September catch reports

[ouchthathurt]

Good morning all, 

so the last 3wks have flown by in a sleepy haze of sleepless nights, nappies, bottles and sterilising bottles, however yesterday wifey told me it was time to get the rods out! 
Trying to overcome my surprise, after all I hadn’t planned an overnight trip for many months into the future, why the free pass? My wife wanted a practice run of looking after the children alone for when I return to work next week, so I was banished to the lake! well you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth do you?? 
 

luckily, if you saw my “playing with bait” thread, you’ll see that I had a bag of bait tucked away in the freezer, so the gear was dragged from the shed, food and bait loaded and I was off to the Kent boarder to fish a lake I’ve christened “zombie sheep lake” 

I needed to pop into the tackle shop to pick up a few bits and while browsing the shelves, my eye wandered over the racks of bivvies all in a row… 

now my JRC STI 1 man bivvy has finally died a death after far too many years to count, indeed it had been coughing up blood for at least 10yrs and now I’m in my 40s, the thought of doing winter sessions under my trusty oval brolly and storm sides really didn’t appeal! 13yrs of Army service, sleeping under a poncho in a ditch had meant that I was pretty used to kipping in less than favourable conditions, but any fool can be uncomfortable can’t they? 
 

so I ended up going in for a few packs of hooks and pva bags and left with a JRC Defender bivvy… oops 

after a 20min detour to the bailiffs house to pick up a part of my carp porter barrow that I left behind on my last (blank) trip 6wks ago, I got to the lake about 1pm, happy to see that I had it all to myself. 
 

I barrowed my gear round to the point swim, as I can see and cast to a large portion of the lake, where there was a nice gentle breeze drifting in, and set up the gear. I rigged up a pair of Fox Horizon X4S TT 12ft rods with my Fox EOS 12000 Reels spooled with 12lb synchro XT mainline, to a length of Korda leadcore fished helicopter style, hook links being 10” fox cortex soft coated braid, fished to a size 6 ESP Clawhammer hook fished slip D style and a 1” length of shink tube, line-aligner style. Bait was my fishy boilie offering. 
 

breaking out the marker rod, I found a nice silty hump with 7.5ft of water over it, with the surrounding lakebed 9ft deep. It was plenty big enough for the 2 rods that I would be using, although what was obvious was the lack of water, it was at least 2ft down from its usual summer levels. As a result, the lake hadn’t been fishing well, but who cares! I’m out on the bank in the sun and a carp just came out up to the wrist of its tail only feet from my marker float bobbing about. 
 

i catapulted about 100-150 baits over the hump and cast both rods to their respective spots. One on a 7 bait stringer and one in a pva bag. Now obviously, a soft coated hooklinks 10 inches long aren’t ideal for for pva bag use, and I really couldn’t be bothered to faff about trying up soft coated braided links, so snipped off the corner of the large pva bag and threaded the hook link through the hole so the hook link dangled out the bottom. After filling it with 1 & 2mm pellets and crusher boilie, I sealed it all up, then nicked the hook into the bag opposite the lead. It looked a bit noddy, but it was worth a try! 
with the rods out, it was time to get the base camp set up! You can see how low the water it as that gravel shelf is usually under water! 
 

now it was time to break out the new bivvy!! 
I lovingly unpacked it from its bag, laid it all out, fanned out the poles and started clipping it all together, only to find that one of the poles was snapped! Nightmare! Despite all my bodging attempts, this bivvy was knacked, so in an absolute huff, I wrapped the bivvy back up, reeled in the rods and trudged back to the car to chuck the bivvy in and grab the oval brolly, no decadent abode for me tonight! 
returning to the swim, I redid the rods (again!)  and threw up the oval, still muttering to myself about the injustice of it all, a quick brew soon sorted me out though.  
 

the night soon drew in and the carp were getting more active and I retired to the carp cot around midnight confident on some action to christen the X4S rods that haven’t had a decent carp on as yet! 
 

at 1am, the left hand pva bag rod gave a flurry of bleeps, with the dinky esp bobbin tight to the Neville, so I struck and found myself into a plodding weight. After a pretty unspectacular fight, a carp was now nestled in the folds of my landing net. at 23lb, I was buzzing! The dodgy tied pva bag had done the job! 
 

