Finish with a flourish!

The saltwater season is upon me now, but before I disappear into the salty yonder I had one last evening session at my local lake in search of a good Carp with which to finish my freshwater stint. I got very lucky with a very special, ( to me and my friends ),  character of the lake . All was quiet in the pond and my friend Mr B and I were sat chatting enjoying a few warm drinks and some good conversation. I had a little while earlier placed my hookbait on a marginal spot, settled the rod onto a bite alarm and retreated a few yards away from the swim to try and keep things as quiet and peaceful as possible so as not to disturb my carefully laid trap. A scattering of free offerings had been introduced to instill confidence into any potential diners...
The sun was setting low in the sky and the evening had taken on a reddish glow when the peace was shattered by the sound of a stuttery take on my alarm. By the time I got to the rod the tip had pulled right round and the alarm was now singing a single note. A short fight ensued, with an unsettling moment when the fish managed to find an unseen snag on the bottom of the lake, but a bit of pateint manouvering had things in motion again and I was still connected to the fish. On first sight in the water I thought I had a small stockie on the end, but a second look told me that I had been wrong. As the fish tired and I eventually drew it toward the net, manned by my mate, we could clearly see which fish it was and recognised it as a very old friend, a fish we have seen a good few times over the years. Lifting it from the water I was quite staggered by how heavy it felt and I knew she was a good weight. The number is really irrelevant but this time she was at the biggest weight we had seen her before and the scales settled on 28lb 11oz. The linear looked stunning, as well as plump, and I asked her politely to behave for a few moments while we took her portrait. All went well and she did as asked before we finally slipped her back into her watery home.
It was good to see that fish again, not only is she my biggest carp for some years but also my third ever biggest fish. A smashing way to draw a line under the coarse fishing for now. Next time I resume It will be approaching winter again and my friends and I should hopefully be looking forward to some Carp fishing on the special water that contains some much bigger Carp. For now though the salt is beconing and I have already made a start with a nice little result that can be found over on my other Blog. Thanks for reading and see you in the winter.

A fabulous way to finish..28lb 11oz's.

March madness.

March has been a strange month all in all, the weather has been crazy warm for this time of year, opportunuites have arisen out of the blue, and some short session float fishing has produced some very early Tench.
Let's deal with the big fish water first. Last weekend was our second and last session for now on this special water, though the day was warm and very pleasant compared to the previous week, the fish still refused to play ball. We had hoped the unseasonably warm spell would create opportunities for us to stalk them in some margin spots, but the fish had other ideas and spent the day in unfishable snaggy areas sunning themselves and, I would imagine, digesting a large amount of food they had probably been troughing from someone's baiting campaign. But despite this we were able to get a grandstand view of some of the lake's impressive inhabitants to wet our appetite for a sustained campaign much later in the year during the Autumn and Winter season.

Just a few yards away, some very big fish were sunning themselves......

Early Tench.


One thing I do enjoy is Tench fishing, and this very warm March we have experienced has woken them up very early indeed in my local club water. A few evening float fishing sessions have produced a handful of nice specimens that have given good accounts of themselves.

The third and final report for now concerns a little session yesterday evening with my eldest son and my mate. The three of us descended on the local club water for a short session into dark in the pursuit of some Carp. Fishing a single rod each on some close in margin spots, just how we like to fish. My friend was the first to get a run from what was clearly a good fish, as I approached to assist with netting I could see his powerful Century stalking rod bent alarmingly through almost to the butt. Obviously not a small stockie then! The fish led him a merry dance for a few moments and managed to pick up a loose fallen branch from the bottom of the lake, still playing the fish with the branch attached to the line, my mate tried to inch the fish and branch toward the waiting net, then as it looked as if we were going to be able to net the fish, disaster struck as the Carp, in slow motion, rubbed the hook out of its mouth and into the branch, right in front of us! The fish sat motionless for a second and then slowly cruised off. Gutted isn't the way to describe how we felt, because having got a really good look at it, the fully scaled mirror Carp was clearly well over twenty pounds....

Throughout the session we all continued to receive line bites as the fish fed on our small baited patches, occassionally brushing the lines and making the bobbins rise and the alarms sing. Dark had descended altogether now and the temperature had dropped dramatically, my Son began to ask when we would be going as he was feeling the cold. Just as I was about to give in and declare home time, his alarm began screaming a one toner as a fish shot away from his margin spot having picked up the hookbait and hook !

