Apocalypse now!

Cor what a change in the weather all of a sudden! A couple of fine warm days and then all of a sudden the almighty storms of hell rage upon us! lol

Well, not quite but it certainly felt quite heavy last night at the lake. As usual I was on my own and sat in the middle of nowhere surrounded by very old gnarly trees in the monster of thunder storms was a little unnerving to say the least! I must admit to be a little bit of a loon though and the idiot inside me thoroughly enjoyed playing chicken with the lightning bolts whilst trying to have a pee!

A gnats cock over 13lbs.....game changer time at last!

I've done 2 nights in a row this week due to a slightly quieter few days rolling, which albeit not the best news, I confess a little break has left me feeling great!.... 'ish! Sunday night was a game of two halves....the weather started amazingly with high temperatures in the mid twenty's and dry. The second half was that of thunder storms and heavy rain. On arrival the fish could be seen evident in my baited areas. There had been plenty of grubbing around going on and I felt pretty confident I'd manage a fish during the night.

I got the rods out and settled down with a brew before hitting the sack for the night. There were plenty of line bites occurring and I was remaining high in confidence as I fell asleep. My left hand rod went into overdrive at around 11.30pm and I was quickly on it with a good bend in the carbon. I kept the pressure hard on the fish, but after just a few seconds of battle I was left with rig returning to me unattached to the fish....the hooklink had unfortunately snapped under the immense pressure in the thick weed. I felt bloody devastated...I don't cope well with loosing fish and I take it very personally!

Things weren't to improve much either as about 2 hours later after changing to a heavier gauge hooklink, I connected with another good fish, only to have the hook pull this time! Absolutely gutted, I checked the rig, to see that the hook point had turned over and was as blunt as a Jim Davidson stand up joke! I couldn't believe my luck and vowed I'd make the effort the next night to get back in shape....

I thought I'd just take a moment here to show you a few more pics of my PVA and rig I use for the weed fishing as i have two versions...the first I showed you all in my previous article. The following pics should explain the set up a little bit more ;)

Blow back rig

crumble boilies by hand

Ready to go into the pva bag

Compress the bait

Pinch the top of the bag

Tie off the end

Insert stringer needle

Pull rig through PVA

Ready to go with the hook hidden from any weed!

Monday night arrived and so did yet more rain and heavy thunder storms. None of this mattered to me as i had other things going through my mind....like big carp! The fish had been munching on the few freebies I'd left them that morning before I'd left for home and the spots had been cleared out. A quick sort out to ensure all the gear was ready and out went the rods. The weather couldn't have been much worse and as night fell the storms came in. And did they come! The lightning was epic....lighting up the lake like November 5th! The rain was torrential and my Delkims continually buzzed and bleeped from the vibrations. Felt like I was 18 years old again and out clubbing! The only thing missing was the scantily clad birds, cheap booze and the smell of crappy fags!

Around mid-night things started to quieten down a little and at last a lull in the rain. It was just after 1am that the left hand rod was away again this time I got her away from the heavy weed and pads without a problem. Only a small common at just over 13lbs, but very welcome indeed. I thought that was probably going to be my lot for the night so after a bit of fiddling around, I got the rod back into the water and settled off to sleep. It was 3.20am that I was to next be awoken by the sound of an ailing Delkim....A sudden couple of bleeps alerted me to a take on the right hand rod. This one was deep into the pads and it was going to take a serious bit of effort to get this one out.

14lb 6oz and absolutely loaded with Red X!

I pulled for all I was worth and to my amazement this time I got lucky! She came free and headed through the looser weeds towards me, result! In a few seconds I was at last clear of the danger areas and playing the fish in less problematic water. Eventually I got the net under a very feisty little common of 14lb 6oz. Not a monster by any means but at last I was making haste in the ever increasingly thick weed.

There was no more activity over the course of the night and I packed away just after 8am to get home in time to drop sprog no 2 in school. I'll be back down early next week for another overnighter all being well. Let's hope that those 2 remaining big girls show up soon as my time is running out! That June 16th feeling is approaching fast now and I can feel the ever increasing need to catch a few Barbel!

See you all soon
K
x

The weed issue!

