FISH FOR ONE BITE AT A TIME…
You might think that to catch big carp consistently you have to become a member of an expensive ‘dead man’s shoes’ syndicate, but these days there are some amazing fisheries available to everyone for the price of a day ticket.
While I have been a member of various syndicates over the years, the Bluebell day-ticket complex in Northamptonshire keeps drawing me back. The fishing is superb – matching any you are likely to find around the country – and coming from the North East the drive is just about bearable on a regular basis.
Fishing the complex regularly has given me an insight into how the pressured carp in these day-ticket lakes behave, and has taught me how best I can approach the fishing on such venues.
SET REALISTIC GOALS
To put things in the simplest possible terms, aiming for one bite per session is how I fish on the big-fish lakes at Bluebell. If you can get one bite, and you are fishing each week, then that’s four bites per month. Over a 10-month season that’s 40 bites which, if you land most of them, is a bumper season on pressured lakes like this.
If you are really on it and can get one bite a day, then that really is a case of ‘job done’ and you can be really happy with what you are doing. But you have to make those opportunities happen…
On here the bite times are very consistent. Add to this the fact that the fish always seem to be highly mobile and can literally cover the whole lake, and you can see why I am happy to bring the bottom-bait rods in once I have had my chance for the day, or bite time has passed, and go off looking for other opportunities.
I think a lot of big-fish waters in this bracket are the same. The fish rarely stop in one area, and if you watch carefully, you’ll see that they are very ‘sun-orientated’, inasmuch as they follow the sun around the lake. The lakes are deep and weedy, and the carp make full use of any opportunities to get warmth on their backs.
For example, the swim I am fishing for the purposes of this feature is on the east bank of Kingfisher Lake, so the sun rises opposite and this is the first corner that it hits. I watch the fish travelling from the centre of the lake towards this bay and then they spend quite a bit of time in it because this is where the sun’s rays are concentrated.
WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY
Yesterday was a really good example of how it pays to capitalise on any small windows of opportunity that present themselves, especially once you are aware of the ‘bite times’ on a venue.
I got a bite at 9am, which resulted in a fish that I really wanted to catch, The Mommon, at 38lb 4oz. I put the rod back out, but that was it for bites off the bottom, so I went for a walk around with the floater gear and managed a 36lb 4oz mirror off the top.
I wouldn’t have caught that fish sitting in my swim all day.
You can learn so much just by watching the fish on a busy dayticket water, and it soon becomes apparent just how small the windows of opportunity can be. Yesterday afternoon, for example, I was watching the fish out in the middle and the wind swung a little bit more to the northwest, which took the floater freebies over towards the far bank.
The fish on here will happily eat your freebies all day, but actually getting a bite comes down to small windows when the fish are in the right place and catchable, because their caution has dropped a little.
The beauty of this fishery is that there are always carp catchable somewhere on the complex. So if I can’t find an opportunity here on Kingfisher, I will always take a walk around the other lakes to see what is going on.
There are big fish in all the lakes and there is likely to be a chance to be had somewhere on Bluebell.
For example, I took a walk around the lake next door, Swan Lake, yesterday and stumbled across three of the big fish right in the edge. One of these was the unmistakable Dave, along with two of the big commons. They were literally
“There are big fish in all the lakes and there is likely to be a chance to be had somewhere on Bluebell”
a couple of feet from the bank, feeding on bream eggs.
Unfortunately, I had made the rookie mistake of only taking my floater gear with me and so, although I managed to get some nice video of them, I missed a golden opportunity.
Eventually, I came back around to Kingfisher and the wind had swung east-north-east... good conditions for the corner swim I had set up in, so I put the rods back out for the evening. I had a double-take not long after, although the culprits were a 5lb tench and a double-figure bream. I know some people would get put off by catching fish like that, but it gives me a great deal of encouragement as it means the bait is being eaten and moved around, the rigs are working, and I am on a spot where the fish are willing to feed.
I was expecting my chance to come again around 9am, but I was taken by surprise when a fast bite saw me attached to a powerful fish at 6am. It turned out to be a 32lb 2oz common.