Stress reliever

Life has been very stressful lately on a personal level and I have really been looking forward to getting out on the bank at the weekends. My fishing buddy and I have recently found a lovely little water where we live that is relatively unfished. The stock is nothing fantastic and is fairly high with lots of doubles and a handful, ( we think ) of low Twenties.

Nothing too serious then because the aim is simply to have fun and test our rigs and baits in preparation for a 'proper' challenge in a few weeks.
For now though this water suits my needs, it has beautiful views with open fields all around and a dramatic hillside backdrop in the distance that you can watch any developing weather fronts roll over the top of and cascade into the valley below. On our first session we were actually caught out by the effect that these 'downs' as they're known,  have on the prevailing weather and we were caught in a torrential downpour with high winds and thunder and lightening crashing all around us for about 45 minutes while we both sheltered under a 50 inch brolly! It certainly adds to the flavour of the place...

The fishing you might think would be fairly easy as the water supposedly has an estimated 150 'ish fish in only a couple of acres and they don't seem to be fished for on a regular basis. However they do seem to present a challenge because they certainly aren't as forthcoming as you might imagine. So far we have applied little in the way of prebait, and to be honest I rarely bother with such extravagances these days, preferring a one to one approach on the day. The only concession to this is throwing in the remainder of the bait we have taken for the session which on a once a week basis makes little difference.

So far our efforts have yielded 13 takes over two sessions with 9 fish landed, there is a barbless hook rule on this water which we have put the 4 losses down to as the fish all came adrift during the fight which is a typical symptom of the skidding and eventual hook pull that barbless hooks lead to. The majority of the fish have been in the 10-13lb bracket with three of them reaching around 15lb. All good fun and still providing a small amount of satisfaction. We will continue to fish this little water for the next few weeks before we move on to the 'Big challenge' over the autumn and winter!

Check out the weather front in the background! ( above )

Thanks for reading and tight lines!

Yateley Pads Lake

It's a very long time since I was last here, two years to be exact, so where have I been ?
Well, I've had a lot going on both in my fishing life and my personal life that have been a massive distraction. I'm not going to bore you with the details but I will just say it's nice to be back !

So straight up to date with some recent events.
Earlier this year a friend suggested a trip to the famous and historic Yateley Pads lake, to which I jumped at the chance. The lake is now under new ownership since being sold off by the previous owners and is run under an exclusive booking system which means a group of anglers or any individual can hire the lake exclusively to themselves. Of course this exclusivity comes at a price but divided by a group of anglers, in our case there were four of us, the cost becomes relatively inexpensive given the guaranteed privacy and freedom of choice of swims, not something that is a feature on many of the more well known day ticket waters up and down the country!

Our session was timed for the end of October and was to be 48 hers in length. Now, the Pads lake is a very shallow lake with an average depth of just 3.5-4ft. we knew that timing would be crucial being such a shallow lake and any severe drop in temperatures at this time of the year could shut the lake down. Conversely should the weather continue mild then we could quite possibly fill our collective boots.

Unfortunately about ten days before we were due to go a cold front settled over the country with brisk north easterly winds which made the temperatures plummet. Far from ideal and my heart sank at the prospect that the fish may not be in a feeding mood by the time we got there.

The day of our trip came and thought the four of us were excited, the mood was down beat as we knew in our hearts that it was probably going to be a tough session even though temperatures had risen ever so slightly in the last couple of days, but the Carp would still be acclimatising to the change.
On arrival at the lake we surveyed the scene, being our first time at the water we took a good walk round to soak in the atmosphere and try to familiarise ourselves with our new surroundings.
The previous party of anglers was still on the lake when we arrived, so we took the opportunity to engage with them and glean as much information about their session as we could in order to assess the situation regarding our own tactics.
They had been on for a week long session and between four of them they had managed six fish and lost three, so nine takes in all between them. Not too bad you might think, however it became evident that some of them if not all had applied a fair amount of bait towards the end of their session. Not a clever thing to do and far from ideal for us. Given this information It was decided that minimal bait application and fishing for one fish at a time was the best way forward for us and we collectively agreed on this tactic.
First job though was to draw for swims, an amusing and interesting exercise but everyone seemed happy enough, there is plenty of room for four anglers with something like fourteen swims to pick from though many cover similar areas of water being as the lake is only around 3.5 acres in size.
Once we were happy with our swim choices it was time to ascertain the nature of the lake bed in front of us and find spots on which to present our baits. Being a shallow gravel pit the lake is quite weedy in nature and though treatment is applied regularly in the form of a dye, a lot of the weed still remains. My own swim known as weedy corner was indeed just that, a weedy corner, however this is where the fish would want to be in my estimation given the falling temperatures and the availability of remaining natural food larders at this time of year, and so it proved to be. I found enough low lying weed and clearer spots for me to present my baits on, both in pva bag form and single chods, and even found a gravelly spot under some marginal snag bushes which I presented my normal boilie rig on and provided me with my only take of the session.
Despite plenty of evidence of fish activity with rolling, jumping and fizzing all over my end of the lake the fishing was hard going. Whether they were taking advantage of the remaining natural food or clearing up the previous party's bait I'm not sure but no matter what I tried I could just not get them to pick up a bait presented in the weed. The second day did provide me with a take as I mentioned off the snag bush but sadly it wasn't to be as the fish came adrift after a few minutes of playing it after having got a reasonable look at it too. I'm not normally phased by losing fish, and it's not something that happens to me very often, but I must admit that one did hurt a bit given the apparent difficulty of our session.
Worse still was the North easterly breeze that kept threatening to spring up over the course of the 48 hrs that we were there and several times it began to gain momentum but petered out again.
The lost fish proved to be my only chance and it looked very much like the whole party were on for a total blank but on the last morning with only a few hours to go a shout went up from my Son Liam signalling that he had made contact with a fish in the point swim. By the time I got to his swim to assist he had already managed to land it and nestling in the bottom of his net was a pristine common Carp which we weighed at 18lb 10oz. Not a big fish but definitely a worthy prize given the circumstances we had been faced with. There was no joy for my other two friends and though three of us blanked at least the young superstar of the group had managed to save some dignity for us.
The Pads lake is a nice little lake with a great stock of fish and we shall definitely return for another try, and hopefully we will find favour with the weather wizards next time!

