Finding better fish on popular venues!

After another trip to my home water in the pouring rain, I discovered a little secret I'll share. It cannot really be a secret if everyone knows about it, but many may not, so!

At each lake I've fished around 4pm carp move into the margins, and are very active. Fish especially long lived fish like carp, have an excellent internal clock. I could give you dozen of examples, but you'll have to take my word for it. It's based on light, and temperature rather than minutes and hours, but at times it can be rather spooky how close to a given time they can be. Imagine if you will they live in a place they know really well, they know where the sun sets and falls. In summer they move into shallow water to feed at last light, emerging in the morning to deeper water once the sun is high.
In winter if you find a bank that catches the early morning sun, the carp will be present. They will have a favorite place to rest, feed, and hide. What I'm saying is carp get use to things happening around them, and adapt their lives around it, particularly when it's to their advantage.

Matches are run on all the lakes I fish, mostly from 10am to finish 5 hours later around 3pm. What do most anglers do with the little bait they have left, they drop it in the margins rather than take it home. Carp know this and once it goes quite and the bank-side disturbance ends, they move into the margins to feed. At both the venues I've fished recently, I could have touched the fish with my bare hand, so close did they come. The are also less fearful, why I don't know but they are. On my last two visits I put this knowledge to good effect buy putting bait at my feet with purpose.
I could watch the fish feeding, coming and going, not getting heads down, but grazing in water that showed all the backs. At the local lake these fish are between 4lb and 16lb at the other lake all over 10lb. I simply kept tiny amounts of bait going in, then places a baited hook in the center of it, when a better fish appeared. This way I could pull the bait away from a small fish, and wait for something better. Crouched behind a small clump of rushes I remained fascinated just watching carp feed. It's really something to behold after sitting behind rods and buzzers watching you quarry at close quavers.

You don't have to cast far!

Both fish I took were doubles, but I missed a much better fish or possibly 16/18lb. But guess what, it and I will be back.

See you on the bank.

Bagging up!

So what is bagging up? Well it's a term for catching many fish in a sitting, a 'Ton up' is 100lb of fish. 

To me 'bagging up' is an anathema. I've simply never been a numbers person, enjoying the going, nature, the fish themselves and solitude have all been part of my journey. But catching a decent number of fish in a sitting is satisfying. It must be like scoring a century in cricket, or a 147 in snooker. Surly catching is why we go, otherwise it wouldn't be called fishing would it? So just to be clear, I don't put fish in any kind of keep-net and I lose count after about a dozen, but I am enjoying catching fish. What I have found creeping in over the last half dozen trips is, I'm looking for the better fish in the lakes. I'll fill you in more as the blog gathers pace, but it's something in me that just cannot be suppressed, it's in my DNA.

 Still full of life even on the un-hooking mat.

Well the rain is still continuing, and the Trent for me is UN-fish able.Just too brown and high for constant catching, or even a chance. So I'm fishing a nice venue with five lakes all manicured to perfection,  set in deep countryside so the drone of everyday life is replaced with birdsong and the occasional scream of a well set reel clutch. My first trip was a steep learning curve, but I quickly came to terms with it and landed three nice carp to 6lb.
The second trip was much more productive in terms of numbers and species, with not only carp, but roach and barbel seeing the inside of my landing net, over a dozen fish in just a few hours. The carp fighting like crazy, with me learning the playing possibilities of my new Daiwa rod on some impressively big carp.

Even Barbel are stocked into many of the still waters! I'm not really sure.

