In a cruel twist of fate, Wil my fishing buddy went on his third summer holiday of the year, leaving me wondering what to do. Eventually, after much thought, I decided on minimal gear, my pole, the storage box that I keep my pole gear in to sit on, the two landing nets and the sling-and-bath with the scales inside them. Off I went to Tri-Nant Fishery, drove past Mallard Lake (Wil’s favourite,) and headed for my favourite, Dragonfly Lake.
It was nine o’clock on a week day, the lake had been open one hour already, there was a mother with two children paying in front of me, but nobody else on the lake. The mother chose peg one, and I drove on, not to be away from the children, but because I could immediately see from the water’s surface that the light breeze was blowing down towards the end of the lake, towards peg eight, and that’s where I stationed both me and the car.
Regular readers will know that my teenage grandson does most of the heavy lifting work for us when it comes to taking all our gear from the car and later taking it back, so having the car five yards from my peg, and having minimal gear was ideal, and I was soon set up and ready to plumb up. On my nest were three top kits; the one on the left for the left-hand margin, the one in the middle for straight out in front, and the one on the right for the right-hand margin. It’s the only way I can keep tabs on which is which. Luckily, I can only afford three.
Lately, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to plumbing up and have ditched the “that will do” attitude. The left-hand lake edge came out and went back in again, which was awkward, but a semi-circular grassed area that cut into the bank, with reeds either side of it, looked fishy and at around top-kit plus one distance, so I plumbed up and found it to be flat, with the plumet right next to the bank. The righthand bank was all reeds. If I kept to top-kit plus one, then the float (and plumet) ended up just off the reeds and placed between two tall reeds for a marker, seemed ideal. The bottom was flat but sloped off quickly, so I plumbed up for the flat area and marked the base of both floats on my top kits with my yellow construction crayons, in case the floats moved. Don’t forget though that my pole is a Preston Innovations Edge Monster and the top-kits are longer than a normal pole’s top kits, so I also had to mark ‘point zero’ which is a rubber hook guard, in case that moved.
Out in front was a different matter. Top two plus two more sections produced a flat area, any further than that and the peg seemed to slope away dramatically. I plumped for the flat bit and plumbed up for top-two plus two, and also top-two plus one, for later in the day, marking both float positions on my top-two.
I don’t have a cupping kit for the Edge Monster but do have a large cup for the initial introduction of bait. That bait is what we call the new groundbait. Just to reiterate, that new groundbait is a few handfuls of birdseed placed into a gallon tub, then a load of micro pellets soaked in fish oil, then the tub of what was left of the made up green and brown groundbait, followed by more fish oil, some ‘hot & spicy’ liquid fish attractant, and finally a couple of squeezes of mango extract and a squirt of krill oil. Over the months, this has been added to by 1Kg 'Mainline Baits' Stick and Bag Mix, 1Kg of 'Crafty Catcher' PVA friendly Natural Hemp, and 1Kg 'Sticky' Bloodworm spod and bag mix. The banoffee haze wasn’t being used to coat method feeders now so that went in, the rest of the brown groundbait, green groundbait and the bloodworm went in, and the mixture was then too dry. The rest of the bottle of mackerel ‘n’ squid attractant that we used to freshen the sticky pellets with all went in, followed by the hot & spicy, PVA friendly goo in a large bottle, all emptied in. This, I figured, should bring carp in from anywhere in the lake, eager to find my 6mm pellet. But, was it over feeding?
The first large cup went into the left-hand margin, the next into the right-hand margin, and finally one out in front at a length of top-kit plus two, using a marker on the far bank which was a white window frame leaning up against a barn some thirty yards from the lake edge. I then had time to organise the rest of my kit to make it easily accessible without getting up from my black storage box, to have a munch on a sandwich and drink some coffee, and then to start fishing each swim in turn.
On each introduction, a half of a small pot of the new groundbait went in to stimulate the swim. I am torn, to be honest, between two systems and I believe that match anglers would see all of the above as overfeeding the swim, while rod-and-reel carp anglers would see the above as laying down a bed of food to fish over.
The left-hand margin produced first on a banded 8mm pellet, being a fish from that little semi-circle of grassed area. What went through my mind as it took my 18-20 elastic for a jaunt across the lake, visiting all of my swims one by one, is that the benefit of a pole is the accuracy of cupping out groundbait, and also being able to access areas that would be too dangerous to try and cast to, whereas the disadvantages are trying to keep a fish under control for longer periods than if it was on a rod and reel, having to add sections to control the fish, and not being able to seriously ‘wind in’ by using the elastic puller until you get down to just the top two.
