Anglers Paradise 2016

It's taken me forever to get around to this years write up, so long in fact that I've half forgotten what happened on this years holiday! I'll do my best though...

Day 1: Specimen Catfish Lake

As usual we headed down a day early for a sneaky 24h on one of the day ticket lakes before the holiday proper. This year we opted for the specimen catfish lake again, go big or go home as they say!

Specimen Catfish Lake

We were the only people booked onto the lake, so we set up next to each other about halfway up the lake and claimed half of the lake each, with Steve on the left and me on the right. The conditions seemed good for a moggy, it was warm with some light cloud cover. I was fishing a low resistance free running setup with large (21mm and 28mm) halibut pellets as hook baits on my tried and tested catfish rigs. Nothing was showing in the lake at all however, not even the small fish, so we opted to bait an area out in front of us with a mixture of small and large pellets and some fishy boilies that we could both fish a rod to, while we used our other rods to probe around likely looking areas for an hour or 2 each in the hope of landing a hookbait right in front of a fish, a tactic that has worked for me before.

It didn't work this time, and the lake remained pretty dead for the whole of the day. The night wasn't any better either, with all hookbaits still intact come the morning, even the little fish hadn't been nibbling away at our pellets, but at least we got a good nights sleep! We had a few hours left before we had to pack up though, and after topping up with a couple of spods of small pellets to try and draw the bait fish in, one of Steve's rods went screaming off! He looked somewhat confused as he struck into thing air however, as there was nothing on the end of his line, and by nothing I mean nothing, no leader, no lead, no hook, the whole lot had gone! He claimed he didn't even feel any resistance at all, it was as if someone had snipped through his line with scissors. Strange...

About 20 minutes later the relative silence of the Devon countryside was broken by the wailing of an alarm, and this time it was one of mine! Whatever it was was going at a rate of knots as I picked the rod off the rest and struck... into thin air. I had lost all my tackle too, no hint of resistance from a fish or the weight of the lead, exactly the same as Steve, but in a completely different spot. Upon inspecting my line, it wasn't frayed or damaged at all, it was a clean cut. Rather baffled by the affair the only remotely sensible explanation we could come up with was pike charging at the bait fish and getting caught up in our lines in the process, causing the "one toners" and the clean cuts through the line, but as far as we were aware there weren't any pike in there!

That was the only action we saw on the cat lake, but as we were packing up one of the bailiffs came round, and we explained our mysterious tackle abductions to him. He seemed as baffled as us as there are no major snags in there, but when I enquired about pike apparently some have been stocked into the lake and had been coming out on all kinds of crazy baits, including sweetcorn! Whether or not we were the victims of a pike attack we'll never know but as far fetched as it seems it's still the only explanation I can come up with.

Day 2: Octopussy

As we were already kitted up for cats we figured we'd go straight onto octopussy when the holiday proper started on Saturday afternoon.

John, Ringo, Paul and George... I'l get my coat.

It was quite a bright day and the cats didn't seem to want to come out to play in the sunshine, so the main highlight of the day was watching this beetle try and climb a piece of stickyweed and fail because it had eaten far too many pies. Not the most exciting day but it was nice to have some sunny weather as it was forecast to get a bit wet and stormy in the not so distant future, with a big temperature hit too, not exactly what we wanted to hear. Some people swear by south westerly winds and all that, but in my experience if the temperature takes a real nosedive (or hike for that matter) the fish seem to switch off until things settle down a bit.

Nighttime came and with it some "heavy dew" and a run! It was pretty obvious from the outset that it wasn't a cat, but it felt a half decent carp for the lake, and after a short tussle the first fish of the holiday was in the net! A greedy mirror carp at 17lb that had somehow managed to jam 2 28mm pellets into his mouth!

17lb mirror from octopussy

It didn't feel like I'd been back in my sleeping bag long when I was summoned by Steve who had a fish on. It also turned out to be a carp, and 17lb. I would have accused him of copying me but his was a common. At least we were both off the mark, and a little bit damp now too!

17lb common from octopussy, and a bad case of pink eye!

Little linear

That was all the action for the night, and pretty much for the rest of the session. I did manage a small linear early Sunday morning which had scoffed the remains of the pellets from the night, and it wasn't raining anymore, which was a bonus! We packed up our gear and headed to the villa to get cleaned up and have some decent food at the BBQ before an evening stroll around the lakes and a few pints in the bar.

Rocket fuel

Zygs annual story telling at the BBQ went on a little longer than usual this year and we barely made it back to the bar in time for the raffle draw. Thankfully we got there just as Zyg was about to draw the first ticket, and after seeing us shuffle into the bar he gave me the honours of drawing it. After whittling down the handful of tickets I pulled from the bucket to just one and unravelling it, the number (444) looked vaguely familiar and as Zyg called it out I rather smugly produced the matching ticket from my wallet, and after some mild abuse and claims of match fixing proceeded to claim a bottle of Zygs Tokaji wine as my prize!

