March saw me trying to keep the wind coming off my back and
with the Northerly winds we were getting this saw me concentrating my efforts
on the back wall. The first weekend saw the densest fog I have ever fished in,
settle on the fields around the mere. In fact, from the car park I couldn’t
even see the stile! Things felt good on this session especially after the
sighting of not one but two carp roll off to the left of the big peg just after
darkness. Baits were, as usual, fished in the normal feeding spots, but to no
avail. Self doubts had settled in after many long winter nights fishing but
things were starting to look really good and the following few sessions just
saw everything slotting into place, buds swelling on branches, activity from
critters in the undergrowth, pheasants waking me at first light and shrews
everywhere ! A few sessions into March saw me move back over to tench corner,
the previous weeks wind was pretty much a constant south westerly, this pushing
into the little shallow bay on my right. The lake was seeing more and more
newcomers each week and due to this I started to bivvy up to the right of the
alders, mainly to reduce the risk of an unwanted neighbour moving into my area.
Odds were low on sighting fish due to the waves, crashing all along the bank.
Baited zones were established as quickly as possible, with the usual marginal
spot set up; my right hand rod was put out the 70 yards to the reed bed just
off the third platform. This was a single Active 8 pop-up mounted up about 1”.
The middle rod was put out on a halibut pellet and fished over a pva bag of 4mm
halibuts. Having had a visit from Andy, I found out that Rob had caught a dozen
fat tench over the last couple of nights. These were all caught at range from
the double peg on the back wall. After watching Rob for a while I could see the
range he was chucking his leads. Long. By my judgement he was dropping them on
the hard mound in front of the 3rd and 4th platform. That night the wind and
rain increased in their vigour. Every few seconds there were waves crashing
against the side of the bivvy. According to the local weather forecast we were
to get gusts up to gale force 6 - 7, no problems I thought I’ve been in worse
than this.
By first light I was considering a move to the back wall for
some protection and maybe some sleep, I had not slept too much as I had been
hanging on to the bivvy for all it was worth. I started to wrap the kit up when
the middle rod went off with a wet screech. A half minute later and I was
unhooking a mature bream of around 6lb, back it went and out came the rods. A
quarter of an hour later saw me in the relative calmness of the double peg,
tucked in tight to the Holly tree, rods out at range, (all three), kettle on.
Bliss.
The Radio provided me with regular weather reports and the
forecast was looking really bad with gale-force winds of 8 -9 and driving rain.
Thankfully now off the back of me. The reality of being in the lee of the trees
was brought home to me when the first branch hit the water surface 10 yards
out. During the afternoon I awoke three times to hear trees cracking and coming
down in the woods.
Later in the night I would wake to hear another four trees
cracking, on what sounded like the sunken island to my right.I awoke to
belting run on the left hand rod, I hit it and it kited to the right, then
nothing. I reeled in to find a hook-length that was shredded, damn pike! The winds were still hammering at the bivvy and after
struggling to survive it i decided to call it a day. Walking back through the
woods I had to make two detours to get round the downed trees and branches and
had to unload my trolley to get past the big oak that had snapped off about 15
foot up from the ground.
The last weekend in March saw yet another blank session, but
this time it was event-full. After thinking I had seen a fish rise in front of
board 3, I had reeled my rods in and went for a wander. The entrance to the
platforms is now destroyed and would be a challenge to get your kit onto them! I balanced my way on and crept along. With the reeds having died back, I had
little natural cover so moved slowly, putting my feet down carefully every
footstep.
As I sneaked down to the 3rd platform a fish bowed out from 10 yards
in front of me! Gutted but sort of pleased I checked out the others the same
thing happened again this time of the 5th platform. I turned and shot back to
tench corner, buzzing. Two rods were thrashed out, tight to the reed beds and
left for the rest of the session. Again nothing!My head was done in, the fish
were obviously starting to move, and it had to happen soon. It just had to. The
end of March and the start of April saw typical British spring weather, sunny
one minute wet the next, hammering down the next and so on.
8 am Friday 2nd of April saw me loading the car, with the
sun shining and temperatures looking good. Forecast for the weekend was for a
wet one with sunny spells. All done, all I had to do was to drop the little-un
off at school and I was away. I sat to swig the last of the coffee and I was on
my way. On arrival a quick chat with one of the regulars on tench
corner and I was away to the back wall. A quick phone call to Rick to let him
know i had the back wall covered, there and then he arranged for the afternoon
off and would be getting here just after lunchtime. Whilst baiting up the middle rod, the male swan put in an
appearance and started to steal what I was putting in, thankfully he doesn’t
seem to be able to find the 4mm pellets. As I’m using him as a marker there is
a good swirl to the left, the swan looked and cleared off, carp or pike?
