Des Taylor’s
weekly diary
ANOTHER busy week for me, even though I needed to change plans to suit the wet conditions. Understandably I kept away from rising rivers and headed for stillwaters instead – with some success, as you’ll see...
MONDAY
A day in my tackle den selecting photos for a couple of talks I’m giving in the next few weeks. I like to make my talks different and interesting. I’m not one of those anglers who just shows photo after photo of big fish stating the weight. How boring is that?
WEDNESDAY
Headed down to a carp syndicate with Keith Harding for the day. We’d planned to go on the river but that was still a bit of a mess and besides, we fancied a bit of a pre-Christmas social on the bank.
The day started quite slowly, often the case with carp at this time of year on this lake. They usually feed in the afternoon, and today was no different.
Up until noon we had caught one carp – a small double of around 10lb – but at 1pm the bigger fish moved on to my soaked pellet pudding and Squid and Scopex boilies. Lots of anglers fish single baits at this time of year with no feed, but although the temperature is dropping the carp are still feeding well and will eat a fair amount.
We put a kilo of pudding in each swim to start, along with about 20 boilies, and then sat back. When they started to feed we introduced another couple of small pudding balls with 10 boilies, and in the end we had five carp, including fish over 20lb.
My wife has recently bought me some Vass waders and I just had to do the ‘carp pose’ and get in the water with the fish. While I was doing it I suddenly thought to myself: why on a cold day am I wading out in the water with a carp to have a photo taken? It could only be because of my ego, I suppose, but it made a nice shot.
The last fish, a 22-pounder, fell to Keith right on dark and after that we called it a day. Before we headed off in different directions we talked about the great condition of the fish and how hard they had fought, how the rain had kept away and what a great laugh it had been.
I stopped in the local for a quick pint and sat warming myself in front of the open fire. A few tradesmen were enjoying a drink and we got talking. I don’t think for one minute they believed I had been fishing and that fishing is what I do for a living. To be honest I couldn’t blame them!
FRIDAY
More of the same. Carping again, but this time on my own at a water that could produce bigger carp in excess of 30lb. Again by lunchtime I hadn’t caught but I was confident, as this is another ‘afternoon’ water. For some reason, though, the water was dead. Even on dark very few roach topped, whereas on most sessions small roach will dimple the surface at dusk. Not tonight.
In hindsight, I should have used maggots instead of boilies in the clear water, but I had the rigs for boilies and took the easy route instead of popping down to the tackle shop for maggots and changing the rigs. Effort equals success and lack of it, I think, gave me a blank.
I needed to get home quickly because of my live Facebook show at 7pm. I had missed last week because I was out fishing for the weekend, so I didn’t want to miss in two on the trot.
It’s a heck of a commitment, but I enjoy doing it and getting feedback from other anglers.