Dads and Lads

So this weekend I decided to have two days fishing at the little local water, hoping to fill my boots so to speak! The best laid plans of mice and men however....

I started off well on the Saturday with a low double coming quickly to the bank not too long after casting out. I rubbed my hands together thinking, yes I'm in for a decent day!
It soon became apparent that this was not going to be as easy as I had anticipated, as for the next two hours or so I sat twiddling my thumbs. A south easterly breeze had sprung up whilst I was sat there twiddling and so I decided to keep an eye on the windward end of the lake, and after a while as I suspected, fish began to roll and show at that end of the lake. A quick move saw me positioning baits to showing fish and I swiftly connected with another low double. Once again I anticipated putting a few more fish on the bank. Despite continued rolling and showing the fish had other ideas! I really do think these fish are super spooky, and once you have caught one of them they go on red alert! It's bizarre because as I said in the previous entry about this lake they really haven't seen any kind of pressure and are present in fair numbers.
Anyway despite my trying very hard for the rest of the day no more fish found their way into my net.

I returned the next day to try again with my Son in tow this time. I chose to fish the first swim I had started in the previous day, even though the wind was still pushing up to the far end where they had been rolling. Son chose to fish the south east corner on the back of the wind. Once again I sat there twiddling my thumbs wondering what on earth I could be doing wrong! In the meantime Son had managed to extract his first fish from the lake having blanked on two previous attempts, to say he was pleased was an understatement!

The hours passed and still no fish for me, so I opted for a rig change on one of the rods with a shorter more supple rig and smaller hook and bait as it seemed to me they may be taking advantage of a glut of natural food in the lake and only seeking out smaller items of food. Son had banked his second fish, a lovely mid double common and was using 12mm boilies whereas I was sticking with my standard 15/12mm snowman setup.

The change of rig and bait and a change of spot eventually paid off for me and a scraper double made off with the 12mm single hookbait. I definitely feel that these fish are more oriented towards small food items as most of their diet is natural food with only a small amount of supplementary food from the owner in the form of small pellets.

We finished the day with Son banking his third and final fish, yet another small double. I guess you could say he showed the old man how to do it on this occasion!

I do feel that we should be getting bigger hits from the residents of this lake, the obvious answer being to pre bait several times a week, however I am reluctant to do this as I really like this little lake and don't want to burn out on it too quickly which is what tends to happen when I maximise on an opportunity. I know that sounds a bit weird but with only so many local waters to go at I still want to keep a little something back. We will be facing a huge challenge soon enough with our Autumn and winter target water but it isn't one we'll be able to fish as often as we'd like due to the travelling involved and the cost of said travelling.
In between trips will be spent at this little local water through the winter so I want to leave something to keep me going back. Hopefully one of the elusive larger residents will grace one of our nets on a fresh winters day!

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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!

Summer surface action !

It's been a few months since my last entry here, mainly because I have been dabbling in other types of fishing in the sea, but things haven't been going great to be honest and my enthusiasm for it has wained to the point that I have hardly been fishing of late...
In order to rekindle my drive to get fishing again, I ventured to the syndicate water that I fished in the winter with some success. I took some Chum mixers with me for a look around yesterday afternoon to see if I could find any Carp on the surface and it didn't take long to locate most of the stock in one corner of the lake. They responded very enthusiastically to the floaters and so I went back in the evening with armed with a rod..

It didn't take long before I re-aquainted myself with one of the lakes residents, however the capture seemed to spook the other fish out of the area. After some considerable time looking and walking I managed to get some fish feeding in another area of the lake, with dusk fast approaching and time running out I managed to bag another one.

I really enjoyed the little floater fishing session and I have decide that I might do some more over the next few weeks.

The best laid plans...

