The Lake #6 I can't sleep

I always knew night would rule over day on the lake. So confirmation that the shoals of big slabs silently drift over the lake come night, hoovering up any and all bait in their way, came as no surprise. This brings with it a unique problem; we humans are programmed from an early age to sleep for an average of eight hours, rather inconveniently right when the best fishing on the lake occurs.

However modern angling has changed. We now have all the comforts and gadgets to enable us to spend nights on the bank not as anglers did twenty years ago, sleeping under a canvas sheet with lumpy ground grinding deep into our spines, waiting for a folded piece of tin foil to jerk up to the rod. This is long forgotten, as is sitting up all night shivering. Instant erect shelters and comfy bed chairs alongside electronic alarms allow us to curl up warm in slumber until that super bright LED light cuts through the dark, and silence is shattered by repetitive beeps. When with no thought of temperature change you jump into the night like an exciting child having snared Santa Claus in a dastardly trap.

I have all these comfortable things and I have trodden this Morlock life before, as the best fishing is to had when normal people slumber. A routine is developing as is familiarity with the lake; arrive late afternoon, bait up cast out, set up camp, then get my head down until the wee hours when the feasting begins.

At least that's what I thought when I slipped into my sleeping bag the other night. Turned out there was a fly in my ointment as I could not get to sleep! 

I feel sure others have endured the sensation when you lay on your bed knowing that sleep is needed to withstand that sapping unnatural night time activity. Your body knows it should be asleep, and you are forcing yourself to remember to clip up on that tiny marker on your line, so you can hit that sweet spot blind in the dark, just so you can go through it all over again should another fish falls for your rouse.

The more I thought about it the worse it got as I lay in the dark waiting. Every so often I would look at the super bright screen of my mobile phone to check the time, only to see it was only a ten or more minutes later. My brain it would seem could not switch off. I could hear every rustle in the undergrowth around me. Every hoot and screech from around the lake. A tawny owl even took residence in a tree down the bank for a good half hour where it called constantly. The fact that I knew sooner or later fish would arrive too compounded the problem, as I had the stupid idea that come a specific time the fish would magically begin to feed. My mind and nature were combining forces to keep me awake and it was driving me slowly mad.

The time when I suspected it would begin passed and an hour beyond it a light flickered feet away from my now glassy eyes. At the first sign I flipped open the sleeping bag. At a definite double bleep I sat up and by the time the bobbin moved I was fumbling for my shoes in the dark.

Solid and kiting to the left it felt a good fish. Slowly and subtly resisting it came closer to the bank. But at the string of the net I thought I had caught the smallest strongest bream in the lake. Then as I lifted the net what my eyes were seeing turned out to be different to what my arms were lifting. When I unfolded the net it turned out my tired eyes were definitely lying to me.

Another eight pound plus bream was my reward for staying awake most of the night. The capture came as quite a relief after all that waiting. Though now the idea that I was about to spend the next few hours hovering round in the chilly night air as bream after bream grubbed around my swim seemed a little daunting in my current state. It took me a couple of casts to hit the clip and land the bait in an area I felt happy with and then I lingered for a while expecting more action. But nothing happened! 

It is amazing how well we humans can hear in the dark. The buzzing of a mosquito which is normally inaudible in daylight can be pinpointed as it homes in on our body heat in the dark. It took all of three such flybys to get me heading back into the safety of my sleeping bag where, with the air of expectation broken, I drifted into a satisfied slumber.

I don't think the bream showed up after that odd lone fish or at least I never heard my indicator sound anyway as I slept. But just light broke a different bleep woke me. 

The whole time I have been fishing the lake so far I have fished two totally separate set ups. Of four rods two are angled in the direction of bream, tench  and carp. The other two are rigged to catch pike, perch and eels. The two sets of two rods are purposely fished on different indicators. The red light alarms for the omnivorous fish and blue for the carnivorous critters. Both sound very different from each other which helps along with the lights to differentiate them at night.

The only thing is that so far all action has originated from the red team. Which left me rather surprised when I heard a different sound as a run occurred. I can't deny that when I heard it, that I didn't jump straight out of bed and head half asleep too the wrong set of rods and wonder why I could hear a run but not see movement.

It did quickly click that a drop off indicator was lying on the floor and line intermittently was peeling from my open spool on my most left hand rod. Picking it up and clicking on the bale arm I could feel the fish moving away.The culprit made quite the swirl in the shallow water as I struck. Then came clear of the water moments later shaking it's head violently like summer pike tend too.  

