ROB HUGHES on carp swim stake-outs
“Bucketing means dropping a bucket behind a swim to reserve it”
IN THE post-Covid carp fishing world many venues are set to be packed to capacity, with pre-booking swims becoming the new ‘normal’. For the purists out there, and I include myself in this, watercraft is a massive part of fishing. Turning up at the lake, watching the water, understanding where the fish might be and how the weather and wind will affect them, then being able to move on to fish, is one of the joys of the game of chess that is carp fishing.
Advice from many a carp angling guru has been to watch the water like a hawk and either move or cast to any showing fish you see. These days on many waters you’ve got precious little chance of moving, and any fish daft enough to stick its snout out of the drink is immediately bombarded by half-a-dozen or more leads from all manner of angles.
With so many people on the banks the first thing you get out of your car won’t be your rods and binoculars, but your bucket and running spikes.
Yes, the practice of ‘bucketing’ swims has become commonplace. For the uninitiated, it means dropping a bucket behind a swim to reserve it while you get your kit. At ‘gates open’ there’s often a race to drop your bucket, claim your plot, and catch your breath before returning to the car to set up. Sometimes there can even be a queue of buckets in a favoured peg!!
More and more venues are now moving to booking swims, and while in the past I never really liked it, now I have to say I do. You know what you’re getting, know you don’t have to rush, and the unnecessary pressure of the bucket race is off. What do you prefer?