Anglers Paradise 2018

Session 1: Nirvana Specimen Catfish Lake

As usual we arrived at paradise a day early for 24 hours on a day ticket lake before the weeks holiday started. This year as it had been pretty scorchio for the last few weeks we decided to try the catfish lake again.

Nirvana specimen cat lake

We had the whole lake to ourselves and instead of setting up in the same peg for a bit of a social like we usually do, we decided to fish opposite sides of the lake and have a proper crack at bagging a catfish. We've done a lot of hours on this lake over the years and only have 1 catfish to show for it between us! This year felt different though, the lake was alive with small fish dimpling on the surface, big carp were crashing in the weed beds and I even spotted a catfish roll on the top in the open water to my right. Surely we'd winkle one out this year...

I opted to fish a big bottom bait consisting of 2 28mm halibut pellets sandwiched between 2 boilie halves in the open water out in front of me, and on the other rod I set up a pike float with a bunch of worms mounted on a size 1/0 hook a couple of feet below the surface which I intended to cast around and let drift across the lake. The float was constantly bobbing from the smaller fish (aka orange army) pecking at the worms, but the worms were holding up to the assault and the float was more than big enough to be able to distinguish between the nibbles and a proper bite.

Time drifted by as I cast the float around my swim trying to search out a hungry catfish. I tried varying the depth with no luck and the only place I hadn't yet tried was tight to the island, as I had a feeling my worms would get smashed by the resident perch if I cast them too close to the cover of the island. My feeling turned into reality as no sooner had I cast to the island, the float was getting dragged all over the place and upon retrieval all I had left was a few tatty sections of worm on my hook. I persevered for a couple more casts but it was obvious all I was going to achieve was to burn through my entire supply of worms in a matter of minutes, so I broke down the float rig and swapped to another bottom bait rig, but with a smaller hook bait of a single 22mm pellet tipped with half a pop up to sit it upright on the lake bed.

Sunrise over the specimen cat lake

Night time came and I recast my rigs with fresh pellets to last through the night, and put a handful of freebies over both rods. As the light faded the big carp left the sanctuary of the reed beds and big bow waves could be seen traversing the lake as they cruised around just under the surface. A large carp leaped clean out of the water before gravity brought it crashing back down with an almighty splash, the orange army were still dimpling on the surface presumably chasing the flies. The lake was alive, surely it was only a matter of time before one of rods tore off.

A couple of beeps from my alarms awoke me, and I rushed out of my bivvy to investigate. The bobbins were still where I left them and I had a ball of orange fish in the margins attacking the pellets I'd taken off the night before (throwing them in the margin wasn't the greatest idea!) right where my line entered the water. The sun had just started to rise through a thin veil of mist and it was looking like the lake was going to beat us yet again.

An AP tench that isn't bright orange!

I had a few more hours sleep before waking around 8am with no further indications. The sun was already blazing down on the water and I knew the lake had beaten me again. When I went to recast my rods with fresh baits, I noticed a rarity for anglers paradise, a normal tench grubbing around in the margins where I'd thrown those pellets. Not one to pass up an opportunity, I set up a lighter carp rod I'd brought for stalking later in the week with a small float and baited the hook with a single worm before lowering it gently into the margins. a minute or 2 later the float was sliding across the surface and I was into the tench. It was only small, around 2lb so didn't put up much of a fight on the carp gear, but it saved a blank and was a first for me at anglers paradise! Steve hadn't fared any better, with only an aborted run during the night. A spot of breakfast on the bank saw the morning pass by and it was time to pack the gear away and go and see Zyg for a glass of wine and collect the keys for the villa.