with that working, another found it’s way back out there, and I got back to sleep. At 4am, the same rod absolutely flew, the Neville was screaming as I made my way to the rods, one shoe on one off. This one started beating me up from the get go, and after a spirited battle, a 21lb common hit the net, along with 20 tiny perch. with the pva bag working, I pressed repeat and got it back out there. As the sun was rising, I made another brew and watched the water as the sun came up (proper carpy that) once dawn had arrived, I climbed into the bag to get some kip, although it wasn’t to be, as the pva bag rod dropped slack. Winding down i soon felt the weight and soon had the carp boring down the margins, where it promptly beached itself! I couldn’t get it in the net, so gently guided it into deeper water where it rolled into the net first time. At 26lb, it was an immaculate common! (Check out the realtree MC Hammer pants!)  I redid the rod and had a celebratory cuppa, when 4 day anglers arrived, that was my sign to wrap up and head home, slightly earlier than planned, but I had my share, it was time to let the day guys enjoy this delightful little pool. 
swinging into the tackle shop on the way home, I exchanged the defective bivvy for another one, which is sound, so alls well that ends well. 

[kevtaylor]

Great report and well done on the fish! 😎👍

[OldBoy]

Lovely looking commons mate, great condition too 👍

[kevtaylor]

Just back from my return visit to Brothers Lake, France.

Weather at the start was hot and the fishing was slow, but as the week progressed and temps cooled off the fishing got better and better and I finished off with 15 fish to 49lb inc 7 x 30s and another mid 40.

Tactics were scatterings of boilie only - put out with the stick to a marker float every afternoon and a small top-up at dusk.

The fish were feeding heavily on naturals, fizzing up most of the day everyday, just past where we were fishing or anywhere without lines between us in the middle.  Being a small lake they did exactly this last trip despite us being on the opposite bank this time.

I chose to go with my newish wafter rig, a slip-d, multi - tied using the Korda hook-clip, size 6 wide gapes, Esp Tungsten Loaded and Gardner XL tungsten aligners, Korda tungsten large anti tangle sleeve - with a total rig length of around 5 inches.  With a golf ball sized funnel-web bag of mixed pellet, boilie crumb and 10ml Odyssey XXX.  Feeding 15ml XXX and using 15ml wafters as hookbaits.

By the end of the week I just wanted a 50 to complete what had been a great session and at 1am on the final night I got my wish, well not quite but 49 will more than do.

Some of the fish:

 

[yonny]

Very nice!

[ouchthathurt]

Afternoon all, so I managed to get a free pass to get out and dunk some boilies in a pond last night, so I chose to head to my local tricky park lake. 
now I haven’t been there since the start of the season, and due to extremely low water levels, the club made the decision to shut the water for fish welfare, so last night was my first trip back in a while. 
 

on getting down to the lake, I found it was fairly busy, but everyone was on the opposite bank. I headed around to a small, neglected swim that is often ignored, which coincidentally is my favourite swim on the whole lake! 
 

there were a few signs of feeding fish, so I got the marker out and located the area of smooth harder silt that does the bites and soon had the rods clipped up to the range. 
tackle consisted of 3 x 12ft fox horizon X4S TT carp rods with fox EOS 12000 reels spooled with 12lb esp synchro main line. Rigs were leadcore helicopter rigs with 10” fox cortex soft slip D rigs with size 6 ESP barbless Clawhammer hooks. Bait was my usual premier superaminos/shellfish sense appeal offering made in the shed. 
 

3 rods were dispatched to the spot adorned with 7 bait stringers, and with that i broke out the spod rod! I’m not quite sure what possessed me, but I ended up putting out a whole bucket of hemp, boilies and mixed pellet with lashings of salt which is a lot of bait for a quick overnighter, but my gut said it was the way forward, so in it all went! 

rods out, about 100 spods (so it seemed) done, it was time to chuck up the bivvy and get the kettle on. 
as the sun sunk beneath the trees, the swim came alive, with bubbling and swirling all over the spot. I was getting liners like nobody’s business and it was getting pretty obvious that something was going to happen… 

…well it did, bream after bream! I was hammering through the rigs as slabs of 3-5lb came gliding in, it was simply a case of hitting repeat and getting the stringers out there. 
as an aside, some anglers try to avoid the bream, but I welcome the activity, all that feeding soon draws the carp. 
 

at 11pm, the left hand rod pulled tight then dropped slack, as I was crouched next to it trying to decide if it was a liner or bream, the middle rod picked up and tore off! 
 

after a spirited fight, I soon slipped the net under a pretty linear that just scraped 20lb 

 

I don’t know what happened, but I look deranged in the pics! 
 

