DES TAYLOR “You can learn so much about specimens from fishing on the surface”
I don’t know why more anglers don’t give it a try...
“It was in these windows of calm that I had to make it happen”
PLEASE, please let this weather go on and on! After the wettest winter in history and then the lockdown it’s been a rough old time, but since we’ve been allowed back on the banks the weather has been like fishing in South Africa rather than the Midlands.
It’s been so warm I haven’t put a bottom rod out yet. Instead I’ve taken 30-odd double-figure carp and three twenties, all of them off the top.
Surface fishing is so easy to do, and yet for some unknown reason a lot of anglers shy away from this tactic. It teaches you so much about carp, the way they suss out baits and rigs, how they will only take baits in one little hotspot, and even how sometimes the bigger fish will be on the outside of the main feeding areas, just picking up the odd baits that get past the main shoal.
My last session was at Bells Mill Fishery, and I had a lot of carp in front of me. But it was a tricky day. When conditions were flat calm with no wind they would take baits, but as soon as the wind came on the water they’d sink down a foot or two. The wind would blow for half-an-hour, then it would stop for five minutes, and it was in these windows of calm that I had to make it happen. And happen it did a couple of times – one fish was a lovely young plated mirror and the other a scale-perfect linear of around 25lb that fought really well.
Owner Jonathan took a photo of me in the water with yellow irises in the background and decided to have an oil painting done of it by Mark Price to hang on the wall at the fishery. I’m really flattered.
On the day, I began by firing out Chum mixers and watching the water to see where the fish were taking the free offerings. It soon became apparent there was an area near the island about 20 yards out from me where the fish were slurping down the mixers. The carp were all over the place, but it was only in this one small spot where they were actually feeding and not just looking at the baits.
Behind this, a couple of good fish were hanging back and just taking the odd mixer, and it was one of these carp that I wanted. I fed constantly while the wind blew and hardly a fish came up, but I knew they were seeing the mixers passing over their heads.
Then the wind dropped. I overcast all the fish, even the ones at the back of the main shoal, and then slowly brought the controller float into the area where the bigger fish were sitting. Luckily for me, straight away the lovely linear made its mistake and engulfed the Chum mixer imitation.
I got my waders from the car and had my photo taken with this fish, and I think it shows what it should – a happy bloke holding a beautiful fish in exquisite surroundings on a glorious summer’s day. Does it get any better than that?