I'DE RATHER BE CATCHING ROACH BUT...
...Sometimes it's days like this that just make angling interesting. Roach, possibly, but Bream, probably, were in my plans for this trip. My 13' whole cane float rod was already in the car along with a bucketful of liquidised bread and crushed hemp. Bait would be flake or punch, reducing waspy Perch interference, but I did have a pint of week and a half old casters to ditch when I arrived. They were certain to be floaters by now so I wasn't planning on using them.
Plans ay? Bloody hell! to paraphrase Sir Alex. Waste of time. By the time I got up, not only was it pissing down, but the forecasters had refined out the damp in favour of the sodden; all morning. I couldn't face constantly working the long rod in the gales they'd also decided on at the last minute. Flake and punch with wet hands don't work so well either. A dawn change of plan was in order. After much deliberation over coffee, I settled on the Rover and combination that I use for Tench. For me it's a halfway house between match and carp tackle. A sturdy float rod fished as I would for carp with a float, in close over bait that consisted of corn and pellet. Not too clumsy for a nice Roach, just about able to cope with a carp, just right for a Tench.
It was still chucking it down when I arrived so I threw up the brolly as quickly as I could before everything got soaked and took a moment to weigh up my approach. Against the odds, my casters still sank and didn't smell that bad so as a sop to my Roachy ambitions I decided to use them. I dragged a lot of Elodea from the swim before I started and decided to bait quite heavily and regularly intending to use the whole pint up by lunchtime. Tench and possibly Bream would now be my most likely quarry if I didn't get too mythered out by the Carp. For the first couple of hours it looked like a mistake but eventually I started to get bites. Inevitably the first came as I was on the phone to Pete telling him that I hadn't had any yet.
I missed a few; the float either flashing under or dithering hither and thither before slowly submerging. Eventually however I had a half-decent fish on which inevitably morphed from the much-anticipated Tench into an unwanted Carp which resolutely worked its way right out into the lake. It did stop eventually and I could feel it wallowing away in the distance before the line fell limp. I'm no stranger to breakages; they are unavoidable when fishing for most species in these days of Carp with everything but I was horrified to realise that the line had broken above the float. That never happens because I always use a lighter hooklink. My failures are always at the loop. Unbeknownst to me there must be a heavy physical snag out there because the last metre of line looked like it had been heavily sandpapered.
I took my time retackling and cast back in, noticing as I tightened the line that I had a tangle of sorts at the reel probably caused by batting back slack line. It took me five minutes to unpick it and I was just pulling the line straight as my left hand was drawn firmly towards the butt ring - fish on! Yet another Carp of course, white as a ghost; a common with Koi heritage. My next fish was much more welcome, a nice Tench of 3-10; a male that fought like a mad thing and this was followed by another smaller one that I glimpsed briefly before it dived into the weeds at my feet and threw the hook.
At last the swim was producing exactly what I had hoped it would. The next fish made several heroic dives into the weeds before popping to the surface. I'm not sure what I was expecting but I know I was hoping for a decent Tench. It was in fact spectacularly large but not a Tench; it was an enormous Ide of 6-4. It beat my previous best by about six pounds only ever having caught one or two tiddlers before. Cue another lost fish; Tench or small Carp I never got to see, just a golden flash deep down. That was it for my 'proper' fishing. All that remained was to catch a second white Koi derivative, a slightly smaller Mirror and on my last cast yet another lost in the weeds at my feet.
Plans ay? Bloody hell! to paraphrase Sir Alex. Waste of time. By the time I got up, not only was it pissing down, but the forecasters had refined out the damp in favour of the sodden; all morning. I couldn't face constantly working the long rod in the gales they'd also decided on at the last minute. Flake and punch with wet hands don't work so well either. A dawn change of plan was in order. After much deliberation over coffee, I settled on the Rover and combination that I use for Tench. For me it's a halfway house between match and carp tackle. A sturdy float rod fished as I would for carp with a float, in close over bait that consisted of corn and pellet. Not too clumsy for a nice Roach, just about able to cope with a carp, just right for a Tench.
It was still chucking it down when I arrived so I threw up the brolly as quickly as I could before everything got soaked and took a moment to weigh up my approach. Against the odds, my casters still sank and didn't smell that bad so as a sop to my Roachy ambitions I decided to use them. I dragged a lot of Elodea from the swim before I started and decided to bait quite heavily and regularly intending to use the whole pint up by lunchtime. Tench and possibly Bream would now be my most likely quarry if I didn't get too mythered out by the Carp. For the first couple of hours it looked like a mistake but eventually I started to get bites. Inevitably the first came as I was on the phone to Pete telling him that I hadn't had any yet.
I missed a few; the float either flashing under or dithering hither and thither before slowly submerging. Eventually however I had a half-decent fish on which inevitably morphed from the much-anticipated Tench into an unwanted Carp which resolutely worked its way right out into the lake. It did stop eventually and I could feel it wallowing away in the distance before the line fell limp. I'm no stranger to breakages; they are unavoidable when fishing for most species in these days of Carp with everything but I was horrified to realise that the line had broken above the float. That never happens because I always use a lighter hooklink. My failures are always at the loop. Unbeknownst to me there must be a heavy physical snag out there because the last metre of line looked like it had been heavily sandpapered.
I took my time retackling and cast back in, noticing as I tightened the line that I had a tangle of sorts at the reel probably caused by batting back slack line. It took me five minutes to unpick it and I was just pulling the line straight as my left hand was drawn firmly towards the butt ring - fish on! Yet another Carp of course, white as a ghost; a common with Koi heritage. My next fish was much more welcome, a nice Tench of 3-10; a male that fought like a mad thing and this was followed by another smaller one that I glimpsed briefly before it dived into the weeds at my feet and threw the hook.
At last the swim was producing exactly what I had hoped it would. The next fish made several heroic dives into the weeds before popping to the surface. I'm not sure what I was expecting but I know I was hoping for a decent Tench. It was in fact spectacularly large but not a Tench; it was an enormous Ide of 6-4. It beat my previous best by about six pounds only ever having caught one or two tiddlers before. Cue another lost fish; Tench or small Carp I never got to see, just a golden flash deep down. That was it for my 'proper' fishing. All that remained was to catch a second white Koi derivative, a slightly smaller Mirror and on my last cast yet another lost in the weeds at my feet.
I can't deny having enjoyed my morning; I was as pleased as punch with the Tench and the Ide but the Carp not so much. I don't mind catching them when I'm fishing for them but they are a total pain in the arse when you are fishing for anything else and playing them for ages on ordinary tackle is a monumental chore. We took 30 out this winter but I reckon it will need the same again before things become more sensible. I guess that when fishing this lake I will just have to consider Carp an occupational hazard and rather than looking back at a day spoiled by their presence, consider the rest of the morning in a positive light. I caught my target species, hooked one or two more and fluked a massive personal best. Some years ago I used to fish a local commercial match lake and my approach was to do the opposite of anything that was recommended for catching Carp in such places. I fed one spot fairly heavily and fished another which I fed sparingly. I never scattered bait around the float, always introducing it quietly with a pole pot so as to not draw attention to my bait. I can see I will have to try something along the same lines here.
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