Session 2: Octopussy

After meeting Zyg at the bar and collecting the keys to our now upgraded villa (thanks guys!) we quickly did the weeks food shop in Holsworthy which was basically £90 worth of pizzas and bacon, and headed down to Octopussy in the late afternoon to set up for the night. The lake was empty so we set up on the bottom bank, I took the monk swim and Steve took the swim on the right. Again I opted to fish the big double 28mm pellet rig on my left rod, which I cast a few feet off the corner of the island, and the smaller 22mm pellet + popup rig on my right rod which I cast into a small gap between the reeds on the corner of the island and an over hanging tree to the right. 10 to 20 matching baits were placed over each rod and the traps were set for the night.

Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, Jupiter and Io (left to right)

Not much was going on through the evening, though I wasn't really expecting it to as it had been a real scorcher of a day, so I took to a bit of star gazing to pass the time. Venus had just dipped below the western horizon along with the sun and the moon, and now the brightest object in the sky was Jupiter to the south. I used the camera with my 300mm lens to get a better look and all 4 of the Galilean moons were on show and nicely aligned for a photo. Saturn was also plainly visible to the left of Jupiter, and an hour or so later Jupiter was superseded as the brightest object in the sky as Mars arose above the southeastern horizon glowing a bright orange. I could just make out Andromeda to the north with the aid of the camera and the faint glow of the milky way was visible streaking across the sky overhead.

I recast my rods with fresh baits just after midnight as even the big 28mm pellets only last 5 or 6 hours in the warm water, and settled down for the night. I'd just dropped off to sleep when my left hand rod ripped off to the wail of the alarm at around 1am and I was into a decent catfish. It tore off to the right across the front of the island towards Steve's swim. I grasped at the spinning spool in an attempt to slow it down, but the dew it had been collecting had made it it slippy and the catfish continued on like an unstoppable freight train ploughing towards Steve's swim. Eventually I managed to get some purchase on the spool as the dew wiped off and I was able to bring it to a halt and start gaining some line back. Thankfully it hadn't gone through Steve's lines and I soon had it back in front of me. It tore off again to the right, this time down the margin and I had to lean out over the lake to try and keep it out of the reeds. It headed out towards the island and then kited left, taking my right hand rod with it. I managed to get it under control before it could get to the monk, and after a few more half hearted runs I had it in the net, along with a birds nest of line from my other rod!

27lb 8oz catfish from Octopussy

I woke Steve up for a quick photo. The staff at AP now prefer you to leave the catfish on the mat to take photos, which we tried but it was dark, we were tired and neither of us had practised the "catfish glove shot" before and we couldn't really get the hang of it, so I resorted to the old way of doing things just to make sure I had a good photo (sorry guys!). Steve helped me return it to the lake, and just as he'd walked back to his peg, one of his rods tore off and he was into a catfish! 

It took him straight into a large patch of blue pickerel weed on the edge of the island and everything ground to a halt. The celebrity anglers constantly tell you to use "slow and steady pressure" in these situations, and to be honest this hasn't worked once for us, and it wasn't working this time either. Steve tried walking backwards, holding the rod high, dipping the tip low etc... but nothing was working and it was starting to look like maybe the fish had gone. Steve handed me the rod briefly, I think so he could grab his hoody as it was getting pretty chilly, and I felt the slightest of tugs on the line. I convinced Steve the fish was still there and suggested maybe it was worth giving it some slack to see if it freed itself. It's a bit of a gamble when using barbless hooks but he tried it, and the fish was indeed still on and started to take a bit of line. Steve pulled back and by some miracle the fish just popped out of the weed, and after a bit of a battle under the rod tip was safely in the net!

21lb 8oz catfish from Octopussy

We got a couple of photos, had a celebratory sip of Zygs wine and I headed back to my swim to sort out the ball of line that my catfish had left me with. I ended up cutting about 10 to 20 yards of line off each rod as it was pretty much ruined and set about putting fresh baits on and getting the rods back out on the spots. I'd probably been asleep for about an hour when my left rod ripped off again at just after 3am. Again it tore off to the right, but this time I couldn't stop it despite my best efforts, and it buried itself into the same patch of weed that Steve's did.