I sorted the left hand and middle rods and got them back out there, lucky 7 bait stringers attached and tried to get some sleep. 
 

I was awoken by a single bleep at 1am and opened one bleary eye to see the middle rod rip off again, this fish felt slightly better, taking me through every overhanging bush in the near margin, but the trusty horizons soon had it beat, and at 25lb made me a buzzing lil carper. 
 

pressing repeat again the middle rod was back out there, new hooklink attached. I finally got some shut eye at 2am for a whole 90mins when the middle rod decided to trundle off again, the strike met with a determined slow plodding weight that didn’t really give me too many dramas, just refused to come in. 
eventually, it succumbed to pressure and rolled into the outstretched net 

At 30lb it made the trip really! Big high shoulders, broad across the back, it was a pearler. (Cue stupid face again) it was so wide over the chest, I struggled to hold it properly. 
 

that rod replaced, I climbed into a damp, carp slime encrusted sleeping bag and got some kip. 
 

on dawn, the bream reappeared as the carp retreated back into their day areas, the sun started beating down so I decided to wrap it and head home, well happy! 
 

 

[kevtaylor]

Just back from 2 nights on the syndi, first session on the big lake and I only went and had one at 23.30 on the 2nd night.  Made up with it at 35.02 and a proper one.  Dont know what I've trodden in but feel like I'm having a run of good luck, long may it continue🤞

Edited Saturday at 13:06 by kevtaylor

[yonny]

Now that's what you call a carp @kevtaylor.

Well done.

[kevtaylor]

2 hours ago, yonny said:

Now that's what you call a carp @kevtaylor.

Well done.

Thanks mate, I'm blown away tbh 😎👍

[commonly]

Nice one @kevtaylor

I hope it fought as mean as it looks.

Proper warrior that one

[kevtaylor]

3 hours ago, commonly said:

Nice one @kevtaylor

I hope it fought as mean as it looks.

Proper warrior that one

Yeah was a nice steady take on a fairy tight clutch, then when I got to the rod and tighened further made some savage lunges taking line in spurts making it's way over to the far margin.  I was nervous about the trees in the water off the island but turned it and got it half way back (think that was more it's decision) then it kited left all the way around the point into the left nearside channel and tried to find snags in the near margin, treelined again obvs.  Nerve jangling moment again but got it back bit by bit - no rubbing on branches - probably because the water is 3ft down.

Then of course it picked up the left rod fished single style into the left nearside channel, making it impossible to bring fully over the net.  Bail arm off and with another go it went in the net.

Glad you asked it was proper scary tbh especially as I was expecting a blank lol. Hopefully more to follow fingers crossed doing 3 nights instead this week from thursday, going for it and baited up as I left.

Heard another good fish roll after the fish and having that one made me think the big common must have been there that night, maybe having a few boilies too - close but no cigar!

It's coming - feeling it 🤞

 

Edited Tuesday at 22:02 by kevtaylor

[ouchthathurt]

Good evening all, so this trip came about after my sons have come to visit for the last few days and my younger son wanted to get the rods out at the park lake. So last night found us winding our way down to see what was occurring. 

we were trying to get on the night before, but the available swims were all taken, so the following morning saw the boy and I hurriedly chucking the gear into the motor and driving, whilst becoming increasingly frustrated, through the school run traffic to the park lake. 

Now the night before, I hadn’t slept well, the baby has his first sniffle, and every time I closed my eyes, I could see serried ranks of carp anglers lining the banks, with no room for the boy and I, which would have been a bitter disappointment for him as he only had limited time before he needed to travel back for work - hence the rushed and stressful arrival at the park lake!

Before the car had even stopped rolling, the boy was kicked out the door like a paratrooper jumping from a plane with a couple of buckets and my voice shouting “run!” ringing in his ears as he scarpered down the path and through the fishery gates to secure a couple of swims before the dreamed of carpy hoards arrived.

I started unloading the car as the boy came sauntering back up the path, “I don’t know what the rush was dad, every swim is empty!”  Still, the swim he loves was bucketed, as was the swim next door. (One, coincidentally, I hate!) but this trip was about him, so as long as he was happy, I’d make it work.

As we set up, the hurried bomb-burst from the house soon proved to have been unwise, as I had left my spod and marker rods, as well as the water container and food bags behind!

