Trip 23 Carp Fishing
Location – Airfield Lake – 48 hours
This week, I’ve decided to head over to the Airfield lake, there’s not much happening on Roach Pit. I’m going to give it a break for a couple of weeks and then head back over there. By then the rush would have died down a bit. I really need to get in a better swim there; last week’s trip was over the Easter weekend, the schools have another week off before they go back. With any luck, things will be settling down a bit more and covid restrictions will have eased a bit more.
My friend Ian was set up on one of the islands at the back of the wind, this sounded like a good option. This also gave us the chance to catch up on a few things, as we’d not seen each other since last year and he was interested to see what I thought of my new syndicate water. As I was still finding my feet on there it was early day’s and not to much to say. The only thing I was finding hard was getting the barrow around the lake. It was made hard by the number of tree roots and maybe I should have less tackle and perhaps take two trips to the swim. This may elevate that issue. There are a few swims with steps down to them and my knees aren’t going to like that, old age is a real pain sometimes.
After the swans picked up my lines twice, I went from my normal rod tips high up to avoid the boulders and bars, to tips under the water and hopefully avoid the underwater obstructions, with any luck.
Anyway, back to this trip.
I’m fishing a swim that I’ve not fished for some years, the left hand rod is more in front of the secret swim I spent a lot of time in last year, just didn’t fancy wading in the water this weekend, as it was pretty cold outside.
The right hand rod was on an old spot where I’d caught from before, cast out towards the entrance to an out of bounds area, that the carp travel through out into this part if the lake.
The afternoon was very pleasant until just before 6 pm and then the rain arrived and continued until the early hours.
At 2.15 am the left hand rod was away with my first Airfield Lake Carp, it was off out towards the island and across to the gap where the other rod was positioned. I slowly coaxed the carp towards me, away from the snags that are situated of the side of another island and a gap into another part of the out of bounds area to my right. Unfortunately it picked up the line of my right hand rod as well. I quickly sorted that out, I would need to recast that rod as well. Once the carp was under my control more I played the fish out and slipped it into the net.
14 lb 12 oz Common
I was very happy with that and sorted out fresh bait on both rods. I got them back out onto the baited area’s and I got back into the sleeping bag at just after 3 am. Hopefully, I may just get another bite before dawn.
At 6 am, I had another take on the left hand rod and I was attached to a very unhappy head shaking carp – well, that’s what I thought until a tench was in the net!
5 lb 13oz Tench
I’d forgotten they were actually any in here, simply because I’d never had one in the last 7 years of fishing here. I probably should’ve gotten a better photograph, but there was a hard frost and my hand where pretty numb at this point.
With the sun coming up over the New Forest, I was going to get up, make a brew and watch the lake for a few hours.
What a gorgeous morning to be on the bank. It was a bit frosty and the water bucket had cat ice on it, but even with the northerly wind blowing it was quite warm in the bivvy. The forecast is pretty much the same for tonight, so I need to consider my options about spending another night in the bivvy. For some reason, I was cold in my bag last night for the first time in year and that’s not very pleasant. I have spent too much time sleeping indoors over this winter, it may also be the issue of old age as the kids kindly point out!
Ian’s heading home today and with my swim feeling like winter and his more like summer, I packed up and moved into his swim. I’d still fishing the same area more or less and considering there’d been no action on the right hand rod, moving down two swims seemed a sensible option. Otherwise, I think I would’ve ended up back home. Splitting my fishing between two syndicates was going to limit my time on each venue and I needed a plan of attack.
The afternoon and evening were absolutely perfect and I managed to avoid any of the wintry showers floating around the area.
Hopefully tonight will bring along another take or two.
Unfortunately, no action was had over night but I did sleep better and I was a lot warmer than the previous night. I was very surprised of the lack of action after the positive start to this trip.
I have decided against the third night and will get home to spend a day with the family, before I’m back to work Wednesday.
Looking at the weather conditions for this coming weekend, I feel coming back onto the Airfield lake is much more prudent than heading over to the new water. The weather is going to be pretty bleak again and the 14 day forecast is looking so much better for the following weeks and we are not long away from May. This is when I need to be out on the new water a lot more.
Until next time
Richard