Blue pickerel weed

I tried all the tricks in the book but I just couldn't convince it to come back out. After an hour or so of trying I was stuck as to what to do. The fish was still on as if I slackened the line off eventually the fish would move a little but I could only gain the same amount of line back on it before it locked up again, it was snagged up on something. I didn't want to pull for a break as then I'd have no way of knowing if the fish was still tethered up so I opted to wait it out and keep trying to free the fish up whenever it moved...

Around 5 hours and no sleep later, the fish was still on, and still tethered up in the weeds, but the on site tackle shop was now open so I was planning on leaving Steve to keep an eye on it while I ran up to the tackle shop to get some help. As luck would have it Ash (one of the bailiffs) and Zyg were doing the rounds in the buggy and I managed to intercept them as they drove along the main lake down the bank behind me. Ash got into the dry suit and bobbed across the lake to the patch of weed and confirmed the cat was still there. Apparently it was only a small fish around 10lb and was foul hooked in the base of the pectoral fin. I'm not sure if this was really the case (as I can't believe a 10lb cat could strip line the way it did when my clutch was still set for playing the 27lb fish I had earlier, even if it was foul hooked) or if he was just saving me the heartache of losing a big fish but either way he freed up the fish which was my main concern, and then set about retrieving my rig complete with the ball of leaders, line and lead clips that it had become entangled in amongst the weed. I endured a bit of banter from Zyg who seemed to regard me as a bit of a softy for not going in after it myself, and then set about sorting out the ball of leaders so I could get my rod back out and attempt to get some sleep in the now bright sunshine. On the bright side I did get some free leads out of the deal.

Despite my best efforts, getting some sleep in the bright sun in a bivvy as hot as an oven wasn't really happening, so I just accepted that it was going to be a zombie day and got myself some late breakfast. Oddly a bit of food seemed to do the trick and I must have finally dozed off as an hour or so later at around 1pm Steve woke me up saying he'd just caught another catfish and was after a photo. Apparently it had tried the same trick as the others in heading toward the weed but was easier to keep out as it was daylight and you could actually see where the thing was heading.

33lb 8oz catfish from Octopussy

That was pretty much it for the session, we stayed until around 4pm before we had to pack up and cart all the gear back up to the villa to leave us enough time to make ourselves somewhat presentable for the BBQ.

Session 3: Specimen Carp Lake

Feeling somewhat refreshed after a decent nights sleep in the villa, despite the copious amounts of Zygs wine consumed at the BBQ, we were up bright and somewhat early on Monday morning and had a quick look around the lakes before we decided where to fish. We were considering fishing the Main lake, but the dwarf pads had taken over much of the swims that we liked, and there was a layer of algae on the surface which made it difficult to see where the holes were amongst the pads. We walked round anyway but didn't see any signs of fish at all, and the whole lake looked more like a stagnant swamp than a fishing lake so we decided to pass and opted for the specimen carp lake instead which was empty and looked to be full of feeding fish when we did a lap.

1 of many single figure fish, all as stunning as this one.

Upon returning with the gear, 2 other anglers had beaten us to it and were in the pegs we'd been planning to fish. There was still plenty of feeding activity around the monk and bottom bank area though, so we set up in the 2 pegs closest to the monk on the bottom bank. I decided to fish about a rod length off the corner of the island, which would roughly be in the same location that I had the 2 fish from last year. I was baiting up with a mixture of essential cell and pink stink boilies, so I used the same in wafter form for hook baits, essential cell on the left rod and pink stink on the right. It wasn't long before the right rod was off, and I had a pristine mirror carp in the net, of a whopping 3 or 4lb. Almost as soon as I cast the rod back out, it was off again, with another scale perfect pasty... It appears the specimen lake was now sponsored by Ginsters... This continued pretty much all day, to the point where I was probably catching more fish than the pleasure anglers that were fishing the beginners carp lake! Every fish was mint and a real stunner though with an occasional bigger one around the 10lb mark thrown in, so while a little frustrating and costing me a fortune in boilies and dropped leads I didn't mind too much. The pasty action was broken up mid morning as I helped a lad on the left bank net a 35lb catfish as his dad who was no more than 20 yards away seemed completely oblivious to his yells for assistance!