Not massive but finally after fishing dead bait rods for over a month on the lake a predator had found my bait.
Next time out I think I will give the fish baits a miss and dedicate both of these blue team rods to the humble lobworm with the hope that I might chance upon a eel or two which I know for a fact have lingered in these waters for hundreds of years.

The Lake #4 Is that done.

I have always been prone to a niggling feeling or two and I already have a niggling feeling that I have may have been over cooking my fishing on the lake a bit. By this I mean that I am wondering that my Dresden style bombardment of ground bait may be effecting the dynamic of my time on the lake.

Sure when I have a prolonged amount of time on the bank as I did on my last visit, a mass ground baiting is perfectly logical. Given time the new feature on the lakes desolate bottom will always attract fish. But there is no doubt in my mind that the initial disturbance sends any fish resident within quite a large area scampering.
So for the shorter evening sessions putting in any amount of bait seems a foolhardy waste. Yes they will more than likely get on it, but more than likely when I am at home supping a cup of tea ruing the blank.
Thinking this has caused an early change of tack, though this experimental idea I will only apply to short sessions where I do not wish to clear the decks for the entire time I fish.

My love of the method ball is undoubted. Having that small concentrated patch of bait with my hook bait nestled right on the top like a tempting cherry to me is the pinnacle of accuracy. Even fishing over a large bed of bait as I have been, the method ball is a must. I always imagine a shoal of fish confidently moving from one pile of free bait to another filling there boots on free grub, when Bang! one of them pick the wrong one and my bite alarm shrieks shrilly before I strike.
This in mind, instead of wasting bait again, I thought I would have a go at softly softly catchy fishy. Though only intending to use a small amount of bait I did opt to super charge it with fishy attractiveness by adding unimaginable amounts of fish meal, fish oil and other potent ingredients.

So the other night I put this into practise for a few hours and snuck back to the lake in the sheeting rain to try this experiment out and see what reaction I got.

The bank was deserted and quiet. Even the local wildfowl were absent on this warm wet evening. Upon opening my bait bucket the tangy fishy stench jumped right down my throat. There was no doubting the pungency of this stuff and hopefully the fish would think so too.

Although simple, my application of it was to be organised. One bait just off the marginal shelf where days before I had spotted the tell tale fizz of feeding tench last time. The second around mid range on the marker still clipped on my rod from the previous session and the third punched out as far as my rod would allow. Should any one rod get more attention than the others, then one by one the others would be carefully redistributed into that area.

Again the night passed quietly and through the low visibitly I did spot what I suspect were rolling bream on line for my middle rod but none of them found my bait, as stinky as it was.
It was the long range rod than finally sparked into life, but the bite never truly developed. It just beeped a few times dropped, then rose, then beeped. Even bream sooner or later make a bite indicator sing when they feel the searing sting of hook.
After hoovering over the rod for an age and checking the area for tufties I finally made the decision to lift into it and was rewarded with absolutely nothing. But once the rig hit my hand the problem was evident and very unlucky. When setting up I split a boilie in two and casually tossed into the bait bucket. Low and behold I had one boilie on the hook and half a boilie impaled on the hook masking the point from whatever picked it up.

That was my only action over the short session and by dark, hunger had become the new psychological battle. Gutted to miss the only action of the night due to an avoidable mistake I made my way back through the damp woods.

Though I feel that this was no gauge of how successful this tactic can be, and it certainly won't be the last chance I give it. I am beginning to wonder if the shorter evening sessions are going to be worth it especially having to fish at range. Maybe if the damn sun ever makes an appearance I might target one of the few lily beds in the shallow bay for a spot of classical lift float fishing on a sultry summer night.

The Lake #2 steely stares and a useful discovery

It was only a few hours before that I was writing of the lake and now I was standing next to it again readying myself . The rush hour journey as always drives me mad and being keen to get into peace and solitude had only heightened the whole experience. It's not that I was desperate to be fishing, more I was desperate to be out of the city away from cars and noise. 

Although one reason for me being here was to fish, the other was to watch the lakes routine as it rolls slowly from light to dark. This for me is the most important time of the day. Call it what you will, the witching hour or that special time, but to be by water when the harsh light of day suddenly refracts less, you stand a chance to see things that all day have remained hidden. I've seen this on so many places when the sun dips onto the horizon end everything starts to move. Flat water becomes dotted with the rings of a million tiny fish, carp occasionally breech and lovely shoals of bream or tench roll gayly on the surface, and for the avid angler, they reveal their location.