Hi all....with a few days off from rolling bait and at last five minutes time to myself, I thought I'd piece together a little article about some of my tactics I've been employing on one of my new waters. The pool in particular is extremely weedy and has numerous issues that have to be dealt with before one is able to catch from it's tricky depths. I'll go into my main approach tactics and also discuss a few other matters arising which I have come across in the past too.

Ranunculus weed growth

So, how to approach a weed infested pool such as this? Well, it all depends firstly on the kind of weed present. How thick the weed is? The depth of water? Fish present etc etc. My chosen water has Ranunculus growing through out and also the dreaded Elodea as well. Both flourish in the rich water around the small beds of beautiful lily pads that inhabit the water. In all honesty the Ranunculus is fairly easy to cope with as it breaks away from the stem with relative ease. The Elodea is more problematic and can be a real pain in the arse at times.

I watch anglers spending hours upon hours smashing the water to a froth with their heavy leads and markers in a vain attempt to find a small clear spot amongst the weed. This is great when time is on your side or when doing preparatory work at the chosen venue in advance. But if like me your limited to time and investment in a water, then my approach may well be more beneficial to you. My obvious first tip would be to find some fish before you even start....observational skills are something we all have. There is no special requirements, other than that you pay attention to whats happening on, in and around your water. Leave the DVD/TV/Radio at home and get your binoculars and Polaroid glasses out. Location is key to short time success.

Elodea or Canadian Pond Weed

Spend time watching the water before you start. It's absolutely useless getting to your venue with a preconception as to which swim your going to fish before you arrive. The fish may well be half a mile from where you thought they were going to be. Fishing a swim just because it's near the car park is the worst excuse for fishing the crap swims. Get off your backside and make the effort. You made the effort to load the car, buy expensive bait and tackle and travel to your lake, so why then be too lazy to walk to the better swims? Makes sense when you think about it. 5 minutes in the right spot is better than a week in a crap one!

Creep around and take your time about things. The bivvy should be the last thing on the agenda for setting up and getting the rods into the water is surely the more important job. So, we've located a pod of fish. They're in weed, not too thick but thick enough to cause issues with a cast of a straight lead rig and boilie. My approach here is all about concealment and stealth. The fish are in the weed for a couple of reasons. First off it offers them concealment from us and other predators. Secondly, the weed is full of food and thirdly, it also offers high levels of oxygen through photosynthesis during daylight hours. All reasons why you tend to find the fish present in these locations during bright, warm and sunny days. 

I just love weed fishing!

Looking at our tackle, we need to insure that it's man enough to cope with the rigors of pulling a good fish through the weed beds. I suggest using a 3lb+ TC rod and at least 18lb main line to cope with the demands of the fishing. I personally use a braided mainline for my weed work. This is 25lb breaking strain and has a thickness of 10lb mono! It also floats, which I find an aid when fishing in weedy situations. My terminal tackle comprises of a section of  1.5M of weed effect coated leadcore of 35lb b.s from Katrans Mimicker Range. I then put on a safety lead clip to insure I'm able to drop the lead if it becomes entangled in the weeds. Often a fish will come back through weed far easier if there is no lead attached to the rig. It's also important if a break should occur that the fish is able to also jettison the lead.

This is all tallied up to a size 8 swivel and then a short section of around 6-8 inches of Katrans Mimicker Hooklink in 25lb b.s. This I use in a blow back style with a small ring mounted free running on the shank of one of our CBS Saber size 4 hooks. The kit all needs to be strong as it's likely to be put under immense pressure should you hook a carp in said weedy conditions! I've recently become a huge fan of our new Center balance weights too....these insure that as soon as the fish makes contact with the rig and attempts to swim away, its in contact with the whole center weight of the lead almost immediately.

My choice for the occasion!

For the cast I slide a PVA Mesh bag down the hooklink and right over the point of the hook. I do this for two reasons. The first is that during many sessions on a clear water pool some years back, I had the use of a rowing boat to put out my baits in the gin clear water. I chose to do some many hours of investigative work on rig and tackle placement after the cast. This was a real eye opener in many ways. Prior to my doing this I would always just clip on my mesh bags for the cast by nicking the hook point into the mesh bag. All looked great on the cast and I would sit back confident of the small PVA package sat next to my delicately cast boilie and hook.....This couldn't have been further from the truth. What I was able to see after the cast was that on 10 out of 10 casts, the PVA would break away from the hook on impact with the water. Thus leaving the small parcel some considerable distance from my hook bait! The only way to achieve 100% confidence that the rig and PVA bag would end up in the same spot was to pull it down the rig in a stick style.

