My first viewing of the old pool at the start of the new season was on the Wednesday afternoon, the day before kick off. I pulled into the car park to see just one other car. With the excitement and anticipation levels rising i got the kit over to the pool, got the polarising glasses on and went to view the lake. I was fully expecting to see the fish cruising around the weed beds without a care in the world. How wrong could I have been?
Having mooched around the lake for an hour or so, I had seen there was little or no weed actively growing which made swim choice more difficult. I opted for the Birches just over the stile. As darkness fell, so did the tiny grains of hemp and a good few hand fulls of maggots, just to the back of the pads in front of the swim. The other rod was to go out over a loose bed of the big halibuts. At midnight out went the halibuts soon followed by the hook bait. The left hand rod was quietly plopped in on top of the hemp and maggot bed just after midnight.
After a short period of semi darkness the dawn chorus kicked in and I still hadn’t got around to shutting my eyes. Tired and half eaten, I had a quick sneaky look at the lake over the willow herb to see nothing showing at all. Brew on and the day dawned. Within the hour the sun was peeping over the woods and heating the lake up. By 10am I had seen just one carp. It had come out from the ‘sunken boat pads’, turned halfway across the channel and gone straight back. That was enough for me I set up the stalking kit, fitted an overbalanced rubber mixer on to the hook shank and proceeded to stalk my way around to the opposite bank. Up until I got the sunken boat pads to the left of the pipe swim I had seen nothing work casting to. When I got there I was amazed to count 14 fish sat amongst the pads, some only 4ft out from the bank! I slipped into the silt up to my thighs to enable me to cast from underneath the alders and to enable me to land a fish if I was to be so lucky. I hardly made a swirl.
I looked around for the biggest fish visible and plopped the mixer a foot or so away from the fish. It turned and swam away. I smiled, so it isn’t going to be that easy then. After a good hour and a fair few recasts to other fish, again getting no interest shown, the big fish made an appearance again. It looked a long chap and was undoubtedly a mirror with plates on the flank. I just had to have that. I took a guess at the route it was likely to take through the pads and got the hook bait in position at least 8 ft ahead of the fish, with it sitting just off the back of a pad leaf with little more than an inch of line on the surface. Come on you lump, come on, come on and slurp, up she came head right out and away went the mixer, straight in.
I struck and felt the rod bend right through as she piled out through the pads into the channel. Damn I hadn’t tested the clutch. By the time I had everything under control the fish was out in the main channel. How the hell was I going to get it back through the pads? She turned and headed in towards me. I got the rod as high as possible and kept the line like a bowstring. Always trying to keep as much of its head up and out of the water!. She broke through the thick pads into a clearer area in front of me, and tiring she made a few quick darts along the bank which were soon checked and into the net she slid.
Biting through the hook-link i threw the rod up the bank Struggling, I got myself out of the soupy, stinking silt and lifted the net and fish. Once onto a mat in the pipe swim she settled down, I washed the silt off her to reveal what I recognised as one of my main target fish , a fish of incredible age, having been stocked into the pool during 1974
Onto the scales and she slid them round to 19lb14oz.
A few photographs later and I went back into the lake with her. She took a very long time to stabilise in my hands; I was starting to really worry about her state of health when she expelled a load of air from her gills and started to liven up. A few minutes longer and she was ready to leave me and swim away, bowing up the margin and straight back into the pads. Elated I cleaned up and went back round to the kit for a well earned brew.
With the water being so coloured, spotting fish was nigh on impossible. Even the marginal spots were difficult to see through to the bottom. Having had 2 nights in the birches and seen nothing I opted for a move to the climb swim adjacent to the Rhododendron bushes. I had been priming two spots in there for the previous two nights, one of which was less than a foot from the bank in 3ft of water. This had been meticulously cleaned of all the tigers and crumb, leaving a lovely looking spot for me to hand place the bait. The rig positioned and I laid the line slackly across the bottom to underneath the rod tip. At the range I was fishing there would be no need for a bobbin to indicate a take! The second rod went out with a halibut on the hook into the natural clear spot and had a kilo of hemp over the top. Surely one of these would go off. During darkness I awoke to a series of bleeps on the marginal spot. I crouched next to the rod expecting it to tear off, it never moved.Once the light levels had risen sufficiently the following morning, I was up having a sneaky look at the spot. The bait had been moved around and much of the crumbed tiger nut had disappeared. I don’t believe a carp had been the culprit but more likely a tench or bream. I am confident a carp would have eaten the lot as such a small quantity had gone in.
Time ran out and the session had to come to an end. I pre-baited much of the arm of the lake with a few kilo’s of halibuts and as I made the walk to the car park my head was full of thoughts for the return in a couple of day’s time. I was back on the bank less than 72 hours later!
