Next time you visit one of our retailers, or our website at www.spottedfin.com
to check out fabulous range of bait and bait making products, why not have a look at our terminal tackle range too? We have a great range of tackle which can help you catch more fish!
First opportunity to get out after a fantastic two weeks with the family in Cornwall.
It’s now time to get the fishing head in gear.
Richard
With the wife dropping the kids off at the mother-in-law’s for a few days. It gave me the opportunity to do a quick night before work on Monday morning.
I’d the pick of any swim. After chatting with a fellow member, the wind was hacking down the lake and there had also been a big storm over the weekend, I felt this was my best choice. I was concerned that the carp may just be at the back of the wind, but the only sign and information was they weren’t.
I baited my normal spot with 8 large spombs of my favorite combination of stuff. I put one rod on there with an 18mm Catalyst wafter (after leading about for a clear spot) and then I set about thinking of where to put the other rod tonight. There are so many options available in this swim. In the meantime, I flicked a Catalyst pop up into the corner of the bar and planned to watch the lake. I may even make up my mind as the day progressed.
The strong wind was about to push hard into this corner of the lake, so I got the Deeper out and allowed it to drift over this area a few times. The wind allowed me to cast out of the swim and into an area I was not interested in. The Deeper would drift into the swim negating the likelihood of any unnecessary disruption to the swim, I use this technique a lot and it works very well.
As there was a bit of weed about, I needed to put the marker float on the spot to help me with accurate casting. I flicked a bait out, then 4 large spombs and split the rods up, this is to make playing fish easy. I’m not sure why more people don’t do this, probably because it doesn’t look good – I’m sure the carp don’t care.
Just after 7 pm that rod ripped off, after the initial battle and the carp was well under control, the hook pulled out – aargh!
I checked the point and it was absolutely perfect – just one of those things which happens every so offered. It felt like a nice lump, but you can never completely tell.
The rod had not been back on the spot for very long, another carp rolled over the spot, fingers crossed for another take.
It was just before 1130 pm when the same rod was away. At first, I thought it was a Tench, but as the fight progressed, it was clearly not. Even though it the only started to wake up in the margins, the fight progressively got more intense but the battle was done and a nice Ghosty was in the Nsr.
20lb 1oz Ghosty
My third capture of this carp over the five year’s if been fishing on here.
The rod was soon back on the spot and hopefully, another carp will pass my way.
The next take came to the right-hand rod this time and it was stuck in the weed bed for some time. After a bit of gentle pressure, it was free, but carrying a good lump of weed. This played havoc in the margins but I had gained control, it’s like having a dead weight attached to the line but about two foot away from the carp. The weed get stuck on the leader knot, but we finally made it into the Nsr, it felt like a lifetime and my arm was certainly feeling the pain.
27.15 Common
The weed had damaged the line, so I had to strip a few meters off, to be honest, after any fight with a fish in weed, I tend to strip off a few meters. It’s better to be safe than sorry later. I feel with all the to-ing and frow-ing, the line has a lot of pressure put on it, best to get rid of that line.
The rest of the night passed with no more bleeps or takes. There was certainly a lot of carp active last night, they were crashing everywhere. There was a small amount of rain this morning. It was soon pack up time, head home and get a few days of work done before the big family holiday.
Until next time
Richard
Please subscribe to my Video Diary
After the disaster of 3 nights blanking over the weekend and Mondays being my dedicated day for fishing, it was a hard push to motivate myself. But after a night at home, I was full of the fighting spirit again and my plan was to fish the Estate Lake.
Having in mind the stealthy approach, I decided my baiting pole would be the best method. It would certainly cause less disturbance when casting PVA bags into the weed.
I poled one bait out to the clear area where I had been fishing on my short evening trips. I was using a large PVA bag filled with Betafin & Catalyst + Smokey Jack pellets. These were filled with Catalyst syrup, an 18mm wafter and a 12mm Catalyst pop on. The hooks I’m using are size 4 turning point hooks to combat the weed. I like to balance the bait with the size of the hook.
I repeat this process with the other rod. I was also loading up the bait spoon with a load of my standard feed mixture. This was all I was going to do until I had a carp, the other rod was placed on a hole in the weed where I’d previously fished.
All I planned doing now was to sit back, watch and wait.
As 9pm drew ever close, I had been here for nearly 12 hrs with no action. I was pretty surprised at this as I stayed tucked away under the bivvy watching through the mozzie panels. I was hoping this approach would lead them into thinking there was no one on the lake. Let’s hope night time brings me some luck.
Well, the night passed by with no signs of carp, no crashing, they just melted away as always.
Until next time
Richard
Please subscribe to my Video Diary
Firstly, I would like to point out that I am a great lover of wildlife. This is one of the reasons I love fishing as much I do. You can also get to see so much that the rest of the world will never see.
Good –
When it was nearly impossible to see an otter in the wild, it was a treat to see the odd one or two (this small number of otters kept river in balance – killed diseased fish in the river and stopped a slow death for the local wildlife). A natural gamekeeper if you would.
Bad –
There are 2 real issues here.
Firstly; The unofficial releasing of otters (which has been done in great numbers), what are the otters supposed to eat when they run out of fish? The not so public knowledge, is that they eat! They will eat anything – eggs, chicks, even fully grown birds, they even been known to kill of all the bird’s on a lake that had no fish, because they had eaten them already! On my friend’s lake, every year they killed the signets and one year even the cob (swan)! This stopped, once they put an otter fence round the lake. This however, has pushed the otters into taking fish from local ornimental ponds within people’s gardens.
The Second issue, are the areas of the county the unofficial releases are happening. Now, we all know that mostly otters live in rivers, not great big deep reservoir and over populated areas. A dog otter and his family covers an area of some 5 miles. If you keep introducing otter after otter into the same area, they will just move on and fill up another areas – nobody likes a conflict with their neighbour! However, the people who are doing the releases think that someone or something has killed them, so they just keep releasing more and more until that area is over populated – again and then they move on again. And once there is no more fish or any wildlife left. These otters too will move on. If no action is taken soon, it will become the hard truth.Links-
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/27441
http://www.fishingmagic.com/news_events/news/16626-otters-the-bbc-and-the-angling-trust.html
http://www.otterstop.co.uk/otters-now-responsible-for-deaths-of-rarebirds/
Please stop intrducing more otters, otherwise, there will be no more fish or bird and starving otters
Richard