I remember fishing on a pit one summers evening with a peacock quill lift float. My wriggling worms had only attracted the attentions of a few small greedy perch. As the light faded I looked out over the water and spotted a single fish roll directly in front. This was followed intermittently by others. By the time I had seen ten or more I had reeled in and was shimmying up the bank behind. At the top my jaw fell slack! In front of me the water was black with bream just under the surface. They were so tightly packed only the fish at the edges of this great gathering had outlines. I remember thinking at the time that giving a running start I reckon a good distance could be accomplished running across the backs there was so many of them. All afternoon I had sat beside that lake without so much as hint of what was out in front of me before that one change heralded this mass appearance.

So this was why I was here, to fish yes, but also to learn more. Only thing was that with the summer solstice just passed I had plenty of time to wait till night drew in, but other fishy goings on were watched as I waited. Two different carp anglers arrived at a bleached old tree that has laid in the lake for as long as I remember. One even donned his chest high waders before sliding into the water bucket in hand. He scooped copious amounts of something around the snag before teetering back to the edge. Then shortly after he went a graceful pair of swans arrived and upended, mopping up probably every morsel over the next two hours.

I watched the lake go through just about every possible scenario of light levels. From sunny and warm to cloudy with a decent ripple but not a thing moved during the entire time I was there. I stood vigil, my eyes fixed on the water, and the lake stared back. Quite honestly it felt like a shoot out scene from an old western movie, when the two gun slingers stand ether end of dusty street waiting for the other to move. The only thing that was missing was tooth picks and tumble weeds. In the end it turned out to be a real stalemate! I was unwilling to look away and it never made a move and that included bites.

There was still a hint of light on the lake when one of my rods rang loudly in the darkness but as I moved quickly towards it I caught a glimpse of dark shapes bobbing over my swim. Those dam tufty's and their flipping great memories had snuck in silently and were now taking it in turns to dive onto my bait.

Another angler I know, who shall remain nameless (unless he wants to admit it)  uses a green laser pen to scare wildfowl from over his baits and remembering this inspired me to try something. My camera has a very bright flash that practically blinds me when doing night time self takes, so I flipped up the flash and positioned myself behind the reed bed in front so as to not get too much flash on the water. I even aimed it up off the water before firing it off. Low and behold the whole flock took to the air in panic, never to return.

Only after night fell and the owls began to hoot from the old wood over the lake did I detect a few small fish flipping close by on the surface. But those tantalising rolling fish never appeared and nor did any crashing mighty fish in the dark. Nothing had given itself away and this session ended in stalemate.

Walking through the desert.

The glorious fishing of a blog ago seems like an oasis in my mind now. Since then I have spent a charming morning seeking forgotten gold on the periphery of carp fishing, where chances are few and far between! 

On that trip my theories held fast and later rather than sooner treasure was found. Though our chances were lost in the blink of an eye. Sometimes however failure reaps its own rewards, and to see a good friend brimming with excitement and glee even though he lost of a fish was, in it's own way, reward enough. That was one of those moments you remember for life.

That day the cloud hung low over us. But since then it has evaporated and I like everyone else has found myself baked by the sun. I will not moan about the weather as we Brits are so easily inclined. But as I stumbled through the week like desert rat looking for Casablanca the game has changed.

A spur of the moment mid week jaunt to the sandpit where the sun usually does no harm to the tinica chase, was a farce. On arrival the usually still surface was being thrashed to a foam in a cyprinid interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah. This gave me the distinct feeling that any efforts offered may be somewhat fruitless.
The morning dwindled away as I watched the spawning carp orgy against any and all exposed tree roots.
As is often the case with fishing when you can see a lot of fish, you just can't catch any.
Following the spawning carp as the jettisoned another generation were epic shoals of rudd feasting on the temporary bounty.

Whether the tench too were scoffing up carp spawn in favour of my baits is any ones guess. By early afternoon the temperature had soared to a uncomfortable 29c and the still hot air forced me off the bank.

I did return later to see if the cooling night brought them onto the feed, but the effects of this heatwave seem far reaching and even the witching hour seemed quiet. Or so I thought...

Just before I packed up in the half light I heard a couple walking down the gravel path behind me. Actually what I heard was the chap noisily barking down the phone about an unpaid debt. 

When they came past they obviously spotted me against the edge of the water and came over for a chat. The normal pleasantries were exchanged and obviously he had fished in his younger years which he explained at the top of his voice.

After they left I began packing up in ernest as the Canadian geese began squawking before dark fell. That was when I heard a rather odd squawk amongst the normal ones, that came from somewhere over the lake.

