Waldens Farm, 5 From 5 Challenge, 24/4/15

It was back down to Walden’s for another overnighter, this time I was going to try and do a 5 from 5 challenge so I started on Deacons the match lake, Stu the Bailiff was fishing there as well and he led the way with 4 carp to my 1 missed bite. 

We were both fishing floaters and they definitely preferred his bigger dog biscuit. I decided to move to the other side of the lake and it took about 10 minutes to put fish number 1 on the mat, at 3lb is was very welcome.

This saw me move straight onto Popes, and since it had taken me 2 hours to get one from the match lake I was not too confident of an early bite, I moved my kit to a spot between Popes and Monks and fed a few margin spots on Popes and fed some floaters into the rushes on Monks.  I failed miserably, I got the fish pac manning in the edge but they were very spooky and after I missed one they ghosted away and my chance was gone.

There were no signs of fish feeding on my edge spots so I decided to cut my losses and moved onto Bishops after a big ghostie.  No sooner as I was settled in with a bit of bait into the swim than it started raining so moving again was cancelled and the 5 From 5 would have to wait for another day.

I put a rig next to a lilly bed and another down the edge to my right, had some food and decided to get my head down nice and early. Due to the proximity to the snags I was fishing locked up, this is when you have your drag tightened up so that you CANNOT take line from it, using butt grips this isn’t usually a problem but as I was about to find out, the ones I use at the moment don’t work in the rain!

I got three beeps as the lie pulled tight and just as I swung my feet towards my trainers the rod lurched forward and jammed on the alarm…. Needless to say I was on the rod in an instant now just stood in my socks.  The fight was quite cheeky as the carp had made it into the lilies but steady pressure saw me win the day and it was soon in the net. At about 10-12lb I was happy with the result.

This was the successful rig.

It had managed to bend my rod ring on the alarm though.

That was it for the night, I had a few liners on the margin rod but nothing significant so come mid-morning I decided to move onto Monks for the last couple of hours.  This was a good idea and by casting tight to the reeds and Lilly's I had 5 bites, but due to my hooks being a little on the large side I only landed 2.

In all it was a nice session and I will be back next week to try and bag a better fish from Abbots.

What would I do different?

1.       Back to the flat method and I am back on Abbots trying for a better fish.

Waldens Overnighter 17/04/15

I am aiming to increase the size a few of my PB’s this year and the first job is to get happy with my kit and rigs, so it was off to Waldens Farm for an overnighter after work as I knew I should be able to get a few bites from there.  I managed to get to the lakes by 2pm and I was soon walking around the main carp lakes looking at loads of carp that were cruising around enjoying the sunshine, I was soon hot footing it back to the van to get my gear.

I dumped the majority of it in a swim that controlled a lot of open water and then proceeded to start doing laps again around the lakes, this time carrying a bucket of pellet and corn mix, after a lap feeding a few good looking spots it was time to try and catch one.  It was a 1 rod job with a method feeder on a foot of leadcore and a proper hook baited with pepperami and fake corn.

As you can see from the picture I was fishing a few tight swims, but I managed 1 in the afternoon session from close to the hut in the form of this small common.

I was glad for my rod and line choice as I hooked it close to an overhanging tree, and guess where it headed on the bite…….

The rod was a 1.5lb 11ft Drennan series 7 specialist and I was fishing it with 12lb reel line as it was what I had on the reel at the time, I am looking at lightening it up to 10lb as I think that will balance the outfit more.  Anyway, after the excitement of the first fish I was soon on the move with all my kit in tow to a swim in a back bay where I had seen numbers of fish cruising through a gap between two islands.  I put a zig amongst them to no avail and after about an hour of them mugging me off they all ghosted away. It coincided with the air temp dropping a few degrees so I decided to put the method back on both rods.  I put the first down the edge to my left where something was bubbling and the other went tight to a snag where I locked the rod into the buzz bars. I managed two carp from the snag and a pike and two skimmers from the inside line.

