ALL ACTION NOW I’VE GOT MY CARP HEAD ON!
They’re on the feed now, which is just as well because the big eels aren’t!
AT LAST it seems every fish species is starting to feed hard.
As for me, I’ve really got my carp head on now and I’m catching plenty of them. Soon it will be tench and bream, but for now it’s carp – with the odd perch and eel session thrown in.
THURSDAY
On the bank with Ray Cutler for a day’s carp fishing. It was a pretty casual affair – we met up at 8am and planned to leave at 6.30pm to give us time for a pint on the way home.
It can be unsociable fishing the rivers most of the year, sometimes hundreds of yards apart, so on these carp trips we tend to sit close to each other and chew the fat. That said, I generally fish from my barrow so if I see carp moving somewhere on the water I can up sticks quickly and get on them.
Anyway, we were blanking after two hours when I saw carp rolling over some bait I had put in at the far end of the lake.
Very often I will fish one area but bait another, keeping my lines out of this spot, and very often this is the swim the fish will move into, as they did today.
This ‘bait-and-wait’ approach will also catch you the big fish in any water; it’s a method I put into practice for every species.
I soon uplifted the rods and was away with the barrow. Within 20 minutes of being in the new swim I was into a double-figure common. Then I saw a decent mirror roll over the bait, and within minutes I was away again.
After a long and strong fight I landed a 25lb common. It was a cracker! Any anglers who say carp don’t fight should have been connected to this one!
As Ray photographed me with this fish, my Nash Key Cray bait was pouring out of its vent. They certainly wanted it, that’s for sure! Then I caught another common of 21lb 12oz, and I’m pretty sure the mirror I saw earlier graced my landing net at 20lb 4oz. This was turning into a pretty good day...
Ray was catching fish too but his were smaller, and of course, I put my success down to my super rigs. I won’t tell you Ray’s answer to that one…
The last two hours were slow, but as I was packing up with my rods on the floor I noticed the line lift and before the clutch could start to pay out on the Baitrunner I was into my last carp, a lovely looking common of 18lb 4oz.
On the way home we had a pint and a bag of Nobby’s Nuts. Life was good.
TUESDAY
A secret perch mission very early in the morning, so no-one would spot me.
I fished jigs and drop shot with small rubbers and caught a dozen perch before 7.30am, when I left the water – a couple were good fish. I am going to be fishing this place a few times in the next few
weeks and hopefully will have it to myself for a while, at least until winter, when it should produce a big fish for me.
Over the last couple of years I have had a couple of ‘my’ venues jumped on by other anglers – my fault for publicising them. Not with this water!
WEDNESDAY
Eeling again, but because of moving house I can’t pick my days. Instead I have to go when I can fit it in, which is not the way I like to fish.
Unfortunately the night was very cold. Actually there was a frost, which was a bit of a shock. What wasn’t a shock was that I had no runs in the night!
I realise how difficult it is when you only have certain days to fish, and I don’t like it. My big advantage normally is to be able to go at the drop of a hat but soon we will be in our new little bungalow and I will be fishing hard again.
The water was coloured, which to me says that the carp and silvers are feeding. Eels, on the other hand, don’t feed every day or night in my experience but they should be feeding now. It’s all about getting the timing right.
I am fishing this water with deadbaits - small gudgeon, perch and roach caught and killed fresh on the night. I know some anglers say there are two types of eel – worm-eating ‘pointed heads’ and fish-eating ‘broad heads’. Well, personally I don’t believe in this theory. My biggest eel of 7lb 3oz was a pointed head, and that fell to a deadbait!
In my opinion eels feed on what is available at the time – tadpoles in spring, baby frogs, fish, snails and bloodworm. As for lobworms being a ‘natural’, I don’t think there will be lots of them on the bottom of a lake 30 yards out from the bank, do you?