As I approached the point I could see carp frolicking all over the bay. What a complete difference a few days can make. The water was gin clear and the weed was up in the bay. Every carp in the lake was all over it spawning heavily. Damn this was likely to be a waste of a session. I made the decision to stay and give it a go. I’ve never felt so unlikely to catch. I settled into the alders as this would give me a great view of the lake and also help control this half of the bay. I opted for a hand placed tiger bait under the alders and a halibut rod out to the corner of the pads. I also flicked out a few pouches of mixers to the weed to see if the carp would show any interest. Nope they were ignored until the mallards found them. That day and the next two nights the fish were constantly thrashing around in the weed, making them highly unlikely to feed. I was starting to think I was wasting my time, other than I was able to see the whole stock spawning by spending hours up in the trees spotting. I had primed a few spots throughout the time I had been here, nothing had been taken from any of them.
On the morning of the 3rd day I had put some mixers into the corner near the stile, the wind had pushed them out towards the weed beds and a couple of fish were showing some interest, after I had seen a few slurped down I reeled the rods in and crept round, climbed over the stile, and again crept Indian like to the first tangled swim to get the wind coming from behind me. With me fishing a rubber mixer without a controller float I knew it would be easier to control my positioning of the bait. After some time a fish came cruising in 5 yards out. I twitched the mixer into its path about 6ft in front. It saw it and turned, coming straight up and over it. I struck and all hell broke loose. After a few short bursts of speed up and down the margin I saw it was a common. My heart leaped in my chest I thought for a split second ‘The common’ then realised this could not be the big-un, as I had seen it take the bait and there was no way this was a mid 20, it tussled around for a while as I gradually eased it into the net, elation, I had banked my second carp in two sessions. She was handled with extreme care and was weighed in at 16lb 2oz and quickly photographed after which she was slipped back and off she went first time.
The rest of the session was sadly spoil ed as I stepped off a stile and turned my ankle badly. I spent a couple of hours with it in the stream trying to get the swelling down. The drive home was agony, and after a trip to hospital it was found I had a couple of hair line fractures but not broken any major bones, but I had damaged the tendons and ligaments on both sides and the top of my foot. That was me out of the game for a while!
Ten days later, having had copious amounts of rest, anti-inflammatory and painkiller's saw me attempting the drive back to the old pool. I arrived in pain, walked the kit up the bank and took more painkillers. Looks like I had pushed myself too early. I opted for the climb swim next to the Rhodes as there were two nice clean spots on there. The baits were positioned within minutes and the home was put together. That afternoon I saw a few fish cruising around the bay so my confidence for a pick up was high.
By 9pm the following evening I had not seen a fish for over 12 hours! A quick scan of the bay and I saw nothing. I hobbled round to the arm to find a shoal of carp cruising up and down between the ‘dugout’ swim and the last peg, I opted for the dugout.
A rod was flicked out to the pads opposite with a halibut pellet on, this was then surrounded by a further 10 pellets, with another 20 scattered loosely along and just inside the pad line. The second rod was positioned about halfway across the arm on a tiny bag of tiger nut crumb and a peeled tiger nut hook-bait.
As darkness came on I saw 3 fish come past, heading out of the arm and away to my left. Some time later after dark, a fish crashed loudly in the channel to my left out of my sight, but the ripples hit the bank I was on so again my confidence was high. At around 6ish I heard a lot of rustling behind my bivvy on the path, I looked over the top to see a mink dragging a young rabbit towards the fallen tree. Following it quietly I watched it struggle to drag the carcase up the trunk and into a hole. I returned to the kit and brewed up. Within minutes I heard the rustlings again. The mink had come back out from the tree followed by 4 little fellas. I went back for the camera but when I returned I could not see any of them. By 10 am I had seen nothing swimming in the arm at all. Time had run out and the session had to come to an end. Thoughts of the move to the dugout filled my mind for the following few days, it had definitely been worth the effort. The set of pads opposite is in front of the sunken boat and has a cut in where the fish seem to get tight to the pads when cruising the edge. My mind was full of images of them doing just that.
Wednesday came quickly for once, work done, car packed and I was off. I got to the waters edge with half of my kit. Dumped it under the oak on the point and got up into the alders. There were a few fish sat tight in the Canadian weed raft. They were going to be tough to extract!