Bury the hook in the PVA bag or wrap it safely in PVA tape!

The above first method is fine for marginal close in work but when a cast is required then my technique is pretty much full proof. I like to use around 6-8 crumbled boilies in my bags and slide down onto the hook point. As the hook point enters he mesh bag I like to give the hook a few gentle wiggles to insure no pieces of bait have masked the point. I then tie a few turns of PVA tape around the lead system to make sure it doesn't come free on the cast. You can now chuck this pretty much where ever you like with the confidence that it will settle in the weed with a clear hook poin and untangled away from the lead. I then like to scatter a good handful of loose boilies around the area. Not too tightly either. I want to get the fish moving freely through the weed beds looking for their next meal.

Proof it all works! Excellent!

Bear in mind that we are effectively fishing in snags and that you need to be fishing right next to your rods at all times. Takes can be fast, immediate and very powerful. I always fish a tightly set clutch and set myself up so that my rods are at just on arms length where at all possible. When the take occurs it's best to keep the pressure on as much as humanly possible. I've found that 99% of my weed hooked fish have come back fairly easily when in contact with continuous strong pressure in weed.

Well, that's a little about my weed approach. There are many other methods you can employ in weed but I feel this is the most effective I've come across. I'm not an avid fan of chod rigs and I think they are employed far too often just because they do the job, even when there are so many better rig options available to us!

Tight lines all
K x

Hard work and tenacity!

Well after the weekends little jaunt over to the estate lake and catching a few lovely specimens. I was keen as mustard to get back on my little water and grab one of those extremely elusive mirrors that seems to keep evading me! I didn't get a bait in the water until best part of 8.15pm due to the long hours I've been working this week. The bait has been flying out and lots of good captures are being reported on our entire range of baits!

I got both the rods out onto the marks I've been regularly fishing and I baited both spots with around a kilo of Red X boilies and placed my 4.5oz cog leads and 22mm boilies with a size 4 saber on, into the chosen spots. After baiting up I sat back with a brew to await said results! I got dozens of tiny bleeps from the persistent bat activity which got a tad frustrating! Pesky devils, got me well excited! The lake had a very carpy feel to it last night and the pleasurable conditions lasted all night.

I took a few pain relievers for my ailing back and laid back on my bedchair to settle down for the night. I had just nodded off about 11pm when my left hand rod let out a couple of fast bleeps and the bobbin shot to the top. I waited a few seconds to see if it was bat activity but the bobbin stayed taught! I jumped up and struck into a strong fish. She pulled hard towards the lily pads but a bit of clever rod angling and some persistent pulling guided her towards the waiting net.

At last a mirror!

She plundered around under the rod tip for around 3-4 minutes before I eventually got the net under her. I took a quick look into the mesh and saw a long chunky looking mirror looking back at me! At last I'd got one of the mirrors I so wanted to catch! I readied the mat, zeroed the scales, got the camera sorted and then gathered the fish up in the mesh of the net to take her to the mat. She was a lot longer than I had first thought and albeit she didn't feel like she was particularly heavy, she did have a big framework! Well, she did 23lbs on the nail. Well pleased with that and a real pretty fish to boot! The one thing I did notice or should I say could miss! Was the terrible smell she was giving off. Very potent smelling slime on this fish. Strange?

Superb! Well and truly chuffed!

I returned the smelly mirror and got my rod back out on the mark. The other rod was next to go but I suffered a broken hook link just below the swivel link. My fault as I hadn't used the correct link for the job and now it had cost me a fish! Dam it!

Well, after that things died a death and I packed up around 10am and headed home. Another great session which should have seen me land two specimens but the one I caught was special enough!