I think we can safely say that winter has now arrived. The summer bird species like Swallows and Swifts have migrated to the warmer climes of north Africa, and have been replaced by their more recognisable winter counterparts such as Pied Wagtails and the ubiquitous Robins that sit on your rods cheekily begging for boilie crumbs or maggots.  

Fishing wise we can now expect things to slow up somewhat, and indeed this had been the case for me recently on the water I was fishing throughout the summer and autumn. Being a shallow water with an average depth of no more than 4 feet or so it responds very quickly in changes to the temperature, and so with the sliding mercury things have been very different to what they were a few weeks ago and I have experienced several blanks at this particular water. In contrast I have dabbled on another water that is much deeper and so is less directly affected by changes in temperature. With an average depth here of 10 or 12 feet it has taken longer for any changes to take effect, and thus I have had some recent success at this water. Fishing my usual short day sessions I have managed to land 5 fish, three of which have broken the twenty pound barrier and two of which are the largest known fish in the lake. I'll let the pictures do the talking and the weights are listed underneath each one. A simple and actually a bit of an old school fruit seed mix boilie was the successful bait, fished on a straight forward bolt rig set up, consisting of an eight inch hooklink, a two ounce custom made lead and around four feet of leadcore.

21lb 12oz Mirror

 

 

This beast weighed in at 32lb 3oz and is the largest fish in the lake

 

 

At 27lb 2oz I was over the moon with this stunning creature !

 

 

So as you can see, a bit of a result, the two biggest fish came during the same day session and is my biggest ever brace of Carp.

Although I may have caught the lakes two largest 'known' residents, they are not really my target for the water. These fish are all Mirrors and there are a few other nice Mirrors that I would like to see in the bottom of my net in the next few months, however there are also some very nice Commons which are my main target and these tend to be much more elusive than the Mirrors. One particular Common I have seen on occasion has caught my imagination, and whilst I think I may have a rough idea of what size it could be I can only confirm this by putting it on the bank....
Both the waters that I am dividing my time between hold some good looking, twenty pound plus Commons, so I will alternate between the two depending on weather conditions in the hope of achieving my goal.

I also have another water in the pipeline that I shall be dallying with from time to time, it's a water in it's infancy as it is a brand new syndicate, but it does contain some original fish that run to over twenty pounds as well a some stock fish that have been in there for about a year and were stocked at doubles, so it will be interesting to see how they have done. All in all I have plenty to do to keep me busy over the winter period and it should also take me through into the spring of next year. Each water has it's own little challenges and targets for me to go at and hopefully I will enjoy my time at each one even if I don't manage to achieve all my goals.

Tester session

I had a short tester session at a water that I have not fished for a while the other evening. It's a venue that I am saving until it gets a bit cooler and is less busy. The lake and its occupants is one that I am very familiar with and in recent times has received a fair bit of attention from Carp anglers. The upshot of this is that due to the increase in the amount of bait going into the lake, the fish are putting on decent weight gains and the water looks set to produce some good fish. My short tester session was with my eldest son and we fished for a few hours in the evening. Shortly before dusk I had a pick up from a Carp and after a fairly protracted and tense fight I scooped up this stunning fully scaled mirror weighing 24lb 2oz.

 

 

 

 

This is a very good weight for this fish, especially at this time of year and she looks set to become a very big fish in the future.