As you can see the Pike took a piece of pepparami and corn and I was not really happy in the swim as I was having to fish locked up to the snag which meant that I could not sleep and fish it, fortunately a few fish started crashing on the next lake along so just after dark I decided to move onto the next lake.

I fished the two methods, one towards an island and the other close in by an overhanging tree that was not touching the water.  I had 3 skimmers on the open water rod and then at half three in the morning I was awoken by this:

A low double common that looked and fought like it was half ghostie.  That was it for the night until the dawn chorus woke me up and a few carp started crashing on the pond directly behind me.  I had my breakfast with a rod laid on the floor and I gave it until mid-morning but nothing else happened.  I decided to try for tree carp from three lakes so with about an hour until I had to depart I moved again onto my third lake and put two rigs into likely spots, the fish had been bubbling and clouding up as I arrived but they soon stopped after my bait hit the water.

I gave it an hour but then had to pack up and go home,  still 4 carp to low double, 4 skimmers and a pike is not too shabby for my first go at the proper fish on the complex.

What would I do different?

1.       Next time I am going for 5 from 5, one carp from each lake.

2.       I saw one other angler on the carp lake and he was fishing the method, I am going to try something different next time, maybe a corn stack on a pop up rig?? Might be enough to trip up one of the biggies.

AAF Gp2 Match 6, Todber Manor 15/04/15

I Had managed a few practices for this match over the last few weeks with mixed results, I had managed a reasonable session on Park in the cold rain on maggot but a lack lustre session on Whitepost had me wondering about tactics for those lakes, but there were a couple of lakes that I had not been able to get on, not for the want of trying, and they were the new match lakes out the back of the shop.

Anyway back to the day of the match and I was obviously a little late getting to the draw location as it seemed as there was a lack of parking and a decent queue to the till.  I had a few rods and bits that had upgraded recently that I found the respective new owners for then I was able to enjoy the wait and the final eating of my breakfast.

It was the last match that Kev was organising but the draw as ever was slick and well run, I was on drawing duty for Azzi Red and managed to put Ben on Whitepost, Daz on Park and that the new lakes for me, peg 10??  The brief that I had received for this lake off John the owner was along the lines of- there are loads of fish and they have been fed pellet by scoop from the bank with the pegs, there are also a number of bigger carp in there that are waiting on a speci lake to get filled.  This instantly got me thinking that it would be a short pole fish race and that I would also feed a shallow line at 13m as it was close enough to catch F1’s quick and just far enough out to catch bigger carp shallow.

I parked in the shop car park and pushed my barrow up to peg 10, this was 2/3 of the way along the lake away from the shop on a track that would have been easy to drive on. I got to my peg after much ‘Chuffing’ , set up my box and surveyed the scene.

I knew from looking at the peg that I was not far off with my plan so I went about plumbing up a pellet and a paste rig for the base of the near shelf that in this case was 2+2.5 sections out. I also set up a shallow mugging rig that I would also use for deep shallow, a jigging rig and a slapping F1 rig all for the long line before pulling my 11ft pellet wag rod from the bag, just to try and mug one of the submarines that could be seen from time to time cruising along the far bank.

I had decided to go positive on this match as this match was my first real chance of a section win, but seeing Bri on an end peg of the holiday lake to our left then Carl and Neil were at the windward end of the lake which seemed to have a lot of fish in probably due to the sound of construction machinery at the other end of the lake.  Pez was a couple of pegs to my left with a blank peg next to him, then Gary on the other side of the blank peg, to my right I had Tree with another blank peg to his right and further up was John so it was a strong section.

I was ready for the all in and as soon as it was called I cupped about 100 pellets onto the short line from a height and then cast out the wag, 5 casts later the wag was put up the bank as fish had started coming in on the short line for people already. I lowered my banded 6mm to the deck and had to wait all of 30 seconds for fish number 1, number 2 wasn’t far behind and so started a first 3 hours that saw me putting a fish in the net almost every minute, however at 4oz apiece with the odd slightly larger one I was going nowhere fast.  This was compounded by the odd lump coming out to the method all around me, and then at 3 hours, probably due to the heat the lake apart from the first few pegs just shut up shop.

