Alders Farm. The Match Lake. January 26th, 2008

Today saw me making an early start for the 55 mile trip from South London up to Alders Farm, just outside the village of Great Brickhill. A good run up the M1 and A5 saw me pulling into the car park just after 8am. Kit loaded onto the barrow for the decent down the hill from the car park and into the pump house café for a sausage sandwich and a coffee before the draw.

Now I very rarely fish at Alders, but today was more of an excuse to catch up with some of the GOT Baits anglers that I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know and fish with over the last couple of years. Chatting to Matt Nutt, Gary Thorpe and Trevor Price before the draw the general opinion was that a few fish would be caught as long as you didn’t draw down in the corner (pegs 17-21). I was behind Matt at the draw and the look on his face said it all as he saw peg 19 stick to his hand, and I fared no better with peg 17 being my draw.

Matt was kind enough to fill me in on what to expect, and I have to say I didn’t feel to bad as I set my kit up. as it was a nice bright sunny day, though the wind that was blowing into our corner kept it pretty cool. I set up a couple of kits, rigged with MW Diamonds to fish at 13mtrs and 7 mtrs, and with peg 18 not being in another to fish down the edge towards 18 where I would just keep trickling a little bait in for later in the match. I also set up a feeder rod with a small maggot feeder, though with not a lot of water to aim at in the corner it wasn’t really a consideration.

Baitwise I had some soft hookers, red maggot and sweetcorn with micro pellet for feed. 10am and all-in saw a small pot of micro’s with with a pinch of maggot and 6 bits of corn deposited on the 7 and 13mtr lines with some corn and pellet going in next to peg 18 in the margin.

Nearly 3 hours in and all I had to show for my efforts were a few microscopic Rudd while the young lad to my left on peg 16 had managed a solitary Carp on the feeder.

Matt was plugging away on 19 but at the time was faring no better, despite being familiar with the venue, with just a couple of the forementioned micro Rudd himself.

Looking around the lake, I could see that Matt’s prediction was coming true with other anglers getting amongst the resident Carp. Nobody was bagging, but at least most seemed to be getting one or two. Looking across to Matt I noticed he appeared to have a fair bit of elastic coming from his top kit. 

  Yes, he was into a Carp, and obviously a decent one, indeed it proved to be a near double. Suddenly my float dipped and I nearly forgot to strike such was the shock. To say that I played it gently may be a bit of an understatement, but I was determined to get it safely in the net. It proved to be only about 4lb, but it was most welcome. Matt even managed to get a similar one while i was playing mine without me noticing, so carefully was I playing my fish.

It would be nice to say that it was the start of a decent last couple of hours, but that was it for both myself and Matt. We didn’t get another bite between us for the rest of the match. At the end Matt’s fish gave him just over 14lbs while my solitary Carp and a few tiny Rudd made just 4lbs 3ozs, while poor Trevor Jeans on 21 suffered the dreaded DNW. The match itself was won by Gary Thorpe on peg38 at the opposite end of the lake with 10 Carp that he’d caught at 14mtrs on corn and pellet for 58lbs 14ozs.

Keith (gandhi) popped down to watch the weigh-in and he was kind enough to carry both mine and Matt’s rodbags back for us. A bit of banter with the lads in the car park brought the day to an end while Trev was kind enough to let me have a couple of samples of as yet unreleased GOT Baits products for me to try.

Not the best of days for me fishing wise, but a good crack with Matt for company and I’ll definately be going back to Alders, though I may wait till it warms up a bit 1st and the Carp get a bit more spread out and re-discover their appetites.   

Monk Lakes. Bridges Lake. January 13th, 2008.

First outing of 2008.

My 1st outing of the New Year saw me driving down to Monk Lakes to meet up with Andy (The Hat) Spreadbury from the Maggotdrowning Forum in the car park at 8am. The weather didn’t look to promising. A leaden grey sky holding the promise of rain, with heavy clouds scudding across at a rate of knots didn’t bode well as Monks is one of the most exposed fisheries going, and with the object of the day being to help Andy refine his waggler fishing I felt we could be in for a struggle.

The original plan was to set up on one of the heavily stocked match lakes, but with matches on all 4 of the match lakes, we elected to try one of the pleasure lakes. A leisurely drive round saw us settle on Bridges, the larger of the 2 pleasure lakes where we could fish 2 adjacent swims with the wind off our backs. Although the temperature was 10°C the wind made it feel like half of that.

Now the thing is that although I fish Monks fairly regularly, it’s mostly one of the four match lakes. Andy and I hadn’t fished Bridges since November 2004 when the lake hadn’t been open long, so neither of us really knew what to expect.

I was soon set up, having brought my Shakespeare 11ft Micro all set up in its ready rod sleeve, selecting a Drennan 3AA peacock insert waggler fishing 3lb straight through to an18 Drennan barbless carp match hook, with red maggot for bait. Andy was using his 11/13 John Wilson rod at 13ft in more relaxed mode fishing from his chair.

The maximum depth I could find was around 3ft about 25mtrs out towards the island, so a pouch of red maggots was followed by my float as I settled back to see if anything showed an interest. The wind was making things difficult, with Andy having to blacken his float tip to see it in the chop.

Soon my float slid away resulting in a nice plump Skimmer of around 2lb in the net and 5 minutes later its twin followed it……

 Andy finally got of the mark with a little Ide, not quite what he was hoping for but at least it was a start……

I couldn’t help notice that we were getting the odd curious glance from other anglers on the lake as we were the only ones using float tackle, all the others tucked behind brollies or bivvies with the seemingly obligatory pair of Carp rods for the larger Carp that most anglers target on this lake.

