CATCH BIG WHEN THE PRESSURE’S OFF!
TV star Dean Macey reflects on how angling pressure can affect your carp fishing…
THE planets aligned for me on a recent session when I and a few others had a trip to Lac de Premiere in France, just days after quarantine ended. It was the perfect storm, as the fish on the busy holiday venue had just spawned, they were hungry and, more importantly, unpressured.
It re-emphasised a point to me about just how much angling pressure can influence the fish’s behaviour.
Not long after arrival, you could tell this was a different lake to previous visits. Fish were showing all over the place and during the week I even spent two days in one of my unfavoured swims and caught because they wanted to be there. Perhaps more interesting was that most bites came in daylight whereas on previous trips it has always been the opposite.
Angling pressure, in my opinion, has the biggest impact on fish and lakes. On big venues, if you find the fish, they can be quite easy to catch as they spend a lot of time away from pressure in natural sanctuaries. If most swims on a lake are reachable with lines, you notice a different behaviour from the carp – they are on constant alert, and the bite times as a result get shorter.
Another difference you notice with less pressured carp is just how quickly they respond to weather changes. Within hours of a fresh wind they will be on the move. They are far more reluctant to do so when there are lots of lines in the water.
With all this in mind, my approach to the lake was to fish two rods in a traditional long session style, on heavily baited spots of Cell boilies and corn.
I knew the fish would be hungry and I wanted to keep topping up these spots to give them a dinner table to feed over. On any weeklong session, either here or abroad, I find the fish will get on it eventually. Even if they are pressured, they will grow in confidence.
My third rod was perhaps one of the most successful rods, and that was the roving bag or zig. This was cast at showing fish and often I got a take within an hour of casting out. I wanted the bags to resemble leftover bait, so I used a mix almost like groundbait
that would puff out on the bottom. For the zig I didn’t want them thinking it was a hookbait, so I simply used a bland piece of foam.
I ended the week with a phenomenal 31 carp landed, 11 of 40lb-plus, six fifties and a monster 70lb 8oz mirror – opportunities like that don’t come around very often!