Specimen Carp Pasty Challenge !!!

Thankfully the pasties appeared to fizzle out as night time approached and it looked like it might actually be possible to get some sleep. No sooner had I got into my sleeping bag my left rod was off. I picked the rod up to the usual faint pull of a small carp and pretty much wound the thing straight into the bank. Steve had come over to investigate and I informed him he may as well go back to bed as I was pretty sure it was another pasty, but for some reason I couldn't get it to come off the bottom. As Steve was about to leave the fish surfaced in massive boil of water and dived straight back down to the bottom, it wasn't a pasty. It didn't put up any fight at all, it simply just insisted on hugging the bottom under the rod tip. Eventually I managed to prise it off the bottom long enough for Steve to get the net under it and it was a weird looking thing, it had no belly at all. I realise the fish had only spawned a few weeks ago but even so this thing should have had some kind of belly on it, but it didn't, it was pretty much flat, perhaps even a little concaved. Despite this, it still managed to scrape over the 20lb mark giving me my second bottle winning fish of the week putting me on level pegging again with Steve who'd already bagged 2 bottles with his 2 catfish from Octopussy. (For those unfamiliar with Anglers Paradise, Zyg awards a bottle of his wine to anyone who catches a carp or cat over 20lb, koi over 8lb or a tench or orfe over 5lb, up to a maximum of 3 bottles per person).

20lb 4oz from the Specimen Carp Lake

All through the night we were still picking up smaller fish, though mostly the better size ones around 8 to 12lb and it looked like we wouldn't be getting much sleep after all. Steve had a nice fish in the early hours that looked like it might just scrape 20lb but ultimately weighed in at 18lb 4oz.

18lb 4oz from the Specimen Carp Lake

As the night started to turn into morning and the light returned, so did the little pasties. I gave up re-baiting the swim in the end and it didn't take long for them to clear me out, at which point they started bugging the other guys on the lake instead! I managed to get an hour or 2 of sleep before it was time to up sticks and decide where to fish next.

Session 4: Octopussy - Part 2

My old mate stumpy through the years

The Main lake was still looking a bit swampy despite finally having a splash of rain during the night, and we'd be out of bait if we stayed on the specimen lake, so we headed back onto Octopussy which was completely free apart from the 2 pegs we'd fished before. I didn't mind though as I wanted to fish a different peg anyway, a peg which allowed me to fish a spot where I'd caught a catfish missing most of its left whisker which I'd come to know as "stumpy". I'd caught him from that spot 3 years in a row 2014 - 2016. I didn't have the pleasure of being reacquainted with him last year and I was eager to have a catch up with my old mate stumpy!

I thought I'd have another crack at the worm rig I used on the specimen cat lake, but it soon become clear that this wasn't going to be possible as the orange army descended upon it instantly tearing my poor worms to bits. Instead I decided to try a big lump of meat popped up off the bottom by about 18 inches, a rig I'd caught stumpy on before, and cast it into the spot while I had a crack at trying to get a grassy off the top with a floater fishing setup.

New PB feather carp

I managed a mirror of around 8lb almost straight away, and soon after lost a much bigger common which I must have foul hooked as I was left with a single scale on my hook. It seems all the commotion must have woke the family of ducks up however, as when I recast and fired out a pouch of dog biscuits over the top about 7 or 8 ducks dived out of the reed bed on the island and flapped across the lake in an effort to beat their siblings to the dog biscuit banquet. Unfortunately one of them managed to hook it's leg in the commotion as I tried to get my line out of the way, but with the help of Steve we soon had it unhooked and safely back with it's family which unsurprisingly kept their distance for the rest of the day.