I was struggling to climb these trees at the moment with my foot still causing me pain and problems so I went down to the birches and crept out to the boards and scanned the channel. Nothing to the left, but a few cruising near the dugout! With a wry smile I went and got the gear and rods, fought my way through the willow herb and brambles to the arm and dumped them in the dugout. From here I can watch the whole of the arm to my right, but can see very little to my left. I went and got the rest of the kit. When I arrived back I could count a shoal of 7 big bream off the first boards swim and a few carp cruising along the pads and two on the second board. I dumped the kit and fired out 20 halibuts to the pads for the carp to hopefully sample without the pressure of lines in the water. I set up the mixer rod and went in search of a surface fish. For more than two hours I positioned baits in line with fish, tweaked them to their noses, cast and drew back, but I couldn’t get a single show of interest.
Flummoxed and cooked from the incessant sun, I knelt on the boards for a rest. Seconds later and a good fish crept into the shallow water in front of me. It turned to face the far side. I overcast and very slowly tweaked the rubber mixer towards the fish. When it was inches away I stopped and let the slight surface movement drift the bait to the fish, it rose and took it; I struck and pulled the mixer out of its mouth! It boiled and shot away from me disturbing a further seven fish which in turn spooked and too shot out of the arm, bow waving all the way. I was furious with myself, not that I felt id done anything wrong, just didn’t connect hook to skin. There were now no fish between me and my kit so I headed back to set up and get some bottom baits across the arm. The fish will have to come past to get back down to the shallows. Sounded like a plan to me.
I flicked the rods out and feathered each one down to reduce the depth the lead would go into the silt. Two rods out and I was done, both positioned tight to the pad-line. With the kettle on I was sat on the floor in front of the bivvy when the left hand rod gave a series of single bleeps. A fish started rolling right over my baits. Convinced it was hooked, I lifted into what felt like a very heavy fish, I leaned into the rod, getting a full arc from it, as the rod was trying to straighten it gently pulled the fish from the sanctuary of the pad line into open water. It fought well but didn’t try to head in either direction; it just seemed to want to boil around at the end of the line. A short spirited tousle and into the net she slid. A quick look into the net and I saw a big slate grey leather. A fine fish indeed , whilst treating the hook hold I took stock of the beast. A pure slate grey leather carp without one scale on the gill area, spine or tail but with a single tiny fingernail sized solitary scale on its right flank. She also had the smallest set of fins I have ever seen on a fish of those proportions, maybe explaining the style of her fight. With the weighing done and dusted up she went for a series of half a dozen pictures. 22lb 14oz and to cap things off nicely she was my biggest fish of the year so far.
Upon returning her to the water she was raring to go so I let her slide from my hands. She porpoised out across from the dugout, straight across the arm, and crashed back into the pads from where i had not 5 minutes before extracted her from.
The following day was quiet with very few fish migrating down into the arm. I spent much of the day up in the bay trying to tease a fish off the top out of the holes in the thickening weed. I settled back into the rods in the ‘dugout’ at about 5 in the evening. Temperatures in the arm on this side were at least 5 degrees cooler so spending some time sat in the shade was very pleasant to say the least. A cool tinny down the throat and life was feeling good. A lovely 20 the day before and one or two fish starting to show at around 7pm was giving my confidence a boost. Just after 8pm I got a series of bleeps. Again I struck immediately. As I did so, I became aware of a fish rolling a few feet to the left of where my rig was positioned. The fish had kited along the pad line. Only this time it had been slowed by a flying back lead getting tangled in a large patch of Canadian pond weed. I managed to haul the fish back to the weed. This was not playing a fish but just pulling. I managed to get the ball of weed moving towards me. I could see a small stocky mirror thrashing away trying to pull itself free of the hook. Pop! Off it came. Gutted weren’t the words. I skull ed the weed raft in and cleared through it to trace my rig and tackle.
It would be a further two weeks before getting any further run-ins with an old pool fish. I spent a couple of days chasing fish all around the lake, but to no avail. The day time temperatures were up at around 29-30C and nights were at an uncomfortable 18-22C. The fish seemed to be spending the majority of their time stuck in the pads with their heads buried. No amount of teasing with surface baits could even buy a bite. I'd concentrated my thoughts on the dugout but with the temperatures so high the Canadian pondweed was growing at an alarming rate. The arm was now choked but the weed had not reached the surface, whereas in the bay, the weed was forming a completely solid raft, from one bank to the other. I had arrived to find one or two fish sat in this weed. I opted to have a real good look around.
Within the hour id seen little to go at, at all, so decided to do what I never do and that is to drop myself into the point swim. The day passed with barely a sighting of anything other than large shoals of perch and shoals of silver fry fish coming through the clearing between the bank and pads opposite.
I sat up late into the night watching the water between me and my baits, hoping to see a fish cruise through under the cover of darkness. By 3am I was whacked and rolled up in a blanket and got some sleep. Dawn chorus woke me shortly after. I stayed put expecting something to show up in the pads adjacent to my rigs.
