Carp on the surface - thrills and spills

As I predicted earlier in the year it has now become much more difficult to keep up to date with my blog, work has become hectic and each week is passing by in a blur, any free time that I do have has to prioritised and the fact is that I have to put other things before writing, including fishing, if I have a few hours spare I will be on the bank and not behind the keyboard. Nevertheless I'm determined to keep this thing going and so bear with me and sooner or later I shall catch up.

Wednesday the 23^rd to Thursday the 24^th of May

With work starting to become very busy and the weather suddenly becoming much warmer I decided to pull in a couple of days down on my carp complex while I could with some stalking in mind. The thought of some surface fishing for great big carp fired me up good and proper although the carp gear hadn't seen daylight since last October and just preparing for the session was a mission in itself. In fact it took a good three hours to dig out the kit that I needed and even then it was far from organised,. I actually ended up with three different holdalls plus my stalking rucksack in the back of the van, something of a nightmare for someone that likes to travel as light as possible though most of the gear was intended to stay in the van just in case it was required.

An early alarm call saw me on the road by 6am and on the bank an hour later, I set off around the smallest of the three lakes wearing my chest waders and with a bucket of floaters and catapult on the lookout for any signs. This lake is unusual in that it contains a number of small islands along each bank and quite often wading out to one of these will find you some fish so it pays to make the effort. As I pushed my way through a thigh deep reed bed to the first island I got a shock as a snake was swimming straight towards me, it took a second or two to register that it was a grass snake and it soon veered away when it realised that I was intruding on its patch. After clambering up onto the island and creeping up to it's far margin I soon realised that the option of stalking with bottom baits was going to be limited, the water was more coloured than I had ever seen it no doubt due to an influx from the nearby river in the recent floods. That was something of a disapointment as the margin fishing can be excellent on this lake, of course you can still catch them if you can't see them but I often find the watching to be more exciting than the capture. I made my way back onto the bank and wandered along, flicking a pouch full of dog biscuits out every now and then, as usual the gulls were quickly onto the biscuits but by the time I had completed one side of the water no fish had been seen. The other bank contains some decent sized trees into some of which are fixed large ladders which are a god send for fish spotting, climbing the first two didn't help though and it wasn't until I reached the top of the third that a group of maybe fifteen carp came into view in the near margin, mostly lingering in a very shallow bay with groups moving in and out now and then and following the margin directly under my feet.

As I watched other groups of fish were seen moving in the area but the response to the dog biscuits that I fired out was very poor, the odd one was taken but at no time did the fish look like they were going to start feeding with any enthusiasm whatsoever despite a constant supply of bait drifting over their heads for over an hour. In fact they didn't look very active at all, quite unusual behaviour for early in the day in my experience, more the kind of lazing around that you might see on a hot afternoon.

With two other lakes to check out I decided to leave them to it and I hopped back into the van to make the short journey to the largest of the three pits, also the lake which contains the biggest fish with five breaking the 40lb mark. Once again the tackle was left in the van except for a bucket of dog biscuits and the catapult, I spent a good three hours wandering the banks and apart from a couple of fish breaking the surface out in the middle amongst swims already taken by other anglers I found nothing to fish for.

It was 1pm by now and the sun was beating down with an intensity that you would never have believed a week before, from central heating to shorts and sunscreen in the space of a couple of days, yet another helping of bizarre weather, in fact bizarre is becoming so regular that I'm not sure we can still use that description. I was certainly starting to feel the heat aswell as the effort of constantly climbing tree's and ladders while making laps of the water, it was time to make a decision and I opted to return to the small lake where I knew I could find a few fish at least, on route I made a diversion to the local petrol station and treated myself to a cold drink and ice lolly, heaven!

Back at the other side of the complex quite a few anglers had arrived, first thing in the morning there had only been one fishing which was unusual so it wasn't a great surprise. Another lap of the two lakes didn't give much inspiration and left me a hot, bothered, and sweaty mess so I treated myself once again and dropped a couple of rods out in a swim known as the fridge on the larger of the two pits, the swim lived up to its name, shady and cool, which was just what the doctor ordered. Another climbing tree is positioned to the left of the swim and despite the murky water I could just about make out the occasional shape following the marginal shelf directly below me however after a couple of hours no action had developed and I decided to set up home for the night on the small lake.The rest of the evening passed without much excitement, I had the odd fish nipping at floaters and had one half hearted swirl at my hook bait but the fish still didn't seem particularly interested. By nine pm three bottom rods were positioned and I crashed out under the brolly for some much needed rest.