"Grapes from Devon, warmed by the sunshine of heaven. Matured and fermented to perfection. Recipes rumoured to have been mysteriously bestowed. Raise your glass and with careful action you will have great satisfaction". I think Zyg may have been sampling some this himself when he came up with that label! 

Day 3: Main Lake (part 1)

Friendly robin perched on the peg sign

It didn't look like the cats were playing ball so we thought we'd try for some decent carp, and where better than the main lake! After a walk around the lake we had originally planned to fish by the dam wall, but someone who shall remain nameless (and is a member of our 2 man group and isn't me) decided now would be a good time to snap their fox eurodome bivvy. After letting him cry about it for 10 minutes while watching him randomly stabbing the broken pieces together like some deranged ape trying to build something out of twigs (as if it would somehow magically fix it), I reluctantly informed him, that it was indeed completely f****d and that we should probably move to Nev's point and the adjacent peg as they were currently free and had a pagoda he could sleep in as it was due to be rather damp for the foreseeable future.

We managed to move all our kit round just in the nick of time, as a group of now rather disappointed anglers barrowed their kit past our new pegs having obviously just scouted them as being free. Oh well, you snooze you lose! Steve refused to admit the death of his bivvy though, and headed to the tackle shop in some rather whimsical hope that they just happened to have a clip for the front porch of a 10 year old bivvy in stock... Oddly they didn't! But he did return with some glue, tape and a rather hopeful look on his face which soon disappeared when I pointed out to him that even if the glue did work (which was highly doubtful due to the stress that would be placed on it) he would have to wait at least a day for it to harden enough to even stand a chance.

Here comes the heavy dew!

The fishing gods weren't totally out to get Steve though, and not long after Dion showed up with a replacement part for Steve's bivvy that he'd taken off of his own spare bivvy and said Steve could borrow it for the week, what a legend! It couldn't have come at a better time either as the forecast stormy weather arrived and things got just a little damp and windy. I realise I've rambled on for ages now about a broken bivvy and you're all bored and want to hear about the fish. Well, the truth is I didn't catch any for the first 24 hours, but Steve did and I hate "losing" so thought I'd tell you all a riveting story about a broken bivvy instead... Fine! Steve had a nice common early evening, it looked like it could go 20, but was spawned out and only managed 18, still a nice fish though!

18lb, look at the size of that head! The fish has a pretty big one too!

And just to rub it in, he had another fish in the night, this time a mirror. Again it looked like it should have done 20, but was spawned out so weighed in at 19lb. Both were caught on the new essential cell, and neither of them won him a bottle, hahaha!

19lb mirror from main

Day 4: Main Lake (part 2)

17lb from main

We opted to stay on the main lake for another 24 hours as Steve had had some fish and was optimistic for some more, and I'd piled in a load of boilies and had a feeling the fish would show up sooner or later. Steve struck again early morning, but I was half asleep and only took a photo with his camera, and cant really recall anything about it, other than I think it was around 17lb, my bad! I had one from the margins early on too, caught on paradises own "pink stink" wafters from a spot that had done my then PB a year before. A rather chunky and slightly battered mirror (from what we had caught it looked like the fish in main had only just stopped spawning), that was again 17lb. I was starting to wonder why I brought my scales, as everything seemed to be about 17lb! After the early morning feed things went predictably dead as the sun rose higher into the sky. We were due the storm any time now but the weather didn't seem to be able to make up its mind if it wanted to be calm and sunny or windy and wet. I decided to try and make the most of the calmer periods by firing out a load of dog biscuits to the middle of the lake to see if I could get anything to come to the surface. It was while doing this that a bird that became known (rather exaggeratedly) as the "pterodactyl" swooped down

onto my peg and like some kind of brightly feathered ninja made off with a stray dog biscuit before I had chance to get a good look at it. Obviously it was challenging me to get a photo of it before the session ended, and I accepted...

Due to the brief distraction from the pterodactyl, I had completely lost track of the dog biscuits so proceeded to fire another barrage out into the middle of the lake. It was at this point that I noticed a lad had set up on the far bank in the peg Steve was originally going to fish before breaking his bivvy. I also noticed he had the same bivvy as Steve, and by some strange twist of fate, had also broken it in the same place Steve had broken his. Don't worry this isn't another broken bivvy story, just a warning to all the eurodome owners out there, beware the bivvy breaker peg! Obviously that distracted me again, so a third round of dog biscuits were fired out to the middle of the lake. It's at this point that Steve decides to catch another fish, this time a common of 16lb.