Then I heard it again and again and again! Peering through the dark scanning around I finally spotted the origin of the noise. The passing couple it would seem were not just out for a quiet evening stroll. They were in fact out for a noisy night liaison and I was party to it. At that I threw the rest of my kit away and headed off in the opposite direction. 

In the car on the way home I explained my story to a bemused Jacky who offered up the suggestion that maybe I was not an unwitting witness but instead possibly an reluctant element to their nocturnal activities, which I will say left me feeling a little used!

As the heat wave continued so did my staggering through the fishing desert. It was my first trip to Linear fisheries and even with less than ideal conditions I was optimistically hopeful. I mean whenever you go fishing it's a 50/50 chance of catching, right? So why not risk it at a place that could make your dreams come true.

Linear proved to a real eye opener for me. It's depth, clarity and weed came as no shock as this is what you expect from gravel pits. But we had been there less than five minutes and walked past two pegs when we spyed two 20lb plus carp eagerly circling the margins, doing a little pre spawning dance.

The area we fancied already had what looked like a battalion worth of kit piled high in it by a couple of blokes who were in for the long hall. So a challenging walk round the lake produced a couple of likely looking swims.

As for the days fishing it stayed true to the current rhythm we all seem to be experiencing right now. But for me this trip was a learning curve beyond everything I have ever seen before.

My morning was spent peering over a reed bed whilst my rods fished silently away nearby and I was ready for a move. Luckily just after I had been to scope out potential new swims, two anglers who had just spent forty eight hours fishing a point swim moved off after taking only one fish between them. To me it seemed the right move. With a four foot margin dropping away to twelve feet to my right and a shallow bar emanating straight out of the centre of the swim I could make the best of both worlds.

The first carp that passed me as I knelt on the edge forcing a bank stick into the sun baked mud stopped me in my tracks. It was only three feet away and had thirty pounds written all over it. With both rods out I stood against a bush right on the bank and gawped. This area seemed to be an intersection in the lake and the fish were on the move in a big way.

The best way to describe the scene before me is simply like this...

20lb

20lb

15lb

10lb

10lb

10lb

30lb

30lb

10lb

20lb

10lb

15lb

20lb

25lb

10lb

stocky

stocky

stocky

stocky

20lb

30lb

20lb

whoooa! 40lb

10lb

stocky

20lb 

The whole afternoon I watched carp till my eyes were sore from wearing Polaroids. One specific spot of my swim became the focal point for my aching eyes; three rod lengths out was a clear patch in the weed where the gravel was polished by a thousand sucking mouths.

By now I had noticed a marked difference in the behaviour of the carp. Some were intent on following each other keen to spawn and they moved fast, oblivious to everything. The stocky's just charged round like a gang of teenage boys. Some of the mighty old fish drifted slowly inches under the surface without a care in the world. All except for the spawning fish had one thing in common - they would not so much as put a fin over that clean gravel. Even if it meant going out of their way to go round it they did. But one group stopped just as they broached the edge of the gravel. They had blatantly caught the scent of the four jaffas of mixed goodies I landed on it whilst the coast was clear. But they would not venture on.

It wasn't until a smaller shadow drifted carelessly in and had a few mouth fulls that they appeared off the back off the bar. The smaller fish had me more excited as it was what I was here for. At half the size it was a huge tench but it took only three or four mouth fulls at the most before drifting on it's way. The carp however did not move an soon cleaned the patch off without so even touching my hook bait.

I tried every bait I had from boilies right through corn and ending up at worms. But these were cheeky fish. Me dropping bait right on their heads didn't bother them one bit and even my lead plopping in never vexed them. Then I started seeing the passing fish were slowing and investigating their lake-mates activities.

At seeing that I quickly changed onto a small zig rig and cast it onto the edge of the patch. 

This was worse as I could see the bait high in the water and the fish just passed by it again and again. That was until I walked off to get a drink. I returned back to my sentry duty but could not spot my bait under the ripple. As I walked to my left a bit the alarm went off and the reel span like mad. Just as I wound down on the fish I could see one of the small stocky's shaking it's head violently trying to dislodge the hook which it did!

The zig produced nothing else but the interested few were still intermittently dropping onto the clear gravel patch. So back out it went to no avail. A couple of liners and one dropped run on a popped up lob worm was all that side of the swim produced for the rest of the session.

As the end of the day drew ever closer I did have a good tench roll right over the top of my deep water rod. This did have me hovering over right until it was time to leave.

