Thursday, May 22, 2008

In the interests of honesty and faithful reporting, I am about to recount what amounts to the most embarrassing event in all my years of carp fishing; it’s making me cringe as I recall it!.........

I decided to have another session at Bysing Wood – this time after carp. For many years, reliable ‘hot-spots’ around the lake have consistently produced fish and all the old-timers in the club know exactly where they are and what they must do to produce a take. One of these spots is in a swim known as ‘The Compound’, a dug-out situated right in front of the old gravel-washing plant which used to be used to clean the diggings in the days when gravel was still extracted. To the left of the swim and a little way down the bank is a willow tree which now grows out over the water – and a few yards out in the water is the hot-spot from which the carp are caught. At regular intervals, summer and winter, carp swirl in this spot, and a well presented bait at some point during a day’s fishing almost always produces a fish. It’s a poor day when nothing shows in this spot and if they can’t be caught here, they probably can’t be caught anywhere.

You can always tell when the fish are active by tell-tale swirling; curiously, this action is confined to a small area the size of a coffee table and you have to be pretty accurate in placing your bait right on it. Quite what it is that makes this few square feet of lake so appealing I have no idea, there don’t appear to be any snags, depressions, plateau, bars or any other feature, no change in the bottom such as soft or hard mud, mussel bed, bloodworm bed, McDonalds Burger Bar – nothing. They have always liked it though.

I wanted to try something different today. Due to my unemployment, I have spent a lot of time watching the fishing channel 274. Matt Hayes demonstrated a Method Feeder fished ‘Helicopter’ style with plastic corn as bait at Horseshoe lake catching loads of Tench. Since I had never caught a fish on artificial baits before I wanted to give them a serious go under propitious conditions rather than a last gasp last resort. I decided to try and emulate Matt Hayes’ Helicopter Method Feeder style using two grains of pop-up corn with a number 4 shot an inch away from the hook and milled Vitalin as the groundbait.

I have found burying the bait in the groundbait to be very successful at Bysing Wood – I think the fish prefer to see hookbaits right in the groundbait as distinct from on their own outside of it; it also makes the rig 100% anti-tangle.

I threw out some balls of Vitalin before lobbing the rig right ‘on the money’ and fished the second rod (rather half-heartedly I must say) out towards the middle of the lake in the faint hope of one of the big Bream. This was daft really as conditions were bright and sunny, not at all what I would prefer for the species; I’d have done better to have fished something else for the carp – but there you go. This was a silly decision on a day of silly-ness which proved to get silly to the point of humiliating embarassment!

There was lots of activity on the part of the carp which weren’t really feeding on the bottom – they were cruising around just under the surface and the sensible thing to have done would have been to try for them with Chum Mixer on the surface or pellet fished just under (or come to think of it, the floating feeder – now there’s a method worth a go). Today however wasn’t really about hardcore fishing, it was a relaxing day down by the lake getting away from the troubles of unemployment. I have never been unemployed in my life, and at age 57 it takes some coming to terms with i can tell you!

It was whilst I was fiddling about with something that the hot-spot rod roared off! I didn’t have to strike as it was just a case of hanging on while the clutch screeched and the fish powered off up the bank. The Shakespeare Mach 2 Barbel rod was not only remarkably sensitive to the lunges of the fish but had enough power for me to impose myself on it – the fish swung out towards the middle of the lake and I knew that barring the unforeseen she’d be mine.

The scrap was intense with the fish coming to the top and thrashing the water to a froth. It was a really active common that was all over the place and fought much harder than the fish I’d had in France recently. Eventually however I got it over the net – and just about managed to scoop it up it was so long! My Korum circular net is 26 inches across the frame and the fish overlapped by some way! I had to use a scooping action to get it in and even though the fishs’ tail folded in, there was a real danger it could hop out! I dropped the rod and managed to get hold of the frame to prevent the fish getting out and hauled it up the bank onto my unhooking mat. My first reaction was that the fish was enormous! The length of it was tremendous! There was a distinct possibility that after thirty years of fishing at Bysing I had at last caught one of its thirties!

I quickly got out the ‘Avon’ scales which I don’t really like using as it is easy to make a mistake counting the revolutions of the needle to mark the correct weight – but after zero-ing I popped the fish in the bag and watched the needle go round to thirty-two pounds exactly! I was overjoyed with this and yelled across to my good friend Stan fishing opposite to come round and help me take photographs which he did whilst I waited at the margins with the fish in the water (in the net). I could tell by the wry look on Stan’s face when he arrived that he was circumspect,

“A thirty? You sure!”

He had come equipped with his digital scales and we re-weighed the fish there and then……

“I can’t be absolutely certain And’, but I don’t think it has lost ten pounds in weight in the time it’s taken me to walk round!”

“What!... It can’t be!..... Oh no! Don’t say I’ve read me scales wrong!”

Yes dear reader – today’s prize for Plonker of the Week goes to – yes! It’s Andy Spreadbury! For failing to read his Avon scales properly and not being able to see at a glance that a twenty-two pound fish wasn’t in fact thirty-two!

Even as I write this I hang my head in shame. To be adrift by one or two pounds in estimating a fish’s weight is understandable; to be wrong by five pounds you could put down to poor judgment, but ten pounds?!

Seduced by the prospect of a thirty I allowed my ambition to override my common sense……..

My excuse is that the fish was exceptionally long and lean, and hollow; and oh yes – was sucking its stomach in at the time; and yes – was on the Atkins diet and must have a size zero obsession.
That’s my excuse anyway………