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!

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.

Making up for lost time !

So I've been fishing a fair bit lately and establishing a bait on one of my local waters, one that is dominated by a certain popular mainstream bait...
Obviously the anglers there have little imagination because most seem to be struggling despite being on this particular bait. As usual I have gone my own way and have chosen a bait about as far removed from what the fish are used to seeing as possible rather than jumping on the bandwagon. To me there is no reward or merit to following the herd, I can only gain satisfaction from working out the puzzle myself and taking the 'old school' route of doing my own thing.
So I set out to establish my own bait and results have steadily increased over the past few weeks to the point where I have been catching well, and in fact better I believe than most people who are on the mainstream established bait. My rigs though fairly simple have evolved also over the last few weeks with little tweaks here and there to maximise their effective hooking potential. The fish in this lake, though not big, are very cute and rig shy, and have demonstrated on several occasions their ability to 'get away with it '. I am now pretty confident that my rigs are working pretty well combined with the baiting situation I am using, which is always something that should be taken into consideration when deciding what rigs to use in a given situation. Sadly due to the high density of silver fish in the lake, being a club water, there is little room to use anything other than larger, harder baits, and as I am not keen on using particles such as Tiger nuts over the long term, boilies and large one's at that, are really the only option.
I've really been enjoying the fishing thus far and seeing my bait and rigs steadily begin producing some good results, however one piece of the puzzle that hasn't yet come together here is catching the bigger fish. The lake record stands at about 25lb ish, and there is a fair head of Carp in the lake to get through to reach the better fish. Having said that, many of the Carp are only 20lb plus at the right time of the year, i.e. winter and spring, so maybe I am worrying unduly as I have been getting a few fish in the 18 and 19lb bracket, which will obviously break 20lb later in the year. I have had one scraper '20'  which was clearly still empty after spawning. I'm not sure just how many '20's there are at this time of year, but I would imagine not too many, maybe half a dozen at a guess so hopefully in a few weeks I should start to see a few more in my net.
I haven't bothered to photograph many fish as I have been catching so many, most of which have been in the 13- 15lb bracket but I have taken snaps of one or two of the better fish when I have had a photographer handy to save me doing self takes.

The stamp of 'double' I've been getting.

 

 

An 18lb 8oz Mirror.