Even with one lost fish and one dropped run I can honestly say this was not a disappointing trip. For one I had two more runs than anyone else on the lake that day and the sight of all those carp was just so amazing any angler worth his metal would have had there eyes glued to the lake like hawk. I walked away happily from linear just as the sun began to burn the water and already I am thinking a trip back after the distracting breeding season is over will certainly be in order. 

Sniffing out new water.

This past week I managed to get in two sessions on a new water. For a few of my angling/blogging buddies it is a regular venue on their yearly schedule of lakes, with others recently joining them. It is however totally new to me.

I agreed to meet up with Keith on Thursday for my first foray into the unknown. I arrived quite a lot earlier than Keith after chipping off work early with the express intention of having a good look round and tapping up the locals for any inside info.

My first sight of the lake confirmed I had vastly overestimated the size of it, but the gin clear water and clean gravel that could been seen from the edge made it look rather nice. I did speak to a few natives and it seemed as I heard before that some accurate spodding was order of the day.

When Keith arrived I opted to fish  an adjacent peg to him as during the few hours I'd spent exploring, peeping and generally grubbing around the lake I hadn't seen a single sign of fish.

I started by banging out 15-20 large feeders of ground bait onto a deepish area with a nice clean bottom  then put a feeder rig baited with a few grains of corn on top. My second rod was rigged up with a method feeder rid and cast into the margins.

Over the next few hours my rods remained absolutely silent and I never even got the slightest indication of any fish moving over my carpet of bait. Eventually I spotted a couple of feeding patches that betrayed the subsurface location of at least two tench. It didn't take a few seconds for me to cast the method ball into the area. With still no reaction to my baits I was round in Keith's swim chatting away when the rod hoofed off like a it was attached to wild animal. By the time I had the rod in hand the fish had moved maybe thirty metres form the left to right and was not far off a nasty snag in the margins. Locking down the clutch I turned it back into open water and managed to get it into the side towards the waiting net manned by Keith. A large green side was all I saw as it rolled on the surface and snapped my hook link. Keith did the sensible thing and disappeared off to his own swim and left me cursing myself for not letting that clutch back off.

Later I had a second run which was dropped, and as evening closed in on my third screaming run off the night I made contact with a second,  allbeit smaller fish, which turned out to be another tench which also came off in the edge.

I never expect to do really well on a new lake especially one like this with clear water and a natural population of fish which probably have no reason to ever eat an anglers bait, but this session had given me a glimpse into how the fish feed. To be honest I reckon that all the disturbance I caused whacking in loads of bait was probably detrimental to the fishing and searching them out with small parcels of bait worked much better.

I know for sure that the rods I brought along were far to heavy for the job in hand at 2 1/4lb. But I had convinced myself that I would be throwing large feeders long distances all night and the lack of give in those rods were directly to blame for the lost fish.

Two days later I went back with Andy to have another go this time opting for a couple of swims in a wooded area of the lake. We had arrived very early and there seemed to be signs of life in front of us. This time two method feeders went in. My hope was to try and pick off a fish here and there using the softly softly approach. If you can call method feeders softly that is. 

My swim never sparked into life at all but Andy's on the other hand seemed to get regular visits from moving fish and in no time he had banked some very nice tench.

I was starting to wonder why my almost identical baits which were not that far off Andy's were receiving no attention at all. I decided to go off and have have a mooch up the bank in the area I had fished only a few nights before. Upon arriving I spotted Lee on the opposite bank and also two or three patches of tench fizz in the area id fished before. It was a no brainer and soon enough I found myself set up in the swim. For the next couple of hours I sat and watched the feeding fish move off round the corner ignoring my baits as they did.

I received news that Andy was still on the fish and made that difficult decision to move back to the swim which had produced nothing before, but I knew there were at least fish in the area.

It's not easy to stand watching as your mate mullers the lake whilst your rods sit idle close by, but as I did Lee turned up and reported nothing more than two liners/dropped runs as well as two other experienced anglers suffering the seeming same fate.

Finally whilst I stood nattering my right hand rod ripped off as a feisty male tench made it's bid for freedom.

The lighter rod I had brought this time performed admirably in subduing the savage diving runs and lee slipped the net under a perfect 4.4lb male tench.

Check the fins on that!

At last I had landed one! Not the biggest tench in the lake but a pretty damn perfect one as far as I am concerned. Whilst  we were fishing I began to suspect that the fish that Andy was encountering were either moving along a specific route that didn't come as far up the bank as I was fishing or that they were following a bar which may have been a little further out in my swim. Ether way I did eventually get a run and I know for sure this lake will get a few more visits over the summer from this tench addict.