By 8am I was getting frustrated, I had seen nothing. I reeled the rods in and climbed the stile into the birches. Sneaking forwards towards the waters edge I peered over the Willow herb and Flag Irises to see at least 8 good carp ripping up the weed only a few yards out. I sneaked backwards, got to my kit and re-baited up both rigs with halibuts, grabbed the two rods and net, and got on the fish. I placed bait a few yards from the nearest fish on the left and put the other rod even further from the fish. I just didn’t think dropping them amongst them would be productive. The fish were covering a fair bit of ground anyway. Occasionally they would drop down and a large cloud of silt would explode up from the bottom. 6 fish drifted over my first bait and continued towards my second. A fish dropped down and the alarm screamed a single tone as the fish tried to bolt off up the arm with its friends. I fish locked up when in heavy weed and because of this the fish could go nowhere. Once I was in control I slackened off a little on the clutch to reduce the risk of a hook pull, but in no time at all, she was tired out and slid across the top of the weed and into the net first time. A quick peek saw a large plated linear of good proportions.
Out onto the mat and up onto the scales in the sling. 23lb on the nose she weighed. An awesome beast and most certainly one of the best looking fish I have caught in some years.
With the weed now growing at an alarming rate, I can see the lake being un-fish able within a week or two. I had been keeping a few spots clean with hemp and pellets on them but I had decided to take a large bucket of particles this next session. The plan was to feed the mallards! By continuously re-applying half a dozen pouches full every couple of hours it would encourage the ducks to revisit the spot and in time this would clean it up for me. I arrived and was all set up in the birches by 2 am. While setting up id heard a fish roll in the channel and seen the ripples crash against my bank. Made up I had positioned both rods off the cleaned areas that I already knew to be there. After a light sprinkling of hemp seed I settled back for a couple of hours sleep before the onslaught of sunshine. I was woken by a couple of line bites. I sneaked a look over the sedges and willow herb. There were a couple of good sized carp cruising through right over the baits. Not long to go I thought. It was mid morning before my right hand rod bleeped then tore off, with fishing such tight spools, the fish could take no line but was making a good effort at removing the rod from the rests. I turned it from the thicker weed and it cruised in towards me, straight into the net. A quick glance and I realised this was my first recapture. Stubs again, only 2 weeks since I had last banked her. I unhooked her in the net and lifted her on to the mat. After a couple of shots she went back, basking out across the lake to the dugout pads. She crashed into them and I lost sight of her. I repositioned the rod in the exact same spot and brewed up. Ah bliss. A re-capture but this fish had suddenly given me a major confidence boost. They are undoubtedly on my baits now. The proof was in the pudding.
Due to unforeseen circumstances and a family holiday my next session would be 4 weeks later, I arrived and searched the lake but saw nothing, I decided to drop on the point swim, mainly to give me a good vantage point , the rods were positioned and I settled back with a mug of coffee. The day came and went and I was woken at first light to a screamer from the rod on the pad line, a short but spirited fight saw me slide the net under one of my 2 target fish, the large common.
Id must have spent months of my life searching the lake for this fish and had only ever sighted her on one occasion. At 23lb she wasn’t the biggest fish in the lake but she was so welcome. The rest of autumn came and went with a few more fish in the low 20lb bracket gracing my net but the big old warrior was still being very elusive.
I spent my second winter on the gate swim watching the fish follow the sunlight around the lake just as they had the previous winter. Late January would see me lose a really good fish as a hook link was cut through on an underwater snag, but 4 weeks later I got my 2nd take of the season and hit into a lump.
This take came under darkness after a decision to sneak the hook baits down into the out of bounds area with the help of the rowing boat. I lowered the baits down one either side and sprinkled a few baits around each one, the left hand rod was off the sunken boat area and the right hand rod was off the dead pad line to the right of the channel. It was to be this left hand rod that would peel off in the dead of night.
After a zig zag battle up the arm and into the bay the fish went solid, it had managed to tangle me around what could only have been a submerged lily rhizome. Furious I was at a loss as to what to do, I put the rod back on the rests and decided to get the boat out, as I opened the boathouse door my alarm started to beep away to itself, I nipped back to see the fish taking line, lifting the rod and feeling the fish I really couldn’t believe it had come unstuck, into the net at first asking and she was mine. I reached down and felt a hook in the scissors, popping it out I realised I was not attached to it , yet it was certainly one of my rigs ! Unbelievable! it was my cut off from the previous take a month earlier. Again I reached down and this time unhooked my present rig!. I flicked the headlamp on and took a quick peek into the folds of the net, and there she was, my warrior, clad in her scaly plates, the fish id sought after for nearly 2 seasons and over 1000 hours of angling, finally mine! At 28lbs 12oz she was weighed , photographed and returned to battle another day.
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| hard work paid off ! |