16lb from main

By now I've fired out half my supply of dog biscuits and haven't even been watching to see if anything is taking any of them. So obviously a fourth barrage gets sent to the middle of the lake, and what do you know, 2 or 3 different fish proceed to pacman them off the top. The fish were too far away (about 50 yards) to get a look at them, but the swirls looked pretty sizable and that was all the convincing I needed to reel in one of my rods and break out the floater fishing gear! I set up with a large controller float to get the distance, a hooklength of around 4ft and a whittled down banoffee pop up as a makeshift imitation dog biscuit on a short hair to a size 8 wide gape hook, and a small mesh bag with some dog biscuits in which adds a little weight to the hook and helps straighten everything out when feathering the line on the cast and prevents tangles. I launched it out to the "danger zone" fully expecting every biscuit in the bag to be hoovered up and the hook bait completely ignored as is usually the way, when a big swirl appears behind the float and before I've had chance to decide if it was my hookbait the float has vanished and the drag on my reel is singing. Whatever it was was kiting off to the left at a rate of knots, and despite me reeling as fast as I could it looked like it was going to get behind the island before I'd gained enough line on it. Thankfully it gave up it's dash for freedom just a matter of feet before it reached the island and I finally had it under control and heading towards the net. I had a feeling what it might be from the way it just seemed to give up after a strong run, and my thoughts were confirmed when I slipped the net under a new PB grass carp of 19lb 8oz, so close to being a bottle winner!

19lb 8oz from main

Despite all the commotion, the other fish were still mopping up the remaining dog biscuits so I fired out some fresh freebies and put the rod back out in the danger zone. The wind was starting to pick up a bit again now so I had to recast every couple of minutes as my float drifted around to the left fairly quickly. It wasn't long though and I had another take, and another grass carp in the net, a bit smaller at 14lb.

Another mutant chub off the top from main

 There were still fish feeding on the surface, but they were slowly getting pulled away from my swim and towards the lad with the broken bivvy as the wind carried the remaining dog biscuits across the lake. I did my best to keep them in my water by trickle feeding dog biscuits off to my right in the hope the fish would follow the trail and come back towards me. It worked to some extent but I could only pull them back as far as the left edge of my swim, meaning my hookbait was only in the danger zone for maybe 30 seconds before I had to reel in and recast. In the end the wind got the better of me and the fish drifted over towards the lad in the broken bivvy.

17lb (again) from main

I did manage another fish on the margin rod later in the day, which as you've probably guessed weighed 17lb. The weather took a turn for the worse after that and we had a rather stormy night in the bivvies. I don't think it could have rained any harder, and it was relentless throughout the entire night. What can only be described as a small river was forming near our bivvies as water rushed down from the rest of the complex on the hill behind us. What was once my peg was now a lake of its own as the river backed up against the wooden logs that made up the front of the peg. When we awoke, the storm had passed but something didn't look right, something had changed. The lake appeared to be completely void of all the dwarf lillypads. On further inspection, they hadn't gone anywhere, the lake had just got about a foot deeper, and had submerged them all! On top of that, the lake was now flowing over the dam wall, and a large section of the bank where a stream flows into the lake had been washed away! Still, it never rains in Devon...

Day 5: Octopussy (again)

We had decided to try the specimen carp lake, but there were a few people on it already and previous experience told us that lots of lines in the water is a kiss of death for that lake, so we opted to give octopussy another go instead as it was completely empty. We hadn't heard of any cats coming out at all yet, so we re-rigged for catfish, after all they've got to eat something sooner or later right?

15lb 4oz from octopussy

Wrong! But the carp were still hungry, and I was pretty much out of usable 28mm pellets, and the alternative 21mm pellets proved easier for the carp to pick up, as it wasn't long before I had a 15lb 4oz mirror on the bank. I was actually quite pleased with this one, simply because it wasn't 17lb! We decided to have a bit of a break mid day and have some proper food in the villa and a shower as I had become quite "ripe" by now and I'm sure Steve wasn't any better. I'd also been instructed by Rich the tackle shop goblin earlier in the week to report to him early Wednesday afternoon as apparently I had been awarded something by the "angling writers guild" of which he seemed to be the head. I was rather dubious about receiving a reward from what appeared to be a made up guild with only 1 member, but my suspicions were unfounded when I was awarded a magnificent piece of fishing head wear in recognition of my "superb angling in adverse conditions" during my recent visit to Xanadu where I had endured swarms of ravenous midges to catch my PB common carp. I gratefully accepted my award and proceeded to adorn my head with it as I stocked up on a few items in the tackle shop. For some reason Steve, some other customers and especially Rich seemed to be struck down by some form of temporary hysteria but thankfully I seemed to be unaffected, probably due to some kind of shielding from my new hat.