I tried everything apart from a method to get a bite in the last few hours and managed a few F1’s on my long line mugging rig with no feed, but with an hour and a bit to go whilst melting in the 20 degree heat I decided to go to the shop for a cool down.

Before I left I fed a few handfuls of pellet onto my short line, but on my return this obviously hadn’t worked, I even tried a light pellet wag.  As time was ticking down a few more of the larger carp that had been conspicuous by their absence in my swim started to cruise through so with 30 minutes to go and nothing to lose I started concentrating on mugging one of them.

The first pod of fish saw a bite and then the hook pulled out as the hair had wrapped around the hook.

The next pod saw a bite and a skimmer of 12oz being the culprit, wouldn’t have been too bad but all the carp were doubles.

5 minutes to go and another pod move through quite quick left to right at 16m, I dropped the 8mm pellet on one of their noses and the float dinked. I remember striking and then watching helpless as meters of 2.1mm Colmic hollow elastic tore off through Trees swim.  Thank you to tree at this point as he had been able to keep putting some fish in his net by fishing at 3ft deep over his 7m line but my carp destroyed this. I got a grip of it after what seemed like an age and soon had it under the pole tip on the puller. I managed to net it as soon as it came into range and it was a 5Kg Ghostie, which explained a lot. I got the fish in the net and tried to ship out as quickly as possible, but the all-out was called just as I was adding my last two sections.

We had all watched Neil filling hs boots from the end of the lake but as for the rest of us it would be close as Tree, John and Pez had all caught well at the start, John had managed a couple of bonus fish, Pez had bene catching a good stamp of fish and Tree had caught better than most in the last 3 hours.  The scales finally got top me and Neil was top with an impressive 52 kilos and change, Pez was next with 26.53Kg, then I weighed 27.32Kg, Tree 27.22Kg,  Martin( the other side of blank peg) 22.98Kg and then John with 23.86Kg.

Those eagle eyed of you will notice from these results that I managed to squeak 2^nd by 100g and if I had not landed that carp I would have been at least 3 places further down the pack. Needless to say that no-one mentioned how spawny it was or that dobbing shouldn’t count and Tree didn’t call me any names at all.  I took my quid off Craig and Pez and went back for the results, the rest of the team had not fared as well but we still managed to beat baggers A, granted it was on countback and was for 4^th or 5^th place, but we beat them.

I needed those points as I am now sat 3^rd in the league with about 15 points with a 6^th, 3^rd and 2 seconds to drop, unfortunately I am missing the next group match as I am trying my hand at a Carp match, but considering the venue the pellet wag and paste down the edge may come into play especially as the fish average upper double, should be fun.

What would I do different

1.       The short line worked well until it got too hot, then perhaps concentrating ion trying to catch shallow there like Tree may have caught me a bit more weight but I would have never caught up with Neil unless….

2.       I perhaps should have sat on the dobbing rig for the last hour hindsight is the best angler but they were moving through the swim after my trip to the shop.

3.       Waggler wasn’t right at all and after the first time I should have put it away in the bag rather than flogging a dead horse, perhaps a method across into the shallow water may have got me a bite or more likely a zigged bit of foam. (its what I would have done sat in my bivvy!!)

Todber Practice 11/4/15

I had decided to go to Todber for a cheeky practice before the group match later this week, I was accompanied by Craig for the day and although we tried to get on the new lakes we were resigned to Whitepost.  We decided to fish on the wides next to the car park (again) as the wind was hacking up the lakes and this seemed like a good area for some running line action.

I set up a couple of pellet wags, a method rod and a short pole line and I managed about 8 carp all day, 7 on the wag and 1 on paste. I had started on meat on my short pole line but that was no good, swapped to paste managed 1 then killed it??