chirp chirp, chirp chirp

After all the disturbance from the duck raiding party, the fish that were feeding on the top had all gone somewhere else and I couldn't convince anything else to start taking the dog biscuits. The sun was hot and high in the cloudless sky so I wasn't really expecting much action in such conditions, but decided I'd put out another catfish rod into the shallow waters of a deep set bay in the island. From previous years I knew there was a lot of twigs and leaves in the margins of the bay, but I also knew the cats did get in there under the trees when it was hot so took my chances with the debris on the bottom and cast a pellet rig out as close as I dared to an overhanging tree on the left of the bay. I decided to check on my meat rig in Stumpy's spot, which had been whittled down by the orange army. I made the decision to swap that over to the big pellet rig so I'd know it'd last while I could attempt to get some much needed shut eye in my now baking hot bivvy. Of course this wasn't to be, I mean it's not like I needed any sleep, I had plenty of that 5 days ago. As I lay there all I could hear was chirp chirp, chirp chirp! So instead I gave up on sleeping and decided to track down one of the culprits. It didn't take too long to find in the longer grass on the bank. I'm guessing it's some variety of grasshopper as it had short(ish) antennae which is pretty much where my cricket or grasshopper ID skills end.

The day turned into evening and I had another crack at getting some fish to feed on the surface but couldn't manage to get anything interested in taking more than the occasional biscuit. I figured I'd get an early(ish) night and set about putting new baits on my rods. I put the big pellet sandwich rig back out to Stumpy's spot but opted to move the smaller pellet rig to more open water as I didn't fancy casting to the overhanging trees of the bay in the dark. I managed to grab a couple of hours sleep before the big pellet rod sprung into action at around 1:30am. The fish charged up the lake to my right, again heading towards Steve's swim. I can only imagine they do this on purpose as fish, especially catfish have a tendency to come off when in Steve's swim! It didn't come off though and I managed to haul it back into my water, where it made a second run towards Steve, this time ploughing through an overhanging tree on the right margin. I plunged the rod tip into the water to keep the line out of the branches as best I could, and thankfully everything held up and with the help of Steve who had woken up during the fight we had it safely in the net. Upon placing it on the unhooking mat it had a familiar look to it, and a quick check of the whiskers confirmed it was indeed my old mate Stumpy! He affectionately bit my hand while I unhooked him, and I gave him a loving pat on the head while Steve looked on declaring that I'd gone insane. He'd obviously been looking forward to our reunion as he'd lost a bit of weight to make sure he looked his best, and weighed in at 23lb 12oz rather than his previous weight of a rather chubby 26 to 27lb.

Reunited and it feels so good! Reunited 'cus Stumpy understood... Ok I'll stop now!

Happy that I'd not only caught up with my old mate, but had a third bottle in the bank with a few days to spare I figured I could finally get a decent nights sleep... I didn't. An hour or so after returning Stumpy to his home, Steve's rod took off and I was awoken from my slumber by a chorus of beeps from his alarms. I went to investigate and upon arrival to his swim could see his rod arched over to the right while the sound of snapping tree branches echoed through the night as his catfish seemingly made it's bid for freedom by climbing a tree on the island from the sounds it was making. Cue the sad music, as it worked. The line gave up as Steve tried to stop it from reaching what I assume by now (going by how much line it had taken) must have been the top of the tree, and his prize was gone. Usually at this point Steve becomes suicidal, throws his rods in the reeds in a tantrum and becomes the least fun person on the planet to talk to for the next few hours, but oddly he didn't seem that upset, maybe he wasn't feeling well or something.

That was the end of the excitement for that session. We did manage to get a bit of sleep in during the morning though due to the lack of action which I for one was grateful for. We had arranged to meet Joe for some lunch at the pub as he'd been off work with hip problems, so we packed our gear down ready for a move upon our return.

Session 5: Specimen Carp Lake - Part 2

After catching up with Joe and eating the first meal that wasn't a pizza or bacon since the BBQ (props to the guys in the Junction for the ham egg and chips!) we headed back to paradise. As I had my 3 bottles in the bank, Steve chose where we'd go next, and he picked the Specimen Carp lake again. I'd have picked it myself to be honest, sure we'd have more pasties than a Cornish bakery, but the word on the grapevine was Main wasn't fishing great, with only 1 of the other guests having caught anything all week, and we were pretty catfished out by now.