We returned to the lake mid afternoon, revitalised and eager to try and win a bottle of wine after coming so close on a few of the previous captures. It wasn't long until my reel was screaming away again, but again it didn't feel like a cat at all. It was a carp of course, and a good one for octopussy, it was certainly over 17lb, but would it manage to sneak over the 20lb mark and win me a bottle of wine?

No! But it did weigh in at 19lb and had a bit of a funky scale pattern with huge scales all over its belly so I was happy all the same.

19lb and a rather fetching hat from octopussy

Evening came around all too fast and quickly turned into night. The cats still didn't seem to be playing ball and we were running out of holiday to try and win that bottle. It was then that I hatched a genius plan that couldn't possibly fail! I realised that 2 years ago on the peg I was currently on, I had caught a one whiskered catfish from a spot just off to my left, and the previous year I had caught the same catfish, from the exact same spot, so surely all I had to do was put a bait in that spot and see if my old mate stumpy was at home! So at last light, I placed 2 of the better looking 28mm pellets on the spot, and covered it with a handful of 21mm pellets and went to bed hoping that I'd soon be dragged out again.

I wasn't! But I was dragged out at 5am the following morning, and it was the stumpy rod that was away! It was apparent straight away that I'd finally found a catfish as the rod lunged over in the distinctive manner as the fish ploughed off up the right hand margin. I managed to get my other rod in out of the way and a tug of war battle ensued with the catfish trying to get around the arm of the island one minute, and under a marginal tree the next. After around 10 minutes it finally started to tire and it wasn't long before I had it safely in the net. It was easily a bottle winner so I called Steve to come take a photo for me while I rested the fish in the net. I jokingly said to him "I told you I'd catch stumpy" as I lifted it on to the mat, and when I peeled away the net to get a look at it, it only had one whisker! I never really thought in a million years I'd actually catch stumpy again from the same spot, but here we were, re-united for the third year in a row!

It's my old mate Stumpy at 26lb 8oz!

Me and Stumpy through the years. Some say Stumpy has more facial expressions than Nicholas Cage!

Self take photo full of sausage fingers

As I was wide awake from the fishy reunion and pretty much out of the 28mm cat baits, I decided to have a little crack at some carp using some boilies I'd designed mainly for barbel fishing in the upcoming river season that I'd brought along as a bit of a test run. I had 3 fish in about an hour, the biggest of which was this 16lb 8oz mirror before I switched back to 21mm pellets for a chance at another cat while I got a bit of shut eye in the bivvy. We didn't get any more runs on octopussy, the cats really didn't seem to be feeling it this week, maybe it was from all the cold water from the rain, maybe they gorged themselves silly the week before, who knows.

Day 6: Specimen Carp Lake.

We were going to give the main lake another go as it was completely empty bar a couple of anglers that we'd become friendly with during our week who'd jumped on our previous spots and as it turns out had done quite well from, so at least all those boilies I piled in didn't go to waste! There seemed to be a lot of fish patrolling one corner of the lake but it meant sitting in the teeth of the wind and to be honest by this point in the week I'd had enough of hiding in my bivvy, so we opted for the specimen carp lake instead. It still had a few anglers on, but they were all crammed onto one bank well away from where we wanted to go and they all looked like they were only doing the day so it looked worth a punt. We were in the right area as periodically we'd see the same fish swimming the same patrol routes, and it was only a matter of time before someone got a run. That someone was Steve, but it was obviously not a specimen carp and we assumed it was just going to be a little pasty. Turned out it was a golden tench, so although not what we were after was a nice surprise, and I think was a PB for Steve too!

tinca tinca now comes in new orange colour!

Not much else happened for the rest of the session, though we did get a good nights sleep! We tried just about everything, setting little traps on the patrol routes to trying to stalk them out from right under our feet but they either weren't feeling hungry or they had us well and truly sussed out (I suspect the latter). In an effort to try get them feeding on the top I did manage to attract the attention of what looked to be a decent sized orfe, which I managed to hook about 5 seconds after my first cast to it! Sadly it got in the dwarf lilly pads in the margin and come off before I had chance to scoop it out in the net.

Day 7: Float Lake

As is becoming tradition the Friday afternoon was spent just having a bit of fun catching the koi and other species from the float lake on a light float rod. We had loads between us including koi, carp, goldfish, chub, barbel, golden and blue orfe, golden tench, golden rudd and a few interesting hybrids! 

Just a small collection of the many, many fish we caught from the float lake

Not a pterodactyl

Phew! That was a bit of an epic blog, congratulations to anyone that made it to the end! Oh and just for those paying attention, after many, many failed attempts and using probably half a kilo of boilies to lure him out, I did finally manage to get a photo of the ninja pterodactyl! Turns out it was Jay, not a pterodactyl after all, who would have thought!