UK Carp & Coarse Fishing

Being my last trip before a month-long holiday away for my kids, a few long weekends and weeks away for me in Wales and Norfolk, I thought it would be nice to have a social couple of nights with Ian. As it was my daughter’s birthday party on the Friday, I needed to be around to help out, it was arranged for Ian to arrive on the Thursday and give me a call, we would then discuss our options. The call came in about 10 am Friday, Ian asked if I fancied fishing Meadow Lake this time as he was there and there was no one fishing. We had the choice of any swim.

I’d been looking at the weather forecast earlier that morning for the coming few days thinking of the Airfield Lake and which bank would be more favourable. We quickly worked out which bank we would go for on Meadow. Ian pitched up in the Gap swim and I would join him early Saturday morning after a huge thunderstorm had passed. We both felt this would get the fish stirred up. I thought by the time I arrived Saturday Ian would have had a take, which was not to be, unfortunately.

I’d been studying the Fish Deeper app in-between sorting out party stuff in the garden and had come across a 5ft hump surrounded by 10ft of water. It looked absolutely perfect. I worked out that it was 20 wraps out and when I arrived (just after 7am) both rods were flicked out with single hook baits on, towards that area.

Later on in the day, I’d get the marker rod out and spomb some bait out there – unless I see showing carp. I would fish both rods on that spot, always with the option to pull one away to another area

I spent an hour or so looking for that perfect spot but I just couldn’t land the marker on that area. However, I did manage to find a perfect area that couldn’t have been far off. I’m always happy with that, as long as you are close by a feature in a pretty much featureless lake bed. It will attract carp into the surrounding area. I did however feel it was necessary to locate another feature within my water to also fish to and I found a lovely gravel spot not too far away. I baited both areas quite heavily with a mixture of maze, pellets, chopped, and whole 12m boilies. This gave various forms of attraction into the swim with different breakdown times over the next 24hrs.

This, I hope, will encourage the carp into the swim and to feed. Even if they’re passing by over this period, there would always be some food items available to them.

The night was event-free – with the exception of the Canadian Geese, they do drive you crazy in the early hours. My plan today was to sit it out with the rods as they were, the conditions couldn’t be better, with little rain and a lite breeze.

Unfortunately, Ian’s action was short-lived. The carp found something out there to shed the hook into, but a positive from that moment, we knew the carp were feeding and out in open water, hopefully not long until the next bite.

The day was filled with light rain and showers, until around 3 pm when it cleared up a bit and had the occasional bit of sunshine. With that, another day passed. The geese were in full swing around midnight. I drifted off to sleep at some point and was woken by a run on my left hand rod at about 3 am. After a bit of an issue with my other line, the fish was in the net. However, I would be re doing both my rods and stripping a fair bit of line off the spool to sort the mess out, can’t complain.

With this lovely 23lb 12oz Common.

I was all sorted and back in the sack just before 4am with the geese at it again.

I woke up just after 8 am and was so glad I had managed a few more hours sleep as I was feeling it in the middle of the night with the geese.

Ian headed home just before 1 pm. I got the Deeper out to see how bad the weed was, I was sure that was the reason my line was picked up by the other rod last night and Ian had picked up a weed bed on winding in slowly.

The carp where clearly situated in the weed during the day and would drift out at night, due to the lack of oxygen. If I moved my bait about, to near this spot, I should be in with a shout tonight. The big question was, do I move both rods away from where I had been fishing? Yes, definitely for one but I needed to give it some thought on the spot that produced last night. My right hand rod was now only a few rod lengths out to my right. I’d catapulted a few handfuls of 12mm Catalyst boilies and some 8mm pellets, I would make the decision on the left hand rod later on this evening.

This evening something happened on the lake that surprised me and dismayed me. I felt that I had gone back to my club lake day’s. Another angler arrived in a close-range fishing swim and proceeded to spomb out with no regard to where I was fishing. In fact, dispite being in one of the long-range fishing swims. I wasn’t fishing very far out. The bit that got me most was the complete lack of respect and no thought for me. He hadn’t bothered to pop over to check where I was fishing or even ask if it was ok, instead, he just started spomb. After a chat with a couple of other syndicate members who agreed it was completely out of order. So, I popped around for a chat and the first thing I was informed was he had checked on Google maps and his spot was only 18 wraps. Which basically informed me he never had any intention of asking me and had made up in his mind it was perfectly ok. That should have been the end of the conversation. I did walk off, as I was lost for words and can’t really remember my reply, but I was informed by him how to fish my swim – I should fish short off where I was fishing as that is where everyone catches. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t know that I’ve had many big hauls from fishing at range, but a bit more left and clearly in my water. This is the point where I walked off and headed back around to my swim. Someone who was fishing a couple of swims down, suggested I have a glass of red to calm me down. This was better than packing up and going home, which was where I was at that point.

The night was full of rain and sleep. I woke about 8 am and as my ‘discussion’ with the angler was still fresh in my head, I sat down after lunchtime and put my words down in this blog. I clearly needed to put some time between both things. I packed up not long after getting up and was home by 10am, despite have most of the day to fish. It’s a real shame that this incident put a real dark shadow over my last trip for a month, I’m away with the family for all of August as last year was a complete flop.

Until next time, when I will have calmed down completely. You don’t need negative thoughts when you fish that swim again. Will the same thing end up happening again as he feels that he is in the right with no consideration of other members? People should have some courtesy to inquire if it’s ok. Sad times.

