Website Updated 11 May 2012

Written by Geoff Rauf

The weather through the week had been in the high 80s by the time Friday came around so I wasn’t in any rush to get down the lake. The fact we had a report 31 degrees at Gravesend didn’t fill me with too much confidence that the fish would be doing anything other than floating about.

Setting up in such extreme humidity isn’t my favourite thing, plus the areas I was looking to fish weren’t exactly shady. As I pulled into the car park there were quite a number of cars – fair weather fisherman eh.

After going through the usual process of loading up the JRC Easy Loader (brilliant bit of kit), id reached the swim within 15 minutes, and was set up within an hour. Once again my chosen swim was the ‘Island’, as having pre-baited the week before, and with the natural channels full of weed I knew these had to hold the fish considering the conditions. With a South/South Westerly blowing straight into the island this made my decision a lot easier too.

Rigs consisted of a 4 Inch hooklength, snowman presentation on two rods, tied with Kyston Mantis Gold 25Ib, to a size 6 Owner curved hook, and long hair. I never worry about using bigger hooks in the summer months as these fish aren’t that fussy, and its hard going so when you do hook them you don’t want to be let down by end tackle. The weed is really starting to grow and playing a heavily weeded fish means a step up in tackle in my opinion.

Once all 3 rods were in place I sat back to admire a stunning Friday evening, and really couldn’t think of any way id rather be. Incidentally apart from the Tench Angler (next door to me), and the first swim (which offers seriously shallow water and access to the shallow channels around the bird islands) there was nobody else fishing down this end of the lake. Many of the regulars had chosen the swims further along the lake, and the kind of casting effort required to hit the other side of the bank just isn’t suitable for my kind of fishing. Many of these boys can hit distances in excess of 200 yards using 4-5oz leads, and very hi spec casting rods.

The first night was spent tying up some Zig rigs because the forecast was for the hot weather to continue. Although I’m not a huge fan of fluorocarbon I had purchased some Berkley Vanish during the week from Mick at Norwood, and was curious as to how it would perform through a Zig presentation.

ZZzzzzz …..I called it a night around 10pm again after a very long days work in the office, and with Mozzie doors firmly down drifted off to Carp land dreaming of 50Ib Mirrors and naked women!??!!? I mean 50Ib Mirrors being held by naked women!

I awoke around 5am (bloody body clock), and sat up watching the water over a brew or 6. Nothing was showing, and it had been an uninterrupted nights sleep so breakfast was prepared consisting of an Omelette, over 2 chicken fillet thingy’s (top chef I am), mounted on top of a large white bap x 2 – okay I was hungry!

Around 1am John the Tencher popped around for a chat and it was at this point things changed on this session. John had been on his usual morning stroll and located a number of Carp showing in the bay I’d fished a few weeks previous. All he mentioned was they were ‘showing in numbers’. With that bit of advice and another cuppa downed I brought in the rods and went for a look myself.

BEEP, BEEP…

Its ok this wasn’t the rods but the words coming from ones mouth. NOTE: Any children reading this article, please be reminded the words ‘Beep, Beep’, can be read out of context and may actually imply the author was saying ‘oh jolly gosh’, or ‘oh twiddle-sticks’.

As I stood in the bay swim I must of seen close to 30 fish moving about on the surface, jumping, and it was clear I HAD to move..

3 messy barrow loads later in the blazing sun I was set up in the new swim. 2 zig rigs were carefully cast out at around 50 yards range, and the 3rd rod, a Chod rig was lobbed at 110yrds close to an area of bushes.

Between Saturday afternoon and into the evening I must have had half the population of the lakes Carp pass through my swim, the ‘liners’ being received and the shear number of fish showing, leaping, cruising on the surface, and generally ignoring all attempts to be caught had to make this the most frustrating thing I’ve ever experienced on this water.

By tea time my old sparring partner Jason had turned up, one of the lake’s baliffs he knows the water well, and has caught some truly stunning fish over the years. The fact he lives 2 minutes down the road, and runs his own business also helps. By the way check out the Photo of Jason’s ‘Huckleberry Finn’ style camp!

The swim I was in was a double and Jason set up in the swim to my left. Dinner consisted of Tesco’s own ‘Kebabs’. To be honest they were really nice too although had been disturbed at one point while Mother Duck and her hubby, alongside 4 chicks made their way through the swim, and into the lake…awww….Orange sauce anyone?

By 8pm the fish had started to show a lot less, but still the liners continued. Questions were racing through my mind, were they spawning? Were they just passing through in numbers, maybe my rigs were in the weed and hidden?

I recast all 3 rods around 10pm, found 2 clear spots to my left and straight ahead at around 45yards. The weed in this swim is prolific and you have to be in the clear spots to have any kind of chance. Indeed if you do hook a fish you have to play it very carefully and keep the rod tip as high as possible if you want to avoid losing them.

After putting the world to right with Jason, and a detailed discussion on fluorocarbon and chod rigs I settled down for the night, or so I thought. It must have been around midnight before I collapsed on my bedchair, with the mozzie doors zipped fully down. The south westerly was blowing hard, and the odd fish crashed out in front of me.

I was very confident having changed two of the rigs from Zigs back to snowman, but this time changing the hooklength material to ‘Green Mantis’ – to match the weed. Around 2 kilos of boilie were also fired out over the two rods both in clear patches, that I’d tirelessly found during the day with the marker rod. I do actually believe I made the clear patches hauling back stacks of weed!

That Saturday night was the hardest fishing I’ve ever done in over 22 years. The liners continued throughout the night, and I also had 2 runs which I lost, one of which snapped the fluorocarbon completely. Every 5 to 10 minutes the alarms would emit a single bleep, then a drop back, then 5 or 6 bleeps, then a run…Grrrrr…I was in out of bed more times than I had been the whole of last year, it was truly ridiculous, and by 6am both Jason and myself were totally exhausted with tiny pupils for eyes – we looked like one of those cartoon characters needing sticks to keep your eyes open.

The only good thing to happen was Jason landed a lovely 22.5Ib Common around 5.30am, and that fish I think was the only one feeding!

To cap things off completely I had just lost another fish (bloody useless fluorocarbon snapped) and as I was retrieving one of my rods when a large fish spooked over this rod, and shot off at speed..Grrrrrrr…I had had enough!

I headed home leaving Jason, who was fishing another night, tired, and needing my bed quickly. The hot weather had dehydrated me during the day, the fish had worn me down during the night, and to blank when there were obviously huge numbers of fish in front of me, and lose two fish to boot was more than enough for this session.

Next weekend will see lower temperatures and I’m hoping after 5 days back in the office, and back to my normal bed, with proper sleep I will return to ‘lake de frustration’ to pit my wits once more. Whether I will ever see that number of fish showing on the water again is doubtful, but maybe I don’t want to after this weekend.

Back next week with more.

Yours Mr Blanker       Click Here to visit Geoffs Website

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