Craig had a good day catching well on paste at about 8m as well as a couple on running line and 1 shallow before I disappeared to lick my wounds.

What would I do different?

Not a lot, perhaps I should have copied Craig but that would have proved what worked not if it could be better on another line.

An evening on the Canal 10/4/15

During the week I received a few new toys to play with and since I had a few hours in the afternoon I decided that a few hours trying to catch a few carp from the same pound as Monday would be a good idea.  My exploits from Monday can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7O_K0SK7Xg

Back to the evening in question, I had a good run from work and I was able to get set up on the canal by half three, I was on the same peg as the week before but the tactics were this time a little different as I had to use up some dead red maggot I had in the freezer.

I decided on a simple, a paternoster rig on 0.20mm mainline, and a 0.12mm hooklength with a size 18 B911 F1, I was using a small 15g drennan cage feeder as the distance was not too far but I found that my new rod dealt with it superbly.

I cast with no hooklength 4 times at the start to get some bait down and then went over the top with double dead red on the hook, my bait tray had Sonubaits F1 dark groundbait mixed with 2mm pellet , a pint of dead maggot and a tin of corn. It took 3 casts but I son had my first fish a small roach in the net and then started a golden hour with skimmers from 3oz to 3lb making an appearance, mostly on dead maggot although I did have a couple of fish on sweetcorn. Throughout the afternoon the canal surprisingly got busyier and I had a carp angler drop in to my left against the lock and then another turned up 15m to my right and started spraying floating pellet in across and in the trees that I was fishing next to.  The carp loved it as they troughed all the free food that was floating amongst the branches and although he hooked and lost one they mostly laughed at him.  The bream fishing petered out and stopped as he did this so I got off my box and set up my method rod that was in my bag, I then clipped this up tight to the far bank to practice my casting.  The only pull I got was off the branch I hit when I went a bit left… I walked around to unhook myself and saw a couple of carp happily eating floaters, no size to them though.

I tried putting my left over bait in down the edge as I packed up and laid the feeder on top for 15 minutes as it started to get dark but that didn’t work this time. I ended up with an easy 20lb bag in about 4 hours, so not a bad night.

A quick word on the hardware, I had mainly gone to try out a new rod that is a Drennan Ultralight Bomb rod, this is an awesome bit of kit that I tried in all combinations, it easily handled the short cast to the far side of the canal with both tips (0.75 and 1oz) even at the shorter 10ft length. When I put in the extension the casting was far easier but it still retained its beautiful fish playing action.  I cannot recommend this rod enough for short range feeder fishing with a bit of finesse.

What would I do different?

I would like to try a waggler over the top of the feeder line one day as I was catching a few decent Rudd on the drop at one point.

Might have to go carp fishing again before my ticket runs out.

Waldens Farm Return

I had been hoping to get out on one of the two big fish waters on my new club book today but I hadn't counted on them being shut until June so a new venue was soon picked and this time it was Walden’s farm near Salisbury.  I did a quick drive through at Reid’s to get some new bits and bobs and I turned up at the lakes at around nine o’clock in the morning.  Imagine my surprise at being the only person on the complex, so a quick walk round and I found an area that I fancied for some skimmers on the pole and possibly a few carp on the rod.

I fished pellet on the pole at 13 m in open water to the left of the swim for a few skimmers and roach, I also started two lines in front of the trees to my left and right later in the day for a few better skimmers. I had fished a waggler among the reeds feeding and fishing meat for a couple of skimmers, but it was tricky to hit the bites as the skimmers were averaging 4oz and they were a bit small for hair rigged 6mm meat.

I went for a walk around the lakes for a bit of a rethink and found some lovely spots for bagging a few tench and carp from later this year.

Back at my peg I set up the method feeder and started off casting it to the gap in the reeds, a few guys had arrived late morning and were fishing around the island to my left and they seemed to be struggling and as they were packing up in the early afternoon I was picking up the odd decent skimmer on the tip from the reeds and as they departed I re clipped the rod up to the platform on the far bank.