Richard

This is one of the biggest dilemmas faced by anglers, from beginner to someone who has been fishing for years.  Unless you know the lake or person writing the article, you will not understand this situation behind it. E.g venue, stock, weather conditions or water temperature.  These all play a part in the choice you have to make.  Which sort of bait are they talking about?  Boilies, pellets, Groundbait or maggots.  Anglers put out kilos of particles in the winter months, they wouldn’t dream of doing this in the summer, well some do.

I don’t wish to confuse any beginners but the major rule must be less is more in the winter.  You can never take out what you put in the lake.

My personal approach is to continue to do much the same amount of spombs but change the contents towards the finer bait.  Basically, I reduce the number of whole boilies, start to grind them up more, add micro pellets and particle.  Now, this is only when I am fishing, as I still prebait with boilies but less frequent in the winter months.  This approach only applies to the type of lake I am fishing.

If you are fishing a heavily stocked water and the carp feed in the winter months, especially if you keep chucking in the bait, you will be surprised that the carp will still feed on the coldest days if they don’t have to move far for the food.  Just to confuse you more. this can also apply to low stocked waters if you do your homework and know where the carp are and you can keep an eye on their feeding patterns.

This really only applies to the full-on winter angler, if you only go once a month, stick to the less bait as possible.  Try over flavoured hook baits and tiny bags soaked in plenty of attraction.

Chopped Boilies

The important parts are to remember is not an exact science but if you fish a lake for a few years you will understand the patterns of the fish and can apply this to smaller lakes.

Time is a big key to the factor, that’s time spent fishing over the winter months, which is certainly not an easy task.

Hope this helps

Richard

After last week’s trip, I was as keen as mustard to get back down the lake and into the same sort of area – as long as there were clearly signs of carp.

I arrived a lot later then hoped for, my phone was playing up and I definitely needed that sorted before my planned 3 night’s on the bank. That’s if I can cope with the heatwave. I’m definitely not a fan of any temperature over 23C and it was a barmy 28C but, if all went well, I’d be fishing 16ft of water and that would be a few degrees cooler than the surface temperature. Which according to my Deeper was reading 26C on the surface.

The car park was empty, that’s a good start I thought. I got the bucket from the car and placed it in the swim I was looking at and then walked back to the gate, along the path looking for signs of carp in the snags. Not a sausage. Not a good start. I walked past the swim and along to the next swim, I didn’t see anything on the top. This is what happened last week. I headed back to the swim and sat on the bucket watching the open water, as another angler walked by, he was thinking of moving as there were 5 another anglers down the other end and I had spotted 2 further brollys on the far bank.

As I was watching the water, a flat spot appeared out at the range I was planning on fishing and then a couple more. Well, something was out there and as no one else was catching, it could be worth a shout. I got the kit from the car and found the boat allocated to this area, which was where I had left it last week. I sorted out the Deeper rod and headed off out into the lake looking for the point where the weed stopped and then after the harder spots.

Once I had was satisfied that I had dropped both my fox mini hex blocks in the perfect spots, I baited a line of chopped up boilies and particle etc.

Once I was back on land (which is nice as I’m not as young as I used to be and getting out of a boat is certainly much harder this day’s and I don’t fancy a swim). I flicked the marker rod out a couple of times and the bottom felt absolutely awesome. I also leaded around with each rod at various wraps until I was happy with the drop, which didn’t take many casts. There where still the odd flat spots showing and I was getting very conscious of spooking the carp. So, I decided to finish setting up camp completely before I flicked out the rods onto the spot for the night. As I was very happy with how it all went, I may just leave them out there for the next 48 hour’s – something that works extremely well on the Airfield Lake.

As the afternoon past, a couple of carp cruised by off into the corner where I was fishing last week. This felt a good sign. The wind was freshening from the North East, it was a lot cooler and due to swing around to the south. This would be right in my face, a cool evening was heading my way and with any luck a few carp would drift this way over the next 24 hours.

The night was very quiet on all fronts – no bleeps or any signs of carp. I was up early and looking out for showing carp. I’m still very confident that I’m in the right area and there’s a good prospect of a bite. It’s going to be another hot one, but the wind is due to pick up again from the south later on this afternoon, which I hope will bring the carp on.

Just after 1 pm, the wind finally shifted and I could feel a nice blow building through the bushes where I was hiding behind from the direct sunlight my bivvy was getting. I decided to take another look along the margins and also see if anything was starting to drift along here. Sure enough, I found a couple of carp enjoying the sunshine.

This is an improvement on this morning, with any luck a few more will follow and fancy a feed after dark. They where reports of rain coming, but that has changed to more eastly now, shame that would have certainly helped.

After another weed burg took one of my lines out, I decided that I needed my tips lower down and the line not so far out, as the weed should drift by my swim. I also felt a change of bait couldn’t do any harm so I switched over to brighter wafters and more fruity flavours. You just have to keep experimenting until you find the right combination. As dusk was slowly approaching a couple of fishing topped, not to far away, fingers crossed for tonight.

I need to put some thought into staying another night, it’s looking pretty dead put there and the prospects of another day in the heat. I suppose would be the same if I was at home. At the moment, I don’t feel like I’m in the right area, but I don’t believe that all the carp have piled up at the other end of the lake. After all, I’m trying to hunt out the bigger carp and not those new stocks, but you do need to think of the future of venues .

I’ve come to the conclusion that going home today would benefit me, I could spend a day with the wife before she is back at work, the kids would be over the moon. Also the weather is looking so much better at the end of the week and with any luck the heatwave will break. I do believe like humans the fish don’t like the severe weather changes and will get use to the heat and start feeding again. I also believe they can tell a weather change is on the way and they are very likely to wait until that happens before they get their heads down again. In this week’s case, this will be in a couple of day’s and based on that I think it’s time have a slow pack up and head home.

Until next time

Richard