The
New Challenge
Its
been a long while since I have had any time to do a write up or go
fishing. As I have been studying for my A levels and designing and
copy writing the juggernaut barrow.
I
dropped of Black Swan as the ticket was just too expensive for me
this year. now the A levels are all out the way I can get back on the
bank and attempt to catch some large carp.
I've
been fishing a new water for two weeks, which I was told about by a
few local anglers,
after
doing a few laps of the lake I felt it would be my best bet at a
price I can afford. I began to learn it was a fairly quiet water and
around the 20 acres mark and fairly overgrown it felt like a ideal
place to find some large carp.
The
first 48hrs I done on the lake I had a gentle south-Westerly wind and
after doing a few
laps
I could see the fish were pretty much all around the lake, but I saw
a shoal of around six fish ranging from lower double to high twenties
so I edged my bets and set up in in front of them but had made a
vital mistake not bringing any waders so it was a case of rolling up
the trousers and walking out as the over hanging trees made it hard
work to cast accurate let alone have any distance. When I first
spotted the shoal of fish it was at the rough range of 30yrds so I
fished two rods on singles as I didn’t want to plum about and spook
any fish. When I cast out the rods I had felt two solid drops off a
bar which I could see from climbing a tree, and fish were cruising
near by so I felt confident. I fish slack lines and no back leads as
the zebra mussels would be a cause for concern if the line was to rub
on them. The third rod I felt I’d do something different so I was
fishing a small 10mm Celtic bait pop up and use and solid bag and
cast at range to open water. I was all set up and the fish began to
show a little less as the light dropped, during the night I had two
liners on the rods fishing the bar at 30yrds.
I
set my alarm for first light to see if I could see any fish showing
but nothing much this was probably due to the fact it was opening
night and there was a lot of pressure on the water. Retreating back
to bed I then woke up at 7 and the swim had gone dead as the
temperatures soared to 27degrees so I decided to real in around 10am
and see what the gossip was around the lake.
Around
12pm I returned to my swim after spotting a few fish cruising around
the margins
in
one of the snagie bays and with only two fish out that night things
were not looking
amazing.
After speaking to the anglers that caught they said they had them on
particles, so
as
I returned to the swim I picked up some zebra muscles in the margin
and opened one
up
and used it on the hair and solid bagged it out at range to showing
fish.
Here
is the rig I was using for my solid bagging, a size 6 kurve shank
hook and then a
1.5oz
lead onto a TFG clear leader.
The
chosen hook bait was a zebra muscle fresh from the
lake.
Here is the finished item, a compact solid bag it was smaller
than the lighter shown in the image and due to its aero dynamic shape
it allows me to cast it large distances.
After
preparing the rods and fishing slack lines again the swim was still
looking rather quiet again but there were still fish showing at range
and early the next morning I was lucky enough to have a run on the
bag using a zebra muscle and landed the fish being excited for the
first bite as the dark fish slipped over the cord of the net I got
between look it was a really dark tench although it wasn’t what I
was after it was more than welcome at 5lb 2oz. I then had work later
that day so this was the end of my first 48hr on the new water and
will keep everyone updated.
Its been about 6 weeks
since I last went fishing apart from a 4 hour after work session
which I blanked so I did a 24 hours session and landed 8 carp
and lost 1. after fishing this pool most of last year I learnt I
wasn't getting any bites on my popups in low light so I tried
using bottom baits in low light. I had the first 3 fish on a mix of
pink a yellow celtic bait popups on a hinged rig then swapped to 14mm
celtic bait ss bottom baits as the light faded which I had the
next 4 carp on. Then about 10am after morning bite time I
changed back to my hinged rig using celtic bait white popups and with
in 10 minutes I had my last carp so not a bad 24 hours fishing.