I don't think I need to mention how awful the weather has been lately and how it's messed up my best laid plans. No doubt many anglers up and down the country are having their fishing totally destroyed by the recent floods and storms that have constantly and unrelentingly battered the country. I personally am sick of it, day after day.
I had planned a Roach campaign after that elusive two pounder, but the water I wanted to target for them has  suffered from relentless flooding and colouring up. I didn't fish last weekend because of this as there wasn't really anything else I wanted to do, but frankly that drove me round the bend as I have a need to fish as much as I possibly can so this weekend I did the only thing I could and went Carp fishing at  a water that has been unaffected by the flooding problems. The water I fished is a new syndicate that has recently been formed that I was lucky enough to obtain a ticket for. The stock of fish, while still only relatively fresh and young are exceedingly good looking, and hold great promise for the future. There are also a few original fish in the lake that have been in there an undetermined amount of time and one or two that are over twenty pounds so along with the young stock fish there is an unknown quantity about it as well as some variety to keep you guessing what might be on the end of your line.

The first session was a short five hour morning one, on what was essentially a miserable, dank and cold day, but the fish fed and I managed to get off the mark with a couple of smaller originals. I set up on the back of the wind in a corner of the lake that had some calm wind unaffected water close in as I had a hunch that a few fish might well be hanging about in the area. I haven't really baited this water as such having only put a bit in on the odd occasion, but the bait I am using has an established track record for me and is a well known classic winter catcher. Around mid morning I had a take on the left hand rod placed a few yards out in around 6-7 feet of water, the banging sensation and lack of a decent fight told me that this was only a small fish, and so it turned out to be as a small common of upper single figures came to the net.

 

 

 





Pleased to be off the mark the bait went back out to the same depth as before, now I'm talking about depth more than particular spots here as the lake is actually an irrigation reservoir and as such is fairly featureless in that respect, however it is very deep and I believe it is crucial to find what depth the fish are sat or prepared to feed at on the marginal slopes of the lake. And this proved to be correct thinking on the following trip the very next day. But back to this session and less than a few minutes after replacing the hook bait I received what I assumed to be a savage liner on the same rod, however after waiting expectantly for a while no takes from fish were forthcoming and so I retrieved the bait, checked it and replaced it at the same depth again. Around 1.30pm the same rod was away again and this time whatever was on the end was going crazy making some quite fast and powerful runs, telling me that this might be a slightly better fish. The water here is very clear and soon I spotted a ghost carp battling for freedom in the deep, cold water. Moments later I slid him into the net a very nice conditioned fish of 13.12lb and with a common carp scaling.

 

 

 

 

That was it for that session but before I left to do the school run I threw on a few broken boilies as prebait with a view to returning the following day for another go in the same swim.

 

 

The following day I was full of confidence having got the same swim again as well as the morning being fine and bright and calm in complete contrast to the previous day.

I placed the rods exactly the same as I had during the previous session and at the same depths thinking that with the warmer and brighter day the fish would be bound to visit the same areas. Well it turned out I had been lulled into a false sense of security, because by lunch time the wind had picked up to a considerable speed and had also changed direction to the previous day and it became quite cool. Also no runs had been forthcoming and so I had a hunch that the fish may have been sitting at a different depth. The right hand rod was moved further out and deeper down the marginal slope as an experiment to see if my feeling was right. A while later that rod received a take proving I was justified in moving it and I landed my first of the stock fish. A very handsome and heavily scaled mirror of 14.13lb posed for some pictures in the ever strengthening wind which actually made taking the shot very difficult as my brolly and all my gear continually tried to disappear into the lake because of it !

 

 

 

 



 Once again the rod was replaced at the same depth as before and a short time later the alarm registered another take and another lovely looking stock fish slid over the net after a short, spirited fight. This one weighed 13.12lb

 

 

 



I think you will agree these are super looking fish and are typical of the fish that have been stocked here. As I said it's a new water and it is very early days yet, but hopefully with time we will have a fantastic water with some stunning looking fish of sizeable stature.