I packed up all my kit as I was on the spot and I tried to take a shot of my skimmers in the keepnet (that you are allowed to use for silvers).

They refused to sit still but there was upper double figures of skimmers and roach in the net not many fish for it though as they were a good average stamp.  As I was packing up the last bits of my kit finally the tip went round and with a bit of nip and tuck I soon had a 3lb carp nestled in the net and honour was satisfied.

It was then time to go home, satisfied.

What would I do different

1.       Next time I would feed two skimmer swims at the same distance as they were backing off from time to time and this would have probably seen me have more fish.

2.       Two rods and alarms would be a lovely way to fish the lakes as you can disappear in the wildlife all around, until beeeeeeeep that is!

3.       Different lake next time and I don’t intend to fish the same lake twice on the bounce.

Spring has sprung

I have been luck of late in that my long suffering other half is having to put up with me being away during the week and at the weekend all I want to do is go fishing, any way the weekend after the 4 way I went down with a horrible little cold that saw me decide to stay in bed rather than go fishing.  I made up for it last Saturday though and with it having been the final weekend on my South Cerney Ticket I decided to have a go on one of the match lakes. Stait was my destination and after a civilised start I was setting up on peg 14 at about nine in the morning.

The weather forecast was blustery showers so my plan was to fish the method, short pole and down the edge, I started casting a method off the point of the island and I managed an early skimmer before the sun poked its head out and all I could think was ‘ bet you they will have the pellet wag!’

I got off my box and put up a 6 gram pellet wag with a 4ft hooklength and on my fourth cast carp number 1 was hooked and landed, and at about 12lb it was well worth it.  Over the course of the day I managed 1 carp on the short meat line but it never felt right, I had a few on the method over the pellet wag line but these were of a smaller stamp than on the wag. I had several on the wag at 4 and 2 feet deep as the day progressed and as the session was ending I went down the edge for some proper chunks on meat over pellet.

I ended up with well over 20 carp to mid doubles and a few bream on the tip and short pole, so it was a nice final swansong, well for the moment.

My next trip out was for a cheeky sporty this afternoon and I had heard great things about a pair of lakes just down the way from my work called Wood Lane Fishery.

I turned up at about 1 o’clock, bought my ticket and then due to the blustery wind and showers (again) I set up on peg 6 as I had the wind of my back and an aerator in front of me.

Today the plan was simple, a pellet wag and a short pole line, I plumbed up and found that it was top 2 depth at 11m hence the short pole, I found about 5 ft at 7.5m and decided that I would start on that before I thrashed the water to a foam.  I set up a 0.6g float in to fish expander over 4mm softened pellet and started on a kinder pot, I caught straight away and skimmers about 3 to the pound were coming to hand at a good pace but they started to come off bottom. My solution to this was to form the same number of pellet 20-30 into a small ball and continue to feed that every put in.  This worked and a skimmer of about a pound and a half came to the net after a short wait but it seemed as though you would get a few better fish and then they would move off and leave you with a swim full of small skimmers. To try and make something happen I fed ¼ of a pot of pellet with about 20 grains of corn on top and left it as I went out on the pellet wag. Although the fish were not crawling up the rod over the course of the afternoon I managed 10 carp to 6lb on the wag again at various depths, I again got to try some floats out on both the rod and the pole but I desperately wanted a bigger fish on the pole line so I fed that quite aggressively with half pots of pellet and corn and I had a string of big skimmers to 3lb off that line but never more than 3 before I had to re feed as the small fish descended on me.

All the fish were in good condition and the fishery was very tidy and well-kept so I will be going back and looking for a few of the better fish that are supposed to be in there.

What would I do different

1.       Not a lot really, I had enough prep done and enough rigs for the pleasure sessions that they were.

2.       Perhaps next time I will get someone to help with the catch shot rather than in the landing net between my legs :-)