Regards
Keith

Top trumps

Stunning backdrop in Hereford

Another day and another weather front....This weeks trip over to my new water saw me frowning upon the conditions I'd decided to go out in. The rain was persistent and the wind no less vile! To say it was unpleasant was an understatement. The lake was as ever devoid of anglers and up a little due to the water intake of the prior few days. A few branches had found their way down into the swims and some clearance work was required before i could get to the majority of the swims.

Small common for starters

Interestingly the water had a very cloudy grey colour to it and a slightly different smell too. I set up in one of my pre-baited spots for the night and laid back with a brew to await the results of my actions. Well, I waited until around 2.30am before I eventually had any indication of fish activity in the area. My left hand rod gave out a short and fast take which lasted just long enough for me to get out the sleeping bag, before dropping the rig and leaving me sat in dismay. 6 out of 6 captures and now 2 out of 2 blanks.... oh well!

The next trip out was on Sunday. My new angling friend Joel Drapkin....(yep another Joel!) and I went up to Herefordshire to enjoy the day at a beautiful estate lake of 4 acres. The venue set in stunning surroundings and with no company other than that of the wildlife and resident cattle in the field behind us.

Truly stunning scaly mirror from the estate lake in Hereford. Well happy with this one!!!!

Some of you may remember it was the scene of a few nice fish for myself, Joel Biddle and Ceri Jones a few weeks back. Well, this time round we had an idea how to approach the place from the word go. We set up our rods with a view to casting across the small pool to the far side and hit the spots we had results from before with a barrage of Red X and Sea Monster boilies. We fished them on size 4 CBS Saber hooks to Katran Cobra hooklink. We also added a 4.5oz CBS COG lead to the equation too finish off the rig.

Joel and his dustbin lid bream!

I was first away with a stunning low double figure common on the Red X boilie on my left hand rod. The fish kited hard towards us and put up a cracking fight. We grabbed a few nice pics and got sorted for another cast. I had a feeling that things would probably die a death come afternoon as they had on our previous trip, so I was keen to ensure we grabbed as much action as possible while they were on their morning munch.

Within just a few minutes my other rod was away with a slightly better fish on. This one put up yet another cracking scrap and I was delighted to land a beautiful scaley mirror in pristine conditions, The fish there are certainly in dam good condition that's for sure! Joel was next up with a take on his rod. This fish fought a bit more randomly and it became apparent it was a bream of exactly five pounds that had taken his Red X boilie.

Yet another beautiful common. All the fish here are stunners!

Get in son!

It took about an hour before our next bite which was on Joels rod. We'd moved it over to another spot as the original one had done very little to produce anything of any decency.

This take was a one toner! The fish was hell bent on finding the roots of a fallen tree and despite pulling hard Joel was unable to keep it from the impending snag. The fish unfortunately got the upper hand and got away.

I managed the next fish, a nice common of just under 15lbs again in perfect condition too. The wind started to increase and despite accurate feeding and casting we struggled to get any more action until around 2pm. Joels rod ripped off with another hard fighting common on it. This one being the best of the day at 15lb 8oz.

A brilliant shot of Joel with his stunning common. A great day with great company!

We had a great day and it was lovely to get out again to the estate lake. Just wish it fished well all day and not just for the morning. Such a great little place with almost no angling pressure on it. I think I'll try and get another night in this week on the secret pool and see if I can finally temp one of those big mirrors before the river season starts and I have no time for the lakes again!

Tight lines all
Keith

A positive note!

Quality time with my youngest, Natasha...hard earned!!

Hi guys......well after such a crappy few days with the animal mishaps and other stresses etc it felt like our short family break was in dire need!

We had 4 days down south with family and it was truly fantastic to see all our loved ones again after a 6 month gap. I got to spend some quality time with my best pal Stu and his gorgeous girls.




We had the opportunity to chat lots about general stuff but even more so about the oncoming river season! Seems the 6 week wait still left can't do one quick enough for us all!

Stu, Nik and Milly! xxxx

After the little break it was back home to the grafting of bait rolling and sending out orders....business is now very good with regular customers coming back for more every week! We told you guys it was good bait!! lol

Just before we went on our excursion I did a quick overnighter on the new pool. I got down the waters edge mid afternoon with the idea of spending a few hours fish watching. This didn't come to light as another guy was on the water and we spent a few hours chatting and drinking copious amounts of coffee! This only meant one thing for me.....about 12 trips to the nearest tree for a pee due to my stupidly small slack bladder!