Next up for Andy came a Skimmer…………

but we were both struggling to put a run of fish together, I seemed to get a couple then nothing for a half hour, indeed despite trying numerous changes the only way I could get a bite was to lay 6″ of line on the deck. Finally I managed to connect with something that felt a little different, and it proved to be the first of several Chub of around 1lb, good to see as the last time I’d fished the lake they had been freshly stocked at around 4ozs in an effort to provide year round sport. I’m sure they’ll drive the carpers nuts as they’re large enough now to swallow a boilie.

Andy spent a while watching me and soon spotted the difference in my approach to his, with my match background I was always doing something, feeding, twitching the bait through my feed and casting more often, whereas Andy with his background in carping was more content to leave his rod in the rest for longer after casting and feeding less frequently.

Around about 1pm I hooked what was obviously a bonus, probably a Carp but I’ll never know as it just plodded off and shed the hook.

By 2pm I was getting ready to pack up when Andy was in again…………

It was soon apparent that this was something better as a Carp surfaced about 20 feet out, Andy’s landing net was looking a bit inadequate so I acted as ghillie with mine. On the mat it was obvious that the fish was a bit of an old warrior as unfortunately its fins weren’t in the best of condition and it had a nasty scar on one gill cover. A quick weigh before it was returned showed 15lbs, a nice bonus fish, meaning that we had both managed around 20lbs of fish during our session.

With my gear packed Andy decided to fish on for a while, so I bid him farewell after discussing the possibility of a session after Crucians at Marsh Farm later in the year once its warmed up a bit, that should be fun.

For those of you that are interested the following is Andy’s take on the day.

Posted by Andy Spreadbury.
The object of the exercise was to carry forward what I’d learnt on my first session with the waggler. There were a number of issues to address – what sort of waggler for which conditions, shotting patterns, that sort of thing, and I started off by showing Peter my float-box. He suggested I try an insert peacock carrying 4 AAA and in addition to the bulk, to shot it with a couple of number 8s – one about half-way down, the other nine inches or so from the hook. This was a fairly heavy rig (as wagglers go), unlike the little six-inch jobbies I’d got which only take a few shot to cock them; it was so windy, even the heavy waggler was a job to cast.

Peter was out of the blocks almost immediately and was into a little run of skimmers, unfortunately, the shoal must have moved off as their presence was short-lived. I managed to bag one but as usual was falling way behind Peter’s catch-rate. A problem I identified almost immediately was visibility.

I tried to match the distance Peter was casting – quite a long way for float-fishing, about twenty-five meters or so, maybe thirty – I’m not too sure, it seemed an awful long way though and I have to confess I really couldn’t see the float properly and often not at all. Although the fine tip of the insert is great for lack of resistance to a biting fish, its slimness was a real disadvantage to the optically-challenged such as myself. I struggled with the thing for a good couple of hours before finally admitting defeat and fished shorter – even picking up a couple of fish. As Peter continued to reel ‘em in from his long-range presentation I changed the float for something else.

I’d got several other patterns with me, mostly of the straight variety made of reed, clear plastic, and peacock quill, but after several changes I eventually settled on a Premier Windbeater with a balsa body and straight stem carrying a shed-load of lead. At least this was manageable in the extremely strong wind which got stronger as the day wore on. I finally got the visibility issue sorted and could see the bright orange of the tip pretty well and with some fiddling about managed to get the shotting about right too. Peter however had out-caught me by a ratio of about five to one and I began to get ever so slightly frustrated by my lack of action – whereas Peter was picking up fish (albeit the odd fish, but fish nonetheless) a matter of only a few metres away.

Peter of course had the reason – and not for the first time during our sessions together it was FEEDING.

If there is one thing that is more important than anything else it is giving the fish feed in a consistent and regular manner sufficient to keep them interested in looking around for and finding hookbaits. Almost every time we go fishing, Feeding is the number one issue and today was no different. Peter reckoned it was my carp-fisherman mindset that made me adopt the sit-and-wait style I was using – whereas he was always busy, either feeding, twitching the bait back, re-casting, re-baiting, casting spells, talking to the fish – and whatever other devices he employs to coax, cajole, and coerce fish into taking his bait.

True, twitching the bait by giving the reel handle a turn every minute or so I am sure persuades an otherwise disinterested fish to snatch the bait back, but it is the constant and continual investment of effort that really does the trick, an investment that resulted in Peter far out-fishing me.

It was not only the amount and frequency of feed going in that made a difference – but where it was going also. Peter was pin-pointedly accurate – even in what was at times, a howling wind; my catapulted maggots were often going all over the place, blown by a gusty wind veering in sometimes unpredictable directions. There is a definite knack to it – you must aim low and snappy, not high and gentle – allowing the wind to blow the feed near the float, for it will inevitably blow it exactly where you don’t want it. The feed must be little, often, and in exactly the right place. Easy to talk – more difficult to do.

The carp was a total fluke and I claim no great skill in either luring it or landing it. The skimmers fought ten times harder! I am convinced the fish must have been laying-up – and for some considerable time too as it had a number of leech-like organisms on it.

Carp lay-up in the very harsh weather and I have often noticed that sick or mangy fish are particularly prone to doing this. The one I caught was a very sad individual who had obviously had a hard summer – the evidence of disease was obvious – lesions, partially rotten fins, and poor condition resulting in a fish that was in the recovery stage of previous ill-health.

Peter had to go early as his leg was playing him up (poor old thing) and I spent the last hour doing much better than the previous few hours catching some of the Chub and this Tench.

All in all, not only an enjoyable day in good company, but once again, I learnt a lot from my ‘mentor’.

Thanks Peter.