It was again clear from the start that he was connected to a decent fish and he played it well with a little coaching, and soon it was ready for the net. As soon as I saw it in the headtorch I knew which fish it was, and as I lifted the net complete with fish out of the water I was certain we had another twenty pounder.

The scales confirmed my suspicion, and settled at twenty pounds and four ounces!

As for my trap, well as I went to reel in to go home, I was snagged on the bottom. The vicious liners I had been receiving all evening had dragged the hook into a snag....

A little assistance was needed to help the youngster with his prize !

1st try...but with a bonus.

As realistically expected the first try at the special water was a blank. The weather didn't help with the tactics I decided to use. For the mobile stalking approach to work the fish have to be actively visiting the margins, which probably at some point when it was warmer earlier last week they were, but with overcast, wet, and cooler conditions yesterday they certainly were not. My two companions tried the static sit and wait tactics with bolt rigs, but neither of them fared any better, and there were no signs of activity from the fish throughout the day.
Nothing more than expected, but time spent by the water is never wasted, and there is always something to learn, especially when approaching a new venue. I like the look and feel of this lake, and it somehow seems 'familiar' to me already as it is much like some of the lakes here on the Island I have fished before. As a bonus to the three day sessions we are undertaking, my friends and I have managed to secure some winter fishing on this lake, so we have much to look forward to come the end of the season in the salt this year. I have not been really 'into' my Carp fishing for a long time now, but I feel that this lake and it's stock may well help me find some of the satisfaction and enjoyment I used to gain from Carp fishing. So that's for later in the year and something for me to prepare for later in the year. Two more day sessions coming up when hopefully the weather will be on our side, and then we plan to begin our 'assault'  on the Salt !

Not quite finished...

I'm nearing the end of the bulk of the freshwater fishing now for this part of the year and looking forward to a season in the brine, but recent events have provided me with a last flurry of activity with which to conclude my fishing in the freshwater. For the next three weekends I have access to a very special water, not something I ever thought would happen, and the opportunuity came as a bolt out of the blue. The fishery owner is making some changes to how this exclusive water is going to be run, after a somewhat chequered syndicate history. Access will be open to anyone, but very limited in the amount of people that will be allowed to fish at any one time. To this end, my friend who is a long time friend of the owner has secured us exclusive access for three weekend day sessions on this water, which contains Carp to a top weight of 50lb!! The back up stock is rumoured to be impressive with a number of fourties and thirties plus twenties and doubles. There is only a small overall stock of fish numbering around an estimated 40 fish, but the water is only relatively small. The fish have grown from modest proportions having been stocked many years ago, to what they are now, and have been for a lot of that time relatively unpressured, compared to some waters.  Being a small water, it lends itself well to a stalking approach, something which I love doing, and so this is how we intend to fish this lake.
Being a little rusty on this side of things I decided some practise was in order so I will know exactly what I am doing on this lake when the time comes, so today, as the sun was out, and it has been nice and mild the last few days I knew there would be a good chance of one of my other local club lakes being eminently stalkable for it's resident population of Carp, and would provide me with the necessary practise I needed. I needn't have worried, as with all my fishing I have ever done, it is just like riding a bike, you don't really forget. The only slightly different thing is that I am now using a centrepin reel for stalking instead of a fixed spool reel, so I am still getting used to that at the moment, but the fishing went well and I managed to bank 5 double figure fish from close in margin spots using a float on the lift method. I may try and have a couple more rehearsals this week before we fish the other water next weekend, just so that it all feels familiar and that I have honed my stalking senses as much as possible! Obviously I want to make the very best of the time we have been offered on the big fish water as we may not get such an opportunity again any time soon....

A nice mid double figure Common Carp falls to my stalking skills.

Good start to the New Year !

Happy New Year all, and here's to a great year of fishing!