Eventually I managed to get my kit sorted for the night and after all the pleasantries were exchanged I made haste to get my rods out before darkness fell. I just managed to get sorted in time and got under the covers for a nice nights kip. This was interrupted no less than 4 times by Mr Bream!

All around the 5-6lb mark but not what I intended to catch this time around! The sun started to break through the early morning mist around 7.15am and just as I was starting to come to life, a stunning dark coloured common cleared the water just over my baited area. I sat up and watched intently and as if by my own control the right hand rods bobbin almost shattered the rod blank! I sprang up and grabbed the rod to be met by a solid resistance. The fish had found the weed and was holding deep in it!

Eventually a lovely common on the Mimicker hooklink and leadcore!

A good thorough helping of pressure from my end gently eased the fish back and before I knew it I was sinking my net under another beautiful common of just under 11lbs. Not a monster by any standards but my what a stunning looking fish! I'd decided due to the shyness of the fish, that I'd start using the new Katran Mimicker hooklink and leadcore with one of our 3.5oz cog leads and a size 8 saber hook. This really nailed the fish and showed the effectiveness of the rig for my next trip.

The next outing was to be on Monday 28th and after spending the day rolling bait I decided to get the gear back down the pool for another go at the place. It was almost dark on my arrival and after putting out about a kilo of red x a managed to get the brolly and bed up together before the heavens opened! And by crikey did they! Not the best time to find out you have a leaky brolly! After 7 years of abuse she'd finally given up the ghost. Oh well, a makeshift plastic bag on the inner arms diverted the flow of rain water into a corner away from my already soaked bedchair cover.

I just managed to get my head down for some well earned shut eye when the left hand rod slammed off at a rate of knots! The take was so violent that it snapped the screw holding my stage stand in place clearly off, taking the whole bloody thing over! I was up and on it in a flash thank god, or I might have been a rod and reel down! The fish fought very hard for a few minutes before succumbing to the net with a weed covered nose. The new rig was doing the trick from  the off! I'd also decided to up the size of my hooks and hook baits from a size8 to a size 4 and the baits from a 16mm to a 22mm! This had the desired effect of removing the pest bream from the equation! I weighed and photographed the fish up the bank and after inspection I settled on 19lb 14oz. Another very pristine common carp. My forth from the tough little venue. I released the fish away from my swim and got another rig tied up ready to go out to the spot. I put around a hundred freebies dotted about the swim and made the cast into the inky blackness. Plop, bank on the dollars I thought!

19lb 14oz of golden beauty! AMEN

I got back into bed and made myself a hot drink whilst surveying the chances of another fish???? Could the swim do 2 in one night after producing one so early on? I'd have to wait and see.....I settled down for the night but found it remarkably difficult to sleep even though I was totally smashed. I lay there thinking about the list of jobs I had to complete the following day amongst other silly thoughts! Eventually the thoughts turned to those of the mind of someone past consciousness and my next recollection was that of a belting take on the same rod at 4.10am! Another blistering take that clattered the bobbin against the rod butt with incredible power! I stumbled out of bed feeling drunk from sleep and hit into another very strong fish. Fortunately she came out the weed with little grief and all to quickly she was in the net looking back at me through the light of my head torch. At 19lb 3oz another common, I was thoroughly pleased to have cracked 2 in one night from a water that struggles to do a fish a month at times!

19lb 3oz and two for the night! Made up!

I packed up around 9am and left about a kilo of Red X in the swim and headed home for a shower and a days work in the unit rolling bait for customers. It got to 5pm and I was just itching to get back down the pool for another go! I finished my work for the day at 6pm, had some tea, kissed the wife and kids before reloading the kit into the motor for round 2! I arrived at the pool around 7.15pm and again found myself to be the only one there....Lovely! The gear was quickly unloaded and ferried round to the swim before unleashing another torrent of Red X 22mm's for em to munch on! The left hand rod was into action within almost no time at all and at just 9.15pm I had my first take. Another monster of a bite! This one felt a lot bigger than all the fish I'd hooked in there to date and she found the weed and lily pads with too much ease. I applied as much pressure as I dared and with slow and steady effort she came towards me. I kept the pressure on steadily and she came out into open water. I got the net ready and held on with a tight grip as she came to the surface of the water. As I reached out to net her the hook lost its hold and I was left to see her slip back into the darkness with my rig unattached! I felt sick!