Monk swim on the Specimen Carp Lake

There was only 1 other person on the lake and he was fishing in the ramp peg on the right hand bank, so we decided to hop back into our previous pegs and fish roughly the same spots as before, though I decided to move what was my right hand rod over to the left and fish the open water, and fishing my right rod where my left rod was previously. Confused? Good!

We'd stocked up on more bait from the tackle shop. I only had 1 kilo of essential cell left in the freezer, and I was saving those as I was planning on fishing Kracking for the last night to try ride my luck and catch a real whale. So a mixture of my home made "Mutz Nutz" and Paradise Baits Beeze Kneeze and Pink Stink it was.

I put out about a kilo of bait spread over a fairly large area from the corner of the island to the open water towards the front left of the island. The swim started fizzing pretty much straight away as the pasties got their heads down, but for whatever reason I didn't really pick many up and things remained pretty quiet until sunset. I wasn't entirely sure what bait I had left out in the lake as I hadn't been catching the pasties, but there had been a fair bit of feeding activity in the area during the day. I guestimated that I probably still had about half left in the swim, so topped it up with another half a kilo ready for the night ahead.

I managed to get to sleep pretty easily despite the sounds from the guy who we guessed must have been on a midnight shed building bender for the whole week, as all through the nights we could hear things being whacked with hammers and the wobble board sounds of large sheets of metal being carried around. I was however woken in the middle of the night by a knackered but happy looking Steve who had managed to bag himself a scraper 20. Like mine it had no belly at all, but had apparently put up a good fight. While we got the camera kit sorted Steve informed me he hadn't had any sleep yet as he kept getting pasties. I pretended to care like all good mates would, and got some photos for him, not the best in the world as truth be told I was in a pretty zombified state myself.

20lb 2oz from the Specimen Carp Lake

11lb fully scaled

I managed to grab a bit more sleep before being woken again, this time by my own rods going off. It wasn't a big fish, and again put up no fight at all but at least it wasn't another pasty and was a bit of a looker. Unsurprisingly Steve was already up and about having still had no sleep at all, so I got him to take a quick snap for me. I didn't get so much as a beep for the rest of the night until early morning when I finally started to get mobbed by the pasties. Steve still hadn't had any sleep. I tried casting my baits away from my baited area to no avail, no matter where I cast to I'd have a fish on the end within 10 minutes, usually a lot sooner. Yes I could have used bigger baits, or snowman rigs or whatever to help cut down on the takes from the smaller fish, but over the years I've never caught a decent fish out of that lake on a big bait and I'd have just sat there the whole time with the heebie-jeebies wanting to fish a smaller bait, so I didn't go down that route.

After the pasties had cleaned me out completely they moved out of the area and let me catch a few Z's before it was time to up sticks and move one last time.

Session 6: Kraking Carp Main Lake

If Steve had gotten his 20 (which he did) I had planned on fishing the Kracking Carp lake for the final session to try and bag me a 30+, but in all honesty I was too knackered to move all my gear that far. We had a little wander round the main lake which was mostly empty bar 2 people on the far bank, and seemingly recovered from its swamp phase. Most of the algae had gone bar a few wisps here and there, and we could actually see fish moving around for the first time all week. Nev's point and the adjacent peg were free and only a stones throw away from where our gear was on the Specimen Carp lake, and we could see fish in the area so we decided to fish there instead of Kracking.

