Muggy Weather Felt By Carp And Anglers.

The weather got hotter and hotter throughout Europe, and as the UK weather forecaster announced, it was practically unheard of for us to have two heatwaves in June. On the last day of June, at Wimbledon, play was temporarily stopped because spectators fainted, cloud cover came in overnight, the heat could not escape, and the first day of July was muggy, very muggy. You only had to move slightly to start sweating so by the time we’d off loaded all the gear at Tri-Nant, Mallard Pool, and set up, Wil was asking me if I’d fallen in the pond, I looked so wet.

We’d done our usual walk around Mallard and noted lots of carp floating along on top of the water at the shallow end, and bubbling and fizzing from bottom feeders in the same area. We set up on the peg we’d fished last week and it seemed the obvious thing to do.

The rods were out, mine were dry PVA bags, Wil’s were method feeders and my pole was resting against the fence for later.

Things were different for this trip with both the PVA bags and the method feeders having been made up at home. We learned from the damp groundbait attacking the PVA so this time three new dry-mix components went into the bags and the bags were wrapped in kitchen roll. Maybe overplay but it worked.

The bags, that were getting more and more technical, were made up like this. Size 8 banded Drennan method bandits with 10lb 2" hook lengths, onto a 2oz running ledger with short stem removed with pliers and bag stems inserted. Most anglers seem to use 4" to 6" hook lengths but my idea is that 2" keeps the hook bait close to the pile. I mention the removal of the short stem with pliers because someone on Amazon suggested not buying the weights because the stems don't come out.

To the hook length was added, either a pink or yellow 10mm wafters, then line was added to the top of the bag stem, through around 6" of Korda Dark Matter super heavy tungsten rig tubing to keep the line on the bottom, then a loop was tied ready for a loop-to-loop connection on the main line.

As the rigs came in from the pond, as skeletons, I placed them in a plastic bag ready to be made up again for the following week. Firmly in the memory was that last week we used the old groundbait mixture with its various oils and flavourings in it, made up the bags 3 or 4 days before fishing and they started to disintegrate and to stick to each other.

The current groundbait, or bag mix, was all dry stuff and all new.

Into the large PVA bags went a mixture of 1Kg 'Mainline Baits' Stick and Bag Mix, 1Kg of 'Crafty Catcher' PVA friendly Natural Hemp, and 1Kg 'Sticky' Bloodworm spod and bag mix.

As expected, Wil stuck to banded hooks on method feeders but beefed up to size 10 hooks on 9lb line and added the rig tubing above his method feeders and found that the tubing slid nicely into the rubber tail. He kept to his smaller pink wafters because he's found that bigger wafters can get stuck in the feeder. Weirdly, the large wafters and the smaller wafters are both labelled as ten millimetre, mine being measured across the diameter, Wil’s measured end to end as a dumbbell.

As soon as the four rods were set up, and after a two-minute rest under the umbrella, I told Wil I was off with my phone to record a video explaining the topography of the lake, where the fish are in the winter and the summer, and where we’ve fished in the past. I got half way down the lake when his alarm went off and I had to rush back.

A four-pound common went into the net, followed by a two-pound bream for Wil, and then it got complicated with some carp being filmed, others not filmed because they fought too hard and needed both of us to concentrate, and keeping up with the count became impossible.

As a rough estimate, Wil caught around six carp that day, all between four and seven pound, I caught two carp on dry bags, both around five pound, a five and a half pound common on my pole with an eight-millimetre pellet, and a couple of six-ounce roach. Although it was an enjoyable and busy day, it had to come to an end.

The morning had been muggy, midday saw a breeze that managed to turn the wind turbine that is down by the mint, but at late afternoon that breeze dropped. We packed up early, were in the car by five, and drove home with all four windows open, exhausted.

Putting the video together took me longer than expected, but it was a first timer for me. If interested it can be found at https://bit.ly/4l7ouEP and will help if you want to fish this venue. Other ponds may follow.