I always have plans afoot and this year is no different to any other. The Spring is the period when I am gearing up for a serious assault on Carp, Bream, and Tench at home, and the carp of the River in Picardie in France of which I have several trips planned for the coming months.
I have struggled quite badly at Bysing Wood for the past couple of years, mainly due to lack of time and a reluctance on my part to fish at night (when the majority of fish have been caught by other members). Mistakenly, I thought I could get away with fishing short sessions during afternoons but this just hasn’t worked and at last the penny dropped that I just had to start fishing the place ‘properly’.
I have also been playing around with what I call a ‘Catch-All’ method. I have been looking for an alternative to the bolt-rig-and-boily method that 99% of members use at Bysing Wood not only because I think it offers a better chance of catching the carp – but it would also enable me to target the Bream and Tench which are my priorities. Having caught two fish one ounce short of the magic ten pounds, I know there are large Bream in Bysing and it’s about time I got one!
After expending literally hundreds of pounds on different outfits I feel that at last I’ve got the kit sorted – Shakespeare Mach 2 Barbel rods (lovely, crisp-actioned jobbies with a hefty reserve of power, but light enough to give good sport with lesser fish), matched with Shimano Catana 4000 reels with front drags are the items of choice, but what about the rig end of things?
If there were a poll taken of anglers as to who is the most irritating person on TV angling shows there is no doubt the prize would be taken be John Wilson. I tend to watch with the sound turned down because I simply cannot stand his manic laughter and histrionics when he hooks a fish; he is though, without any shadow of doubt a superb angler who is very good at explaining what he is using and the best way to use it. He has often demonstrated swim feeder rigs for use on stillwater – a length of finer lighter line, attached by a four-turn Water Knot to the main line and a cage feeder tied on one end and a small hook on the other. A very simple rig, but a very effective one – my rig of choice on my first night session of the year –
Few members had turned out when I arrived so there was a good choice of available swims. Conditions were however particularly uncomfortable, a blustery wind was blowing into the Road Bank and with the hint of rain in the air it promised to be a damp and difficult night.
I chose one of my favourite spots – The Beach over on the far side. With the wind off that bank there would be shelter should it start to really rain hard and since I was intending to sit out during the night, choice was based as much on where I could fish from effectively, as where I thought the fish were.
With it being so cold still (and temperatures dropping from recent mild levels) feed had to be very parsimonious. I chose a mixture of white crumb with just a few grains of sweetcorn for the cage feeder, partnered with double-sweetcorn on a size ten and six pound line. No feed was introduced other than by the feeder and I didn’t attempt to lay a ‘carpet’ of feed in the swim with water temperatures still being so low.
Encouragingly, a carp moved a few yards down the bank to my right and my first cast plopped the feeder right on top of where it had ‘shown’; the second rod was cast to a mid-lake position out in front, a spot which had yielded me big Bream in the past. Since it was just after lunchtime, I spent the next few hours on the rods re-casting every half-hour or so to get some feed laid down although since it was by the cage feeder only and the chances were that the Roach would clear most of it up it did not amount to a massive amount. Surprisingly however I was not pestered by the normally bothersome Roach and my double-corn baits lay un-inspected all afternoon.
I was delighted to see the Great Crested Grebes had once again returned to the lake. Every March they have come back to nest and perform their charming mating ‘dance’ and to see them back once again was a pleasure. The weather however was not so welcome. Dampness in the air turned to real rain at nightfall and the wind rose in a series of gusts that at one point blew my rod-pod and rods to the ground and whipped up my unhooking mat and blew it into the water! I hate having to batten everything down to stop it blowing away but there we are, such is fishing on exposed gravel pits.
No action occurred for the first part of the night although it was difficult to detect if there was any – the buzzers kept up a constant chatter as the bobbins swayed about in the wind although I thought that once or twice I might have had short pulls of a couple of inches or so. And then the rain really set it, driving in sheets against the bivvy in a series of gusts that would persist for twenty minutes or so – then dying down to a more peaceful roar! It was during one of these periods that I had a take to the mid-lake rod………
I was on it immediately and lifted into solid resistance. As always the first few seconds were key………..what had I got? Was it a Bream? It was certainly heavy – maybe a Tench……….but as it slowly and steadily chugged off I knew a carp had picked up the bait and I let it go against the resistance of the slipping clutch. There were no dramas or undue excitements with this fish – until I got it near the shallow bar that runs across the front of the pitch.
This bar is a matter of only a foot or so deep and shelves steeply either side into deeper water; on top of the bar are many large stones and other debris on which stray parts of rigs habitually hang up. The tell-tale grating through the line was positive indication the line was hung up on the bar and I could feel the carp swimming up and down in front of me with the line caught around something.
There was only one thing to do – give it the old heave-ho and by degrees I managed to gain enough line to get the fish thrashing around on top – and finally over the bar and into the clear water where after a couple of runs up and down the bank I netted it; a fish of around ten pounds or so. Not huge, but a very welcome capture on such a foul night.
I hoped this fish would be the prelude to further catches and when I had another bite soon after re-casting I had high hopes that fish were onto the feed and que-ing up. I connected with the fish which proved to be only a small skimmer Bream – but it was action nonetheless and at last things looked as if they were warming up. No such luck however as this fish proved to be the last. The rest of the night was spent with no action whatsoever.
I was pleased to have caught the carp though – after a long series of sessions during last summer it represented a mini-result.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment