Hidden Gem 1

So after the resounding failure of the last river session I decided to go somewhere new that I might be able to get amongst some better sized fish and after half a days’ worth of searching and thinking my next venue was found.

I arrived late morning as it is on a day ticket and I had a good look around, it is only small at approximately and acre and a half and there seemed to be a few fish as cruising around I could make out the shapes of some carp and bream through the translucent water. There were also numerous snags and weed beds that were pushing towards the surface and it was at the windward end of the lake looking at a gap between two fallen trees that I decided my first rod would go, so I pulled a rod from the bag and had a quick plumb around trying to figure out what the bottom was and also how many snags were in the vicinity. I had a pleasant surprise in that the bottom felt pretty flat and that there was a clear gap between the two boughs, I also found another couple of spots further to the left that looked good for a bait.

Rods out a bit of bait over the pair and the house was up quickly, I was having to fish locked up due to the snags and within an hour I had my first bit of interest, I had to walk backwards to extract it from the snags but it behaved and was soon nestled in the folds of the landing net.

After a self take the rod was soon back out on the spot courtesy of a bit of pole elastic, a bit more grub followed in the form of 15 and 18mm source and live system boiles, to get a bit of variety on the go over there and 2 hours later my right hand rod was away again, I got the fish close to my bank when the other rod.. also close to the snags suddenly locked up tight and it was a double take. This was not a good situation so I opened the bale arm on the first rod so that I could at least get the fish on the second rod away from the snags, I did and it came in quickly, I checked the first fish and it had just buried itself into some weed about 5m out in front of me. Scooping the fish I hooked second into the net I picked up the first rod and the carp just lifted out of the weedbed nodded twice and then found itself in the net with its mate.

I let them have a rest, and I managed to calm down, before I set up the camera etc ready for more photos.

Again they were both about 10-11lb so once they were back in the water and the traps reset I was able to have a brew and a calm down, I was using short stiff hinged rigs on both rods to keep the hookbait above any leaf debris that may have been under the trees and it seemed to be working especially when the alarm sounded again as I was starting my tea and carp number 4 ended up in the back of the landing net. It was taken on the same rigs as earlier but as the afternoon sun had warmed up the far bank I had tried a zig to ambush a cruiser or two to no avail.

The night was incredibly dark with no moon and the lake being small and surrounded by thick woods, a fox barking scared the crap out of me just after dusk, so I was on tenterhooks all night. I don’t think it helped knowing that if a rod went I would have to be on it in seconds so sleep was light and broken all night but I got another couple of chapters read of my book.

My alarm was set for 5 so that I could watch the dawn and see if any of the reputed biggies would show themselves, the answer was no but as soon as the sun hit my left hand spot the rod was away and carp number 5 was in the bag. No photos this time as I had the settings wrong on the camera.

This fish and a number of indications led me to try a bottom bait so I set up a simple fluorocarbon hooklength with a size 8 hook and sent it back to the same spot, a couple of hours later it was away with carp number 6.

Again it was a low double and again it had interrupted some food, ah well, this was my last action as the fish backed off away from me and try as I might I could not get a bait to them although I could see a few cruising about along the tree line. I tried a zig for a little while but then decided to go for an explore, I packed up and walked along the far bank as far as I could, got up a couple of trees but due to the water clarity I couldn’t see a great deal.  Should be a nice little winter water though and it may still hold a few surprises.

What would I do different?

Next time I am going to try PVA bags on at least one rod, I was fishing big carp rigs to try and reduce the numbers of bites but it would be good to see if there are small nuisance fish to worry about.

I will also take a marker rod and give the whole pond a good plumb up if possible to see if I can find any clues as to where the biggies live?