After the loss of the big fish, I just had the feeling that was going to be my lot for the night but I still made the effort to tie up another rig and PVA bag before retiring to bed for the night. I awoke around 7am to find that I'd had no more action on either rod. As I awoke I saw a huge mirror crash out over my right hand spot but I had to be away at 7.30am so sitting around to wait for a take wasn't going to happen this time! Gutted! Never mind, she'll be there for my next session I hope!

Tight lines all
Keith

Continued success!

After the very successful trip to Herefordshire at the weekend, I was hoping my luck would continue on my tricky new little water I'm concentrating on.....Well I was again lucky! My first trip up there produced a stunning 24lb+ common on a quick overnight session and this time was no different!

I made the drive over late afternoon, after a terrible day at home.....The last few weeks have been a little difficult to bear at times. We had a few mishaps with the business and a nasty incident of our beloved female tortoiseshell cat Chloe having a fall in the garden at home and breaking her neck. She died in the wifes arms on the way to the vets, which was extremely sad for us all as a family.

To top this off, If you can believe it....our oldest cat Ash suddenly came down with a severe case of heart disease and after a trip to the vets on Tuesday, we had to make the conscious decision to have the gorgeous boy put down....we were all devastated to say the least. Well after such a horrid day, there was only one way to spend the evening consoling myself. Get the rods out on my quiet little water!

I arrived down the pond to find as usual that it was empty! Just the way I like it! I dropped into the same spot I fished last week and opted to fish two very likely looking spots that i had been gently baiting with the ever awesome CBS Red X boilies! I've been trickling them in over the last week or two into a few likely looking spots and it appears the fish seem to like having a few free meals without the fear of a hook in amongst the offerings.

I got the rods out into the weed free spots and threw out around a kilo of Red X around the two rods. I presented a critically balanced pop up on one rod and a Red X Pop up just pinned to the deck on a KD rig on the other. Both using Katrans amazing Joker hook link, which blends in incredibly amongst all the bottom debris! I sat back with a coffee and awaited the light to fall away.

I snuggled up and listened to the owls and a male fox calling and drifted off into a very peaceful sleep. This was much needed after such a busy and depressing week....It wasn't too long before a few liners started and the next thing I know I have a bream around 5lbs in the bottom of the net. Not what I came for but a welcome catch all the same. I must remember that introducing pellets isn't the best plan of action in a bream heavy water!

Well, needless to say my next fish around mid-night was also another bream! This one again around the 5lb mark....I decided to introduce a few more boilies without the pellets this time and recast into the inky darkness in the hope that my next take would be a chunk!

I got back into my sleeping bag and tiredness hit me like a train! I was in the middle of a very deep sleep and as usual I had turned my buzzers down to silent and placed the sounder box just above my face in the arms of the brolly. This insures that I hear the take and it keeps the noise down to a dull shrill! Around 4am I was blissfully counting sheep when there was the most viscous take I think I've ever witnessed from my right hand rod! Using braided mainline only intensifies the take but it was so violent that when I jumped up to grab the rod, I actually struck the wrong rod as it was causing so much movement on the stabilized buzzer bars!

After hitting the wrong rod and realizing my mistake, I chucked the rod down into the bush and grabbed the hooked fish....It didn't really do much to start with as it was heavily covered in weed. I pulled and kept the pressure on the fish and gently she came back through the weed and small lily pads. Eventually it became lighter and she hit the surface free of the weed and lead free too. I quickly stuck the net under her and she went ballistic at that point....thrashing around in the net, I made sure she had plenty of mesh and water to move around in before going to set up the mat and camera.

My second fish from the new water and at 20lb 6oz a stunner to boot! Well happy!

After my last session and forgetting my remote camera control, I was this time determined to get a decent pic of results! I spent a few minutes insuring all was set up okay and that everything was wet and ready for the impending kipper! I lifted her free of the water and onto the waiting mat and sling. At 20lb 6oz I was greatly appreciative of yet another stunner common of over twenty pounds. A great start to my new campaign!