Now the boy went into his favourite (and mine) swim, where he has had 95% of his captures from and where my 3 fish hit from last week was from and was soon wrapping up, prepping his gear and chucking up his brolly, whereas I sat scowling at the swim my boy had bucketed for me, the bucket looking forlorn in the corner. I really didn’t like this swim, I’ve never found any spot that do bites with any regularity and I always feel as though I may as well close my eyes and pub chuck the rods any old where. Having a quick wander up the bank found me in a swim that always looks good, I know the spots that produce, I’ve seen them there, but my luck never runs, the fish either get caught just before or after I’m there! In fact, since 1997 fishing the lake on and off, I’ve never caught from this swim, although I know it can do the biz.

The barrow was moved into the new swim, rods and home set up and before I could get them out, it was back to the car to drive the 10min drive home to collect the stuff I’d left behind. Once back on the lake, the X4 Horizons were soon sending the 3.5oz lead to the overhanging bushes on the far margin where they thudded down onto firm clay/pebble/concrete (this is a disused man made reservoir with a concrete “ring” jutting 2-3 rod lengths out before giving way to silt - the years have mellowed the concrete and a layer of clay and gravel now cover most of it) the newly collected marker rod showed 8ft of water level with the overhanging bushes, distance 18.5 wraps @12ft (no idea how many yards that is)

I opted to initially bang a 7 bait stringer on each rod, rigs being fox cortex coated braid to size 6 esp barbless claw hammer hooks slip D style.

My boy was nicely set up on the hard patch that weeks of prebaiting, spodding hemp/pellet and fishing over has improved nicely. Distance was a lovely 8.5 wraps with 14ft over it. Three (not immediately obvious) landmarks on the far horizon made recasts easy, the firm crack as the lead sank marked the spot.

with the rods out, I set about wrapping up the spod to 18 wraps (taking into account swing back of the lead at this range) and tried to put out a bed of hemp, pellet, sweetcorn and whole/halved/crumbed homemade boilies onto a spot, but whether it was the blustery wind, the tackle or (most likely) my utter ineptitude on the day, I don’t know, but I think only 60-70% landed on target! On other occasions, in this swim, to this spot, I’ve not had this problem. I found I really had to “step into” the cast to get it flying. As the spod crashed into the surface over the left hand rod, this same rod started trickling off, “damn it!” I’ve picked up the line with the spod! Then the middle rod started going too!

Realising that I’d had a take, which had kited and picked up my middle rod, I struck and was soon bent into a carp. The fight was fraught with issues, as at one point I had the spod, middle rod and a long length of unidentified line trailing all over the shop! My boy came to my aid by carefully retrieving each rod in turn before slipping the net under a lovely common, where the unidentified line was, well, identified! Nestled in the bottom corner of the fishes mouth, near to my size six embedded in the bottom centre of the lip was another rig! It had a fused leader, a lead clip with the tail rubber pushed on so tight that the 4oz lead hadn’t discharged! There was about 30yrds of thick, 20-25lb mono attached. Once that rubbish had been removed and bagged up, he was hoisted up for a happy snap. scraping 21lb, I was well made up! I’d finally caught one from this swim!! A day bite too, which is a rarity.

My son was muttering something about me making a hard lake look easy, but it’s been 25+yrs of learning the place that had led to this string of captures, knowledge that he is reaping the benefits of too.

As the day wore on, what came apparent was that the number of anglers who had booked on for the night hadn’t bothered to show up, so as it drew on to early evening, the spod was wrapped to 8 wraps and the boy soon had a nice bed of bait out, ready for the late evening/early hours bite window. The carp drop away from the shady margins and into open water spots at night to feed up. My son’s swim was soon fizzing like a jacuzzi, fish evident by topping and subtle head shows in the moonlight.

My boy was being pestered by bream, but was rewrapping and restringering after every one, although he did swap the usual 12mm hook baits for “mega-baits” boilies of 30-40mm (and larger) that my daughter rolls from the scag ends. Some of them are like ping pong balls, but they do deter the slabs! 

He got his head down at about midnight after swapping his beloved mini microns for my spare delkims as they were low on battery. I too, was soon in the land of nod. At 2am, the shrill warbling tone of a delk split the night, my boy was into a carp! It soon went boring down the margins, but he had the better of it and it rolled into the net without too much problem. it was a gnarley old beast, weighing in at a respectable 26lb.

That was the last of the action for each of us, although we couldn’t complain. We had both had a fish. It was an early wrap up on the dawn of a busy day, so by 8am, the lake saw only our backsides as we headed up the path and back to the car.

caught on the astronomical start of Autumn, my favourite time of year!