Website Updated 11 May 2012

Written by Geoff Rauf

Talking about the weather throughout the week and loading the car. Unloading the car and loading the barrow. Walking the path then unloading and throwing the rods out, and blanking. That is, in a nutshell my weekend’s entertainment, and has been since the middle of June. What am I doing wrong? I have no idea! Should I be fishing with the distance boys perhaps, but at what cost? Financially I would be looking at the best part of £800-£1,000 for new distance rods which is impossible. Maybe a budget set would cost £200 to £300 but I’m hard up anyway so that’s not an option.

I popped into my local tackle shop on the way home from work on Thursday night. I had promised Aaron we would have an hour’s dangle for the Rudd on the smaller of the ponds on my club’s complex over the weekend. I also needed some PVA string so I could tie back the chod rigs while in flight.

This was our last weekend fishing together, ‘the hoodie and I’ (was that a film)? He will be back in the autumn, but I’m unsure whether he will manage the colder temperatures. My season so far has been dire to put things bluntly. I’ve had more weed than a hippy, but of the green oxygenating kind. I’d drowned a few thousand boilies, but made good progress in setting up ‘camp blanker’ in double quick time, from barrow to a full set up inside of 15 minutes.

While other members proudly paraded the banks sporting the latest photograph album containing photos of huge Carp, I had nothing to show. The last Carp I’d caught was two years ago so you will understand why my patience was indeed beginning to wear a little thin.

During the week I’d had a call from a friend who had landed two very large Mirrors of 32Ib, and 37Ib respectively. The 37Iber was actually a repeat capture, and a fish he had at low thirties last season. Unfortunately both of these carp came at long range so once again I was out of the picture in terms of jumping in his swim. They certainly were packing on the weight, and this empowered my motivation.

Wednesday night I soaked some particles and threw in a tub of Dynamite’s frenzied maize, along with some old boilie and pellet. The bucket must have weighed over 15kg and I knew this method would be ‘poo or bust’, but something had to change. I was going to spod heavily over one rod, then fish the other two as per the normal process with 20-30 boilies.

(Altogether now) Let’s spod again like we did last summer, lets spod again like we did last year. Oh that’s pitiful but still the plan remained. I’d spod till I dropped, at night, during the day, in my sleep, and fill in one spot. The aim was to try and lure the carp over into feeding in this part of the bay I’d fished numerous times before. In an ideal world a team of friends would work on a baiting plan but I just didn’t have that option. Most of my pals had a social life, were busy, either married with kids, or were working. I had to do this alone as I had always done on here. Seeing as there was no success with a small introduction of bait, I had to try something different. Does that make sense to you, is it a good plan in your opinion, I mean if I was a carp wouldn’t I like that plan, going further aren’t my particles a pretty colour. Oh for crying out loud!

The forecast was South Westerly winds, humid conditions and 25 degrees. This was bad news for the reasons I’ve talked about before. I know most of the boys fishing up the far end of the lake, and regularly had conversations with them during the course of a season. This year however I’d hardly seen anybody about, which raised questions, ‘had I been dragged into the usual lake politics and was being blanked’, ‘was this just coincidence and I was being paranoid’, or ‘was my deodorant the problem’. I always liked Old Spice.

We arrived around 5pm to humid conditions and heavy clouds, with rain imminent. Upon reaching the swim another mate was occupying the left side, so after yelling some abuse at him for swim poaching I set up to the right. This was a double swim allowing access to the entrance of a large bay. I knew where the clear patches were so didn’t have too many issues in locating them with a marker and 4oz lead.

Into Friday night and all 3 rods were in position, two at close range, one heavily baited with particles courtesy of a spod. The third rod was at around 90 yards off the edge of the bird island. I was still fishing Chod rigs on 2 rods and 1 with a snowman, but I was planning to switch one chod for standard bottom bait the following day. The hoddie was having a chat about gaming with my mate, who is also into all things virtual when I heard a noise from the path behind. I went to inspect but there was nobody in sight. Upon my return to the swim I had to squeeze myself around the side of my bivvy and over some vegetation. As I walked through my foot caught on some of the old tree branches and I fell forward having no time to reach out and cushion the fall. My friend and Aaron sat about laughing their heads off while I turned over on the floor in pain. I laughed as I slowly got to my feet, but winced as a sharp pain shot through the left side of my ribcage.

Friday night passed by with the humidity still high. Rain had also continued to fall in a sideways motion as the south-westerly wind picked up. Before I hit the sack I cast 4 or 5 more spod loads of particle out which wasn’t easy with the pain I was experiencing.

Saturday morning I woke around 7am and sat there realising this lake was completely beating me up this season. Due to the humidity Mr. Mozzie had bitten me a number of times, and of course I don’t think it helped I hadn’t put the door down. Toasted cheese sandwiches were provided to all courtesy of the cheese toasty pockets. I expect most of the guys here will purchase these over the coming weeks as word gets about. They are truly excellent.

By mid morning I had reeled all the rods in and took Aaron over to the small pond behind for a touch of tiddler bashing. Half a pint of maggots, a sized 16 hook to nylon and a float rod saw him catch Rudd non stop which put a smile on his face. I still recall catching my first Perch from Virginia Waters many moons ago. There is nothing like seeing our younger generation enjoy catching fish, learning the skills involved, and asking a thousand questions of the fish related kind.

By midday the yearly festival set up near our club’s car park had begun playing its usual tutor style racket. Luckily the strong winds kept us from hearing the full charade. By the end of this session it would be 18 nights in pursuit of the fish, and I was really beginning to get uptight about the lack of action. In fact I had the right hump.

Saturday night came and went. There was no point going over the finer details of rigs, bait, spots I fished. Nothing happened across the board apart from a family of swans who had decided to pick off the particles left in the margins by me spodding continuously. The only indication I had was from the swans knocking the lines.

Sunday morning I packed up slowly in pain. My rig cage hurt and I needed help in putting the bivvy away, and loading the barrow. Aaron was brilliant, and even managed to push the gear halfway back to my car, what a soldier. I am going to miss fishing with him because as he grows up the conversation becomes more interesting. We are now borderline girls but still edging the world of gaming, crossing over to more relevant stuff like carp fishing tackle and tactics.

Upon reaching the car park, and by the time id unloaded all the gear, the club’s committee had set up a stall and where about for a chat, and a cuppa. After passing them a photo of my record fish, caught back in November 2007 we decided to go check out the out of bounds area – with no rods I may add. It’s funny that on every lake with an out of bounds area you will also be guaranteed to see the fish, usually in numbers. This lake was no different and by the time we had reached the spots, full of snags, old gravel extraction machinery, and iron works we sat back for a show that would kick us all in the lower regions.

Fish after fish jumped head and shouldered, and swam about. Over 300 yards from the fishing bank these Carp were untouched by a rod and line, and they knew the sanctuary this area offered. If only I could have had a rod with single chum mixer at that moment…anyway there is no point even thinking about it? Such actions would guarantee a ban for life.

I’ve written up this week’s diary from my office. It’s raining, Monday morning, and as I sit here I am in pain from the fall, covered in mozzy bites, and really don’t know what I can do to turn things around. The Pub Chucker title is firmly embedded now, and if I don’t catch this season perhaps I will get a T shirt printed up just to reiterate my hopelessness.

Next weekend is the August bank holiday but I first have to drop my boy home. I shall be back. I will not give up. I shall be fishing Saturday night to Monday morning.

Back next week

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