I was up at the crack of 7am and knocked up a swift brew while I pondered on what plan of action to take, I decided that I was going back to the big lake, the water clarity was much better over there and I really wasn't in the mood to sit it out static style. First things first though and after packing up I headed straight for the local Tesco for a slap up breakfast and I felt a million times better for it too.

This time I headed around the lake in the other direction to the previous day, following the westerley breeze into a narrow bay where I quickly spotted a few carp just below the surface, game on. As per usual the gulls were soon on the scene and from my experience the best way to deter them is the beachcaster rig, they seem to hate the line high up between rod tip and float and it at least gives you a chance to fish properly. For the uninitiated the beachcaster allows you to suspend a hook bait from your main line without any other line in the vicinity. A swivel with short hooklink attached is threaded onto the line followed by a bead with a small bore, then a large sliding float is added, a piece of tubing or bead and then the lead is tied onto the end of the line. As you cast the float and hooklink fly up the line, the float and bead are stopped by a stop knot with both tag ends trimmed short, the swivel flies on, the swivel is then stopped between another pair of knots set maybe twn feet further up the line, one with the a tag end left on the side facing the rod, the other with the tag facing the lead, the idea being that the swivel passes over the first tag and is stopped by the second. The rod is then positioned vertically and the line is tightened up so that the hooklink dangles down from the line which goes from rod to float entirely in the air. On paper it sounds quite simple, in practice it can take some fine tuning to get right. The rig has had a lot of bad press in the past, the only possible reason that I can think of for this is that there was at one time a version used with a fixed three way swivel holding the hooklink, obviously that would then create a fixed rig. If the line should break when using sliding version then the fish is free to pull off the short hooklink easily.

The beachcaster, you can see the climbing ladder on the far bank

 With the rig positioned twenty or so yards out I was free to introduce free offerings from slightly further along the bank allowing them to drift down past the hookbait on the wind. Groups of five to ten fish kept patrolling the bay, the odd floater was taken but they still didn't really switch on as I would have liked, and expected in fact, I'm sure that the rapid change in temperature in the last few days had thrown them off balance somewhat. After a couple of hours it was apparent that less fish were present and I took the chance to wind in and go for a look from the spotting ladder positioned on the far bank. From that lofty vantage point it was obvious that most of the fish were holding along that bank, I had to either cast right across or fish from the other side. As I perched up there weighing up the options a great big lump of a common appeared from the left and circled in front of me, without a doubt it was one the 40lb+ fish, certainly a sight
to fire any angler up. 

Not the safest thing to climb in chest waders, it's a long old drop!

The decision was made to fish from below the ladder, not a swim, in fact it was  reedbed and I would have to wear chest waders in order to be able to reach the rod in the event of a take, with the temperature in the upper twenties again that was going to be hard work but I would survive, probably! It took a bit of faffing about to get the rig positioned correctly but eventually the piece of Magic Bread was bobbing about on the route that most fish appeared to be taking. If you have never used Mosella Magic Bread it's well worth a look, it comes as a small loaf shaped block of dehydrated material, you slice a piece off using nylon line and dunk it in water, in no time it softens up like real bread but the difference is it is incredibly resilient, I've cast the same piece hard time after time to at least sixty yards and it held firm on the hook, very useful stuff.

The next three hours were what I can only describe as heart stopping, some of the smaller fish showed a little interest in the bait and I had a few exploratory knocks but it was the big girl that got my knees knocking, twice I watched from the lower rungs of the ladder as she slowly rose beneath the hookbait before turning away at the last moment. As day turned into evening my time was running short and the fish were gradually sinking lower in the water, my chance had gone and it was time to pack up and attempt to peel off the now sweat saturated waders, lovely! In hindsight I should have also positioned a zig rig out there but I didn't, nevertheless I had no complaints and as I drove back home up the motorway my mind was thinking how much I had enjoyed the session rather than concentrating on the fact that I had blanked.