 My last trip was to some well known lakes near Grimsby, well in the countryside to be honest, but not far from the conurbation itself. Again just bird song and no road noise, this place was rather busier than my local lakes. I fished a lake called 'Bronze' about an acre and a bit in size, very attractive and like my local lakes you have to congratulate the owners for there foresight and hard work in keeping it so nice. I shared the lake with several other rather loud anglers, that had clearly come together and wanted to tell the others every-time there float dipped or the quiver tip twitched. I'll have to get use to this I know, but it was rather tiresome! All three were catching off and on, so I knew I'd get a few myself.
I set up a small 28 gram method feeder with 2 mm and 4 mm coarse pellet soaked in lake water and Thai fish sauce. At just over a £1 a jar it's much cheaper than buying some additive from a tackle shop, and it works. My new Daiwa Feeder rod was set at 11' with 8lb main line on an also new Shimano feeder reel. This reel is 4000 size but has a wider spool, more 5000 size, Very nice, smooth with a non jerky front drag. Hook-link was a 9lb Preston line I like very much. Normally you would use a lighter hook link, but as I discovered the first time I used the method feeder, if you go lighter you can snap the hook-link on the strike. It's because it's pre-streached and very short, in this case 4''. If you fish a safe feeder and it breaks, the fish cannot tether itself, also the other fail-safe is a barbless hook.

After about an hour I'd only had one fish. Normally on natural lakes this would not bother me, but I knew I should be doing better on this place. Since my arrival I'd been baiting a margin swim to my right, along side some reed-mace and close to some lilies. Just a handful of 8mm pellets every 10 minutes along with a few grains of corn. I didn't know if these fish would spook on corn as many fish do these days, it's used do much. So just a few were introduced for visibility, my hope being they would drop down and see the pellets?
Id arrived at the venue mid-morning and now it was past lunch, so I decided to take lunch and continue fishing after some refreshments. I'd packed some warm Focaccia bread with sun dried tomatoes  soaked in Olive oil on top. The oil had soaked into the bread since it came from the oven that morning. With cheese and a fresh apple I sat back to admire the lake itself while I consumed lunch.

Set in the Lincolnshire Wolds the place was beautiful, reed lined with clean fishing platforms set a decent interval apart. It was as if the place had been their a hundred years and totally natural, sadly my trip was marred somewhat by the condition of the carp. I can only say the mouth damage was totally unacceptable, maybe that's something I'll never get use to?

After lunch I switched to a light bomb 1/3 ounce with a 12'' hook-link and a orange 10mm boilie. This turned out to be the answer as clearly the fish had gotten their heads down during the non fishing time I was baiting. Over the next few hours I took several much better fish, including three over 10lb and several smaller fish in the six to eight pound class. All taking the rod off the rest as they headed towards the lilly pads. The new quiver rod perform admirably, it leaves me in no doubt it would cope with much bigger fish.

 It's nice to not have to walk too far these days.

Stunning surrounding in many places I'm fishing.

My Dipping Float.

This is my new blog, welcome. 

You can still access my old blog. www.smallstreambrowntroutfishing.com. But for the time being I've stopped fly fishing due to 'old bones' being unable to get around the very steep banks, and I'm sitting down more fishing old style, with a float. I'm loving it to be honest.

Summer What Summer.

Ive been fishing some local coarse/carp venues, often called 'commercials' waters. The ones I've been to have really opened my eyes. Both in how attractive they can be, but also just how easy it is to catch fish. 

I'm from a wild fish background, rivers lakes and pits where naturalized fish breed, but mostly in very low numbers. There is a simple truism, that if you don't catch you cannot improve, if you cannot catch you don't know what your doing wrong. When your catching lots of fish, your able to 'practice' to see if you can improve your catch rate, hope that makes sense, it does to me. So I'm having a massive but enjoyable learning curve, something in over 40 years of fishing has been often hard learnt.

In my neck of the woods we've had a massive amount of rain. So much so that a planned trip to the local river Trent was postponed. Instead I've been fishing some small local lakes, and catching some amazing fish, mostly carp. 

 Two nice carp that fell to 'Bomb' tactics after failure with a method feeder.

I've sold a ton of gear on E-Bay and re-brought some much lighter tackle designed for this type of fishing, match style tackle you could call it. In the coming weeks I'll feedback with some reviews of both tackle and venues I'm fishing.

Please follow and give me the support you've given in the past. I'll try and give you something of interest each post.

See you on the bank.