Minutes later back he comes now finding some of the 21mm baits. Rick arrived and set up in the stump swim to
my left. We were made up, the fish were showing and the sun was shining, what
more could we want? A big fat carp, that’s what. After the success of last
season my targets this year were for three fish, ‘The Pretty one’, the larger
leather and the dark scaley one. How badly I wanted that dark scaley. Having
lost him off the surface in June from under my feet I really wanted to add him
to my list.
My traps were freshened
up just prior to darkness, the left hander out at 140yds on a single halibut
pellet tipped with half a flouro pop up. The middle was also on a halibut over
the spodded bait and the right hander was 20 yards past the corner of the
sunken island on an Active-8 tipped with half a flouro pineapple.
Everything looked perfect. “Come on fish” Just after dark my middle rod roared off and after a few
short runs produced a pike of around 5lbs and one trashed rig. I made another
and cast the rod back into position. Just after finally dozing off at around
midnight I had another run, this time at range on the left hander, I hit it and
felt a good weight at the other end. This was it, it had to be. After a long
hectic fight I netted the fish, elation. I looked into the landing net to see a
huge pike.
 |
| nasty horrid things |
Rod cast back out, cuppa’s gone and back to sleep. I
awoke to yet another pike 20 minutes after dropping off, again to the middle
rod off the large bed of bait. This time it was just nicked in the scissors of
the jaw and my rig was fine. I woke to find myself crouched behind the rods, my
right hand delkim light was on, screech, it went off; I hit it and felt
something kite out into the lake. After a long spirited fight I finally had the
fish ploughing up and down the margins, clipping my other two lines. I reached
down and sank the tips into the margins; this was a carp for sure. Into the net
first time, up went the arms. I strained to see into the mesh and saw scales,
lots of big scales, and a line of scales to the tail. I’ve done it, the dark scaley one and he’s
huge”. First fish of the year and it’s a target fish! Into a sack for the few
hours till daylight and I was getting no sleep. I find I cannot sleep when I
have a fish sacked up; I tend to sit alongside the sack stressing out. The
weather put paid to that when I suddenly realised it was lashing down. With a
break in the rain at 8am and light levels increasing out onto the mat he came
and up into my arms for the photos. Away he swam unaware of the extreme
pleasure he had given to me.
 |
| well worth the wait when they look like this |
Other than a sighting of a fish lumping out towards the oaks
at range I saw nothing all day. A tench arrived late in the afternoon and other
than liners I would receive no further action for the rest of the day, Oh well,
who cares. The rain became heavy and persistent for the rest of the evening and
well into the night. Sunday morning saw Rick wake me up with a fish on,
crashing into the line on my left hand rod; out quickly to help him I netted a
carp we have not seen prior to this capture, of the slate grey variety, a
lovely looking fish of 12lbs+. Smiles
all round and time to wrap the kit.
The decision to have a 5 day session over the Easter bank holiday had been taken during the middle of a freezing January night. With good
foresight Rick and I decided to organize the time off work to fish the week
following Easter. This was chosen as we presumed there would be a serious
amount of anglers on the lake for the duration of the holidays. How right we
were. We planned for a Monday lunchtime arrival hoping pegs would be clear of
anglers and cleaned out by the swans and duck population. As the date had crept nearer the preparations
had stepped up a gear. Bait was organized and involved a 25kilo bucket of
pellet and hemp mix, a few kilo of 18mm Maple8 boilie’s, a few kilo of the new Halibut
boilie’s and 3 kilos of 21mm Halibut pellets and a kilo of 4mm pellets for
bags. Seems a lot and certainly added to the weight of the kit.
Thursday evening i was at home tying up some pellet rigs and I received a text off one of the lads, he tells me he has gone down to the mere and is fishing in tench corner. He
goes on to say that there are 6 other anglers on the lake, two on the back
wall, two on peg 1 and two on peg 2. Gutted to say the least ! Over the
course of the weekend I would get to hear of a few captures, firstly was that the
tatty mirror had graced someone’s net from the back wall alongside a stocky
carp of around 10lbs. The chaps on peg 1 had also had some stock fish around
the same weight.
Sunday
lunchtime would see the lake empty with the exception of Ian who has now moved
into the double peg on the back wall. During Sunday evening I received a call
from another lad letting me know he has set up in tench corner for just a quick
overnight session and will be going shortly after our arrival. That’s handy as
it frees up what I feel to be the top peg on the lake! I know where the common
will show first and its here. I know how badly Rick wants that fish so I may
back off and let him go in there. We’ll see.
That gives
me two real options: Peg 1 involving 2 long range rods to the sunken island, on
single hook baits, and one off the little island over a big bed of bait, or fished
short just off the reed beds. Or option 2 Go and muscle my way in with Ian on
the back wall and try to get all my rods as close to the usual spots as
possible. There is a third option seeing as I have my waders packed and that is
to fish the little snag island peg and get into the water to cast. Decisions,
decisions. Still none
of the biggies have shown, oh how glad I am to here that. They’re waiting for
me and Rick to show up that’s why! All I want is the Pretty One and the big
leather
Tomorrow
seems so far away……..
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