I'm having a few days away from the bank and a bit of time off with the family over Easter now. Going down South to spend a bit of time with loved ones.

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter and just remember to enjoy the company of your loved ones as life is so short!

Kindest regards
Keith x

Odds and sods.....

Wild torpedo!

Jay with a nice little common

Hi all! It's been a little tough getting out to fish of recent as the business has taken off in such a way that I've been an almost permanent fixture at the boilie rolling tables the last few weeks!

Not complaining of course as it's great to be busy.....I've had a couple of short sessions, a pair of overnighters and a quality day out last Sunday. I'll start off with a brief day session I had on a local club lake with my good mate James.....I arrived around 9am and set up in one of the less popular swims as the usual suspects were hogging the best pegs and firing all over the entire lake???

Great start to my new water attack!

Never understood why people do this? The majority of fish are under your feet in yet casting to the other side of the lake seems a more viable option....I on the other hand set up two rods to fish my nearside marginal shelves. These were set up with the essential Prawns glugged in our awesome CBS DMPT glug!

It didn't take long before I had some action and a stunning wild looking common snagged itself. A great little scrap ensued before eventually I had hold of her. The rest of the day was very slow and I only managed a shed load of bream for the rest of the day. James had a couple of nice tench and finished off the day with a lovely fish off the margins on a CBS Cream Divine Pop Up!

Hectic fun on the top in mid April!

The following week I decided to do my first overnighter of the year on one of my new target waters...It's a very tough little cookie to catch on and it's almost un-fished to be honest. Just the way I like my waters.

Well, I settled down for my first night of the year and introduced a little bait into my swim. Things were very tough and the temperature dropped away dramatically over night and thick fog formed on the lake. There was little action and I suffered my first blank session in as long as I can remember!

Immaculate uncaught common! Awesome!

I ventured back out almost exactly a week later to find things a little warmer and drier than the prior week! This had seemed to spur the fish on a little and after a quiet few hours into darkness and after a brief snooze. I was awoken by a gentle few bleeps sounding from my left hand Delkim. I watched the rod tip and sure enough it was nodding away! I struck into a good fish which plodded around in the thick weed before eventually finding the net and awaiting scales. 24lb 2oz of common gold! A cracking start!

Great fun on light rods!

My next session out was a brief few hours of surface fishing with my good mate Joel. We fished a club water with our floater gear and found around 15 fish each were happy to oblige! Great sport so early on in the year!
We even managed a couple of nice fish on retro tactics, using a center pin and float tackle in the margins to tame a handful of lovely commons!

Sunday saw a cold start in Herefordshire but after a long drive up to a new venue, Ceri, Joel and myself were very happy to find our chosen venue looked in top notch form....A 4 acre estate lake set back in beautiful countryside was to be home for the day. With an unknown stock size or quantity, things looked a little tough from the onset with just Joel landing a couple of small roach on a corn/lobworm combo on the float.

Beautiful common for JB!

After some hours of struggling, I decided to put out a carp rod at the windswept end of the lake, into an unfishable corner. This did the trick and just quarter of an hour later I was hooked into a lovely pale coloured common of 13lbs. This fish had never seen a hook as far as we could see!

It wasn't long before the lads followed suit and within the hour we had a couple of rods placed along the far margin with a few Red X and Monkey Nut boilies aimed at the fish! Joel was next to find a fish and a blistering run came from his Delkim! A great fight ensued and finally he subdued a stunning common of just under 16lbs. Ceri managed to hook one then just as we were weighing Joels fish! This was a little smaller but the peach of the day at 13lb 8oz and a really pretty scaly mirror carp.

Ceri with the most stunning of Mirrors! WOW

It just goes to show that there are still a few very underfished waters out there even in this day and age! You just have to be prepared to hunt around for them and look in unusual places! Don't ask me where the place is though as this is my little secret for now! I can't wait to get back!

Lots more fishing coming up soon. I'm off out tonight for a brief overnighter on the tricky little pool, hoping for one of the bigger chunks! I hope you all have a wonderful Easter and good break from the grindstone! Tight lines all and see you soon.