My year has got off to a good start, a couple of days on a new Roach water saw me bank another fish over the pound barrier of 1lb 3oz. It's another water stuffed full of Roach, but the Carp anglers on there assure me that it does contain some very good fish, almost certainly over 2lb...
The fish I had was landed on feeder and mini boilie, this may well be the way forward on this water instead of pole tactics, as the hordes of tiny 'eyes and tails' make it very hard work indeed, as I found out yesterday, and as it's a little way from my home I cannot introduce bait regularly enough to feed them off nor guarantee to get the swim I want as I could with the other water which is just a few hundred yards from where I live.
The water also contains specimen Perch along with the other lakes on the complex, and it is these that have captured my interest along with the Roach, so I have been 'mixing it up' a bit in the last few sessions with some good results. Last week My son and I had upwards of twenty Perch in two days, from other lakes on the complex, with me taking 8 or 9 over two pounds, to 2lb 10oz, none of the others were less than a pound and a half...and yesterday I had fish of exactly 3lb's and 2lb 14oz from the 'new' water. This brings my total of 3lb plus Perch to 4 now, so I'm definitely looking towards a 4lb'er as my next target.

1lb 3oz Roach

3lb Perch

Operation 'Roach'..phase one complete!

Yesterday all the hard work I have been putting in lately paid off. A session using feeder tactics saw me land a beautiful Roach of 1lb 4oz. Now in a water that seems to contain a gazillion Roach, many of them less than 8oz, that is quite an achievement. Over the last few weeks I have been wading through the hordes of small fish, applying a little prebait in between sessions, and the average size of fish I have been catching has slowly been creeping up. So far I have relied on the Pole, but yesterday the wind was just not conducive to this tactic, so with a little thought I came up with a plan that would hopefully work as well as the Pole has been. Fishing the same swim I have been focusing on, but from the opposite bank, ( the lake is fairly narrow here ), I used a small spod to apply a measured amount of Hemp to the area, and cast small maggot feeders over the top. I utilised a two rod approach and used 'speci' tactics using bite alarms and bobbins for bite indication. The day went well, with a reasonable stamp of fish falling to the tactic, and with one fish nudging the magical mark at 15oz I felt I was getting close. Mid afternoon, I hooked a fish that felt quite good, at first I thought I may have hooked a skimmer bream as the odd one had put in an appearance amongst the Roach, then I thought possibly a Perch as there was the odd jag and it seemed to be fighting quite hard for a bream...funny how I didn't allow myself the possibility that it might be a Roach....when it came up just below the surface, my heart skipped a beat, it was just in a another class compared to the fish I had been catching.  Safely in the net I knew I'd cracked the pound mark, the scales conforming it at 1lb 4oz, a good fish, not a 2lb'er, but a personal milestone in my quest, and a lovely fish. It showed that my persistance was working along with the approach, and that maybe, just maybe I may eventually get close to or actually achieve my goal.

For scale the reel is a '4000' size.

Roach sessions..

The quest continues for big Roach, 'big' being a pound or over as a realistic target. Persistance and adjustments in bait, feed and methods has seen the stamp of fish in the stillwater I am targeting go up recently, also a drop in temperature has probably helped in keeping the smaller fish at bay.
A couple of good sessions recently have boosted my enthusiasm to keep at it, some bonus Perch over a pound really stretched the elastic in my pole the other day and were great fun on such light tackle, and a couple of Roach of 10oz or so convinced me yesterday that I am on the right track and hopefully not too far away from achieving my goal. Today I was even more justified to be so confident as the stamp of fish was even better and I managed to creep close to the mark with a nice 14oz fish, that magical pound barrier is within sight, but once I achieve that, my task becomes even harder. I feel sure the water i'm fishing contains fish in the upper pound bracket and just might hold a two pounder, I know this because I have had them to 1lb 13oz from here before, plus I have caught some big Roach while fishing for Tench and Carp using meat for bait during the warmer weather, but of course the feeling of acievement wasn't there due to using tackle far too strong, and I like to catch particular species on my own terms using appropriate tackle and bait.
Appropriate tackle and bait in this instance is an 8 metre Whip, pole float, 3llb line and 2.5lb hooklink. Bait is hemp, maggot, corn and tares. You really do get the best from this species (Roach), by using a pole or Whip, I'm using a 1-5 elastic which to me seems just right and you get a great fight from even 4oz fish! anything over half a pound really gives a good account of itself, and they can really be appreciated on this tackle, so catching one of a pound or more will be a proper buzz! The Perch have already tested the gear to the max so i know what to expect from a decent Roach.
Looking forward to the next few sessions!