Nev's point on the Main Lake

I hopped into Nev's and Steve took the weedy peg on the left. This was how we'd always fished these swims and where we both had our confidence so it made sense. I had a quick lead around and found the hard patch I'd had success from in previous years (though oddly I couldn't find it last year) and decided that's where I was going to concentrate my efforts. I put about 1 to 1.5kg of boilie out over the spot which was pretty much what I had left from the previous session plus the essential cell boilies I'd been saving. I put an essential cell snowman rig out to the middle of the spot and attempted to do a bit of floater fishing out towards the middle of the lake whenever the army of 300 ducks would allow it as I still wanted to try and catch a grassy.

It wasn't long before Steve was into his first fish, and it wasn't long before his first fish was buried in the weed. Steve had seen that it was a decent common and was praying that it wouldn't come off as he'd never caught one over 20lb, he'd had about a million 19lb fish, including a fish that I'd had out a few weeks before him at over 20lb. The 20lb common was his nemesis, and it looked like this one, if indeed it was a 20 was going to give him the slip. For some reason he decided to try the old "slow and steady pressure" trick that never works, and by some miracle for the first time in history for anyone that isn't Mark Pitchers, it actually did work, and the common was out of the weed and free to swim straight into some more weed! I'd gotten a good look at it and it did look like it could go 20+ so I told Steve it wasn't as big as he thought and that it was probably 17lb tops in an effort to try stop him shitting himself so much. The carp gods must have been shining down on him that day as against all odds, the slow and steady trick worked twice, and the fish was quickly bundled into the net hidden in a ball of dwarf lily pads.

Not only that, but it was indeed a 20 and a fine looking one at that!

21lb common from the Main Lake

During Steve's battle with his fish, the 34th duck battalion had buggered off to the other end of the lake giving me a golden opportunity to get some floater fishing done. Fish were topping at 40yd+ range and I only had a simple bubble float set up which I could just about cast to 50 yards, but couldn't see that far out. I did have other controller floats on me, but I didn't want to take the time to re-tackle up as Captain Drake and his armada of ducks could turn up at any minute and ruin the party, so instead I changed the hook bait from a small biscuit coloured pop-up to a rather in-your-face 18mm bright pink CCMoore dairy supreme which I could probably still see if I'd cast it to the moon. There was a bit of a left to right tow on the lake from the breeze and my bait was soon dragged out of the danger zone. It was heading down a channel between the dwarf pads on my right and the island though, so I decided to let it ride, and then out of nowhere the bait disappeared in a big boil of water followed by a slap from a big tail and the line was tightening up across the lake. The fish didn't put up much of a fight and by some miracle seemed to willingly swim around the set of pads on my right and straight down the clear channel to the bank in front of me, where it then went mental. It was of course a grassy, renowned for their lack of spirit in the lake and tail slapping acrobatics when on the bank, and it looked a half decent one too. After it had finished throwing it's tantrum in the margins, we got it in the net and on the bank, where it was surprisingly well behaved and weighed it in at 17lb.

17lb grassy off the top from the Main Lake

Double bubble! 17lb 2oz and 15lb 2oz

The flotilla of ducks still hadn't realised there was an all you can eat buffet of dog biscuits floating around in the middle of the lake and I had another crack at getting a fish off the top. It wasn't long before my bright pink bait vanished beneath the surface as if it had been dragged down through the depths by some kind of ninja stealthy colossal squid. The line tightened and the rod hooped over as the culprit realised it had made a mistake and bolted across the lake. Almost simultaneously Steve's alarms started wailing and he had a fish on too and a few minutes of battling through the weeds later we both had a fish in the net. Double bubble!

16lb from the Main Lake

Steve managed another fish of 16lb as the sun was setting, and then it was my turn for a bit of action through the night and early morning despite only fishing 1 carp rod (I decided to fish a cat rod too as nothing much was happening on the carp front during the day). At 1:15am I managed to bag an 18lb 8oz mirror, not long after that I had a belter of a take which took me right around the back of the pads on my left before locking up. I finally managed to free it up by leaning out across the lake and getting the rod tip above the fish. I managed to guide it through the rest of the set of the pads before it locked up again about a rod length out. Then I felt the dreaded jolt through the rod as the fish threw the hook and was shortly after presented with a neatly bundled bouquet of dwarf lily pads for my efforts. Cue the sad music...