The fish that destroyed my swims was a very angry four-pound common carp, not weighed but estimated at that and released from the sling in a patch further down the lake where the reeds parted. Another large cup went into that tiny area where I’d imagined that Mr. Angry had used his tail to disperse everything, and I changed top kits to fish in front.
The top-kit for fishing in front ended in an easy-stop and I’d just bit a bit off the end of a Peppearmi. I took another bite, nibbled the hard outer away, put the stop on a needle, pushed it through the meat, and turned the stop to hold the meat on. A small cup of the new groundbait went out with it and it wasn’t long before a carp that didn’t fight as hard as Mr. four-pound-angry, took the meat and he was weighed this time at six-and-a-half pounds. That swim received a large cup and then my attention turned to the right-hand margin.
While staring at the float, waiting for something to eat my banded 8mm pellet, a honking was heard in the distance and got louder by the second. There were more anglers on the lake now and collectively, I know we all prayed “Not this lake, please, go somewhere else.” Luckily the thirty-five geese (yes, I counted them) flew on somewhere else, probably to a field of grass where they would nibble at the grass and poo everywhere.
That right-hand margin, produced a few bites that were missed, followed by a definite ‘eat and run’ job from common carp number three that, on being netted, looked much bigger than the six-and-a-half pounder and had a deep belly. At seven pounds he was only just bigger, but I realised that things were moving in the right direction, weight wise.
I went through the groundbait and move on procedure, got back to the left-hand margin and was surprised to see a largish carp doing what I can only describe as rolling about on the top of the water, enjoying the sunshine, maybe looking a bit drunk. He almost took my float out and I was powerless to move because if I did, a foul hooking was inevitable. Whether it was him, now on the bottom, or another fish in the same swim, I don’t know but seconds later a carp took my float under, headed for the middle of the lake, jumped as if impersonating either a marlin or a salmon, shook the hook out and carried on with his day.
All of the above action happened between nine in the morning and two hours later, at eleven. Nothing happened then until three-twenty, except for either sand martens or house martens (I know the difference but they wouldn’t let me see their bellies) coming in to drink from the water and they seemed to also eat insects above the water. At three-twenty, I was fishing top kit plus one in front of me, but using top kit and two, so that I didn’t have to fumble to add a section if playing a fish. The hook length had been changed to a banded pellet, mainly because I’d eaten all the Pepparami, and it was this 8mm pellet that caught a fighter that felt as if he’d been foul hooked but, on being netted and taken to the carp bath, turned out to be eight pounds and hooked in the top lip.
All went quiet again and I’ve mentioned in other blog posts that the biggest disadvantage of our new groundbait is that the addition of hemp doesn’t help the mixture one iota, because it floats and then drifts away. But, the stars aligned, nature became at one with my head, the beauty of carp feeding on the surface stilled my heart, and all other clichés I can think of. My pole was in, the hemp on the surface deposited from my right-hand margin was floating in front of me, and a carp with a huge mouth was gulping in water and hemp and coming towards me. Carefully, extremely carefully, I shipped out my pole towards the floating hemp with the banded pellet an inch away from the surface until it reached the boundary of the hemp area. I saw the fish thinking and put my words into his head as I lowered the pellet onto the water’s surface but kept the hook out of the water. “Oh, more hemp, I’m loving this, and even more hemp, and wow, look at that pellet on the surface, what a bonus.”
I needed no indication, I saw the pellet disappear and even knew he was hooked in the top lip. He knew that he should have stuck to the hemp and shot out into the middle of the lake and made me feel that either my hook length would break, or my mainline would ping, or the elastic would take no more and snap, or the Edge Monster itself, which was now bowed in a semi-circle, would shatter.
It was one of those fish playing moments when you know that anyone on the lake that can see you is watching, it appeared to last about twenty minutes, but probably took less than five. He gave up eventually and slid into my landing net and when I tried to pick the net up, I knew it was the heaviest fish of my day and the fifth common. He weighed in at exactly ten pounds eight ounces, so increasing my personal best by four ounces (We’ve only been fishing a year remember). Not having Wil there to take a picture of me holding my prize, I took a photo of him in the weighing sling, thanked him for his company, and slipped him back in.
For various medical reasons, too complicated to go into here, I had to sit down, take my pulse (Fitbit) and wait for it to become more regular. I then, while sitting, had a philosophical moment. The carp has increased in weight all day, the chances were that if I stayed, I would probably catch a carp of five-or-six pounds. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a fish of that size, but I didn’t want to spoil the moment of my ten and a half pounder, so I slowly packed up and went home to shower, smile, and have tea as an extremely satisfied angler.
The 10.5lb common that was nearly the length of the sling and carp bath.