bubbling up and clouding the water in the furthest corner from the Cafe, so I moved in there.

The set up was a PVA method on each rod and no sooner than Tony had arrived and got set up in the peg to my right but I landed two skimmers and lost 2 decent carp, I was not impressed and decided to change the rigs about a bit, I had been fishing size 12 MWG but as I was still on my 2.75lb TC Scope carp rods I needed a little more metal to play the fish with as I hadn’t caught anything on them yet. The rigs were changed to 1oz inline leads, 10lb florocarbon hooklengths and size 10 hooks baited with 11-15mm pellet and small pva bags to stop the hookbait from pulling into any silt on the deck.

Tony was catching straight away and I got a bacon, sausage and egg butty delivered in reply to his bagging, this enraged him and also allowed me to have a quick look around the lake as the fish had obviously been spooked in from of me.

I found them on his other side so did a quick hop with my kit, the rest of the day saw me figure out that I could catch small carp at about a rodlength out infront of me all day, I also had a small snooze and got some more of my book read. Tony caught a few on the method and some skimmers on the pole, I stayed until dusk but only managed 5 carp and nothing over 10lb. Still it was quieter than the river.

 What would I do different?

On the river I would find the fish before fishing for them even if it means walking around all day.

Withy will see me going with the same tackle this winter but I am going to try and avoid small pellet as they attracted skimmers and smaller carp, I also think that the bigger fish tend to live in certain areas on the lake so I am going to start concentrating on them.