Well what a dire Christmas break we're having weather wise ! Things started off looking good at the start of the holidays and I had planned a specimen Roach campaign over the festive period, but it's all gone a bit wrong !
The lake I was going to target has suffered badly from flooding, and whilst the water level itself isn't so much of a problem, it's the colour of the water that is. The lake has turned a very muddy brown compared to it's usual clarity at this time of year and realistically this will ruin the Roach fishing. So I have been scratching around a bit trying to find something to do and have ended up reverting back to a bit of Carp fishing on a more heavily stocked 'hungry' club water on which I had a very good session using a new method to me, zig fishing. I had always planned on getting to grips with this method of fishing with this time of year in mind as the Carp can usually be sat off the bottom for long periods of time in the slightly relatively warmer layers of water that can form, known as thermoclines. Being a reasonably deep and featureless water that I was fishing I decided to give it a go. The day was bright, and a rare break in the stormy weather of late. I had to search around a bit in order to locate some fish but once I got the first bite, sport was quite hectic, especially for the time of year. I fished two different colours of foam on the hook and though I did catch on both colours, one stood out head and shoulders above the other. The baits were fished at about half depth and within the same area as each other so the comparison was quite a fair one. Though the fish in this lake would be classed as 'hungry' they are no push over and the zigs certainly caught them off guard, and interestingly to prove this a fair proportion of the fish were in double figures which is not something that happens when bottom fishing here. Usually in a multiple catch you may get an odd better fish, but normally the only other way to get through to them is with pre baiting. Zigs are certainly something I will be playing around with on other waters in the future, especially when the bottom bait fishing is slow.

I started off well with a number of Roach of this stamp during my first couple of sessions, then the lake flooded !

 

 



Zig caught 16lb'er part of a catch of a dozen fish on the method, not too shabby for 29th December !

 

 



To conclude this entry, This morning I decided to try another club water that may hold some better Roach, in an effort to continue my campaign for the species, but unusually for me I packed up after only a couple of hours having not had a single bite...the water is shallow and a lot of cold water has gone in lately and this can be the only reason why the fish were showing no interest whatsoever. Again this is what you would class as a 'hungry water' and does have a large head of silver fish, so to not even get a liner within a couple of hours is quite staggering...
Hopefully the Roach fishing will pick up again if this foul weather ever abates, and I will be able to get back to chasing specimens of these lovely silver fish, until then I guess I will be scratching around doing whatever suits the conditions. Hope to report back soon !

More Winter Perch fishing

Had another couple of days Perching at the weekend, this time on a different water with a lower stock of Perch but where the average size is slightly better. The lake resides on the same club complex as the one I fished last week and is the same lake I fished throughout the summer and Autumn for Carp. I have always felt that this lake may hold some very large Perch due to the lower stock. There is just as much food available to them in the form of small silver fish as there is in the other lakes so there is no reason to believe otherwise. The fact that the average size of Perch is better is a good indicator of the potential top end. Most of the fish caught here seem to be over 2.5lb many being upper two's and low three's. There is a sprinkling of fish of under a pound that occasionally take the bait, but these are clearly a different year class to the bigger fish, whereas in the other lake I fished last week the fish seem to be of all sizes with the majority of the better fish being of low 'two's, and yet the lake has also produced some 'three's for me despite the higher numbers of Perch.

Back to the two day's fishing and over the course of the two sessions I fished the same swim but the two days proved to be entirely different in the way the fish fed. The Saturday started of quite bright but did cloud over later on, but the light levels were still high despite the cloud and I landed four Perch and a small Jack Pike over the course of the day. The Sunday however proved to be a far more productive day, with the cloud cover being much denser and the light levels far lower than the previous day. This facilitated a much more productive session and I landed around seven or eight Perch including my first 'three' of the winter, and another Pike. Incidentally due to the fact that this lake holds Pike, it is necessary to use a wire trace when fishing for the Perch, and I managed to find some AFW ( American Fishing Wire ), trace material in a 6lb breaking strain which is very fine and clear nylon coated. It is extremely supple and is knotable which is a huge bonus. The wire doesn't seem to bother the Perch as it behaves much like mono and has a dull camo finish. Overall I am very pleased with the results I have had using this wire and as such would wholeheartedly recommend it.



After a good run on the Perch fishing I think the next few sessions will be for Roach, especially over the Christmas period as I can Target a water close to home for some short day trips in search of some silver specimens...I'll come back to the Perch of course but I find it pays to mix things up to keep the interest piqued at this time of year !