#001 - Starting the new season
Introduction
This year I'm going back onto a local club water to me for the first time in over 5 years. When I used to fish this particular water it had a good head of carp in, but was extremely weedy and like most typical club waters very pressured.
In the time that I'd been away from the lake they have blue dyed, which has killed off the majority of the weed in the lake.
This was a little off putting at first as this meant it opened the lake up to a range of anglers and also meant the fish were unlikely to hold up in the same spots or follow the same patrol routes as previously. This meant I was very much starting from a blank slate and was looking forward to the challenge.
Having spoke to the bailiff when walking round i was told there was a good number of fish above 30lb and a few fish pushing over 40lb. I knew there was definitely some targets worth chasing in here based on the stock when I used to fish it.
First session on the lake
My first session down was on a Tuesday, having arrived at around 10am in the morning the choice of swims were still fairly limited due to the weekend anglers still occupying swims. I therefore, fished off the barrow in a small swim fishing single KARPER Popups to some small silty spots off the back off gravel patches.
I stayed in here for a few hours before I saw another swim become available, so I pushed round to the swim and went about getting everything sorted out.
On this session my bait of choice was KARPER RS Boilies mixed with some sweetcorn and soaked in the RS Energiser Liquid. I found a couple of spots up tight to an island and put out three spombs of bait out over each rod.
The rigs of choice were German Rigs, fished with an KARPER RS Boilie tipped with a KARPER 12mm Dispersion Sweetcornz popup.
At around 5pm that night, my left hand rod was away and after a small fight, I slipped my net under a small common. I was chuffed at this result as I wasn't expecting to catch one this early on to my campaign based on how the lake was fishing with only a couple of fish being out.
The common weighed in at 16lb, and was a proper dark fish and a right result on my first session back.
Unfortunately, nothing else happened that night and I packed up early in the morning to head off to work.
Blankety blank
The next session wasn't until Thursday evening, when getting to the lake at around 6pm the options of swims were very limited so I opted for a large swim that fishes out into open water, and put both my rods in the Silt gulley that runs through the centre of the swim. Unfortunately, I didn't see or catch any fish that night and packed up by 7am the next morning.
Tench, tench and more tench
On Friday evening, I managed to get out again for an overnighter. I got back into the open water swim I'd fished Tuesday and fished the same spots as previously.
This night was a bit more active in terms of fish, and I went on to land 4 tench all averaging roughly between 6-8lb. Not ideal, but nice to know that rigs and bait were all presented okay.
Another species
Next session, started on the following Wednesday night, I setup in a swim in the main body of water, which gave me access to a section of water between the two islands.
I put both rigs out to the spots, with the same bait approach as the previous sessions with RS boilies and Sweetcorn. This session was looking much better with a few fish moving about in the open water.
It wasn't until around 10pm that evening that the rod was away, straightaway I knew that it was a smaller fish. Once I got the fish in closer I realised it was a Bream of about 10lb. Again, frustrating that it wasn't a carp, but got the rods back and hoped the luck would turn around. Unfortunately again no joy and again packed up first thing in the morning.
Plan for next time
Having finished my first few sessions on the lake it was a mixture of results. I was happy that I'd managed to have a carp and a few other fish out, and this helped to setup expectations for future sessions.
I knew this lake was going to be a challenge, due to this time of year with the fish just starting to wake up and also the general difficulty of the lake.
The plan for the next weeks session were a slight change of baiting approach and also trying to get into some different swims and to start working out any patterns etc. off the back of the previous weeks captures and also any signs of showing or feeding fish.
Fingers crossed for next week
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