18lb 8oz from the Main Lake

Things went quiet after that and I managed to grab a few hours of much needed sleep before I was awoken by the horde of plum sauce dodgers swimming through one of my lines at 6 in the morning. As I was up and one of my rigs had been dragged out of place already I figured I may as well, put some fresh baits on and recast both rods. I put the carp rod back out to the spot and was debating whether or not to change the cat rod over to a second carp rod when the first rod tore off again, it'd only been in the water about a minute! The fish had gone right, around the back of the dwarf pads on my right. It hadn't gone in the pads though, and the line held out as it grated against the stems of the lilies as I slowly coerced the fish back into the open water in front of me. After a short battle out in the open I had it in the net and it looked another good one.

20lb 2oz from the Main Lake

19lb from the Main Lake

About an hour later the carp rod was off again and I had a lovely 19lb mirror in the net. I decided at that point to ditch the cat rod and swapped it over to another carp rod with an essential cell snowman rig and put it out onto the same spot. Naturally I didn't get so much as a liner on either rod for the rest of the morning. The sun was really hot once again and was rising in the sky so all the carp moved from the more open water where I was fishing back to the cover of the dwarf pads, where Steve was fishing, and once again he started getting takes while my swim lay dormant. 

12lb from the Main Lake

He lost one, possibly even 2 fish to the pads. It was such a hectic session that I didn't have chance to record the order of events at times so I got a bit lost and had to rely on my rubbish short term memory for some of it. Later on in the morning, perhaps even around lunch time he did manage one last fish, the smallest of the session at 12lb. My swim had been dead for a number of hours by this point and I was contemplating doing a bit of stalking in a weedy area that had done me a few fish in the past when things had gone quiet. It was at this point that a rather large golden orfe caught my eye as it briefly left the sanctuary of the pads to my right. I decided to reel in and do a lap of the lake anyway, and as I suspected there were a number of fish in the weedy area I was planning on stalking. When I got back to my peg, the big orfe was still about, this time in Steve's swim. I had a tin of corn in my bag, and I'd already caught a few decent carp in the session so I decided to bin off the stalking in favour of trying to nail the big orfe.

I baited an area in a V shaped cut out in the pads to my right with the entire tin of corn as I knew there were a few sub 1lb carp around that'd clean me out in no time and swapped one of my rods over to a pop-up corn rig and cast it tight to the pads within the baited area. I had a couple of twitchy takes that didn't result in anything, and on my third or fourth cast I had a proper positive take. As soon as I wound into the fish, a huge orange mass hit the surface, I'd only gone and nailed the big orfe! It went straight into the pads on my right, but I got it out easily and back into open water. All I had to do was guide it across the surface and into the net. I was just half way through praying to the fishing gods that it doesn't come off, when it it flicked it's tail, rolled over and threw the hook! I was pretty gutted to be honest. In all the years we've been going to AP none of us have ever caught a bottle winning fish that wasn't a carp or a cat, and although I already had the maximum of 3 bottles safely in the bank, this fish was more than likely over the 5lb mark and it looked like a right minter too. Time had pretty much run out after that, and we faced the gruelling trek back up cardiac hill with all of our gear in the scorching sun if we wanted to make it back in time for curry night. Next year Mr Orfe, next year...

New PB Zander

So, last October I smashed my Zander PB with a 14lb 6oz beast from a local canal under the light of a full moon. At the time I couldn't believe it, I'd always thought there was a monster in there somewhere but never managed anything much over 8lb. It was a PB I figured I would never beat without heading to somewhere like the Severn that's known to produce bigger fish. Turns out I was wrong!

At the start of October, during a full moon, my friend Steve and I decided to do a spot of carp fishing (aka bream fishing) on the canal. We hadn't been out on the canal for a while so had no idea where the fish were, so figured we'd just wing it and try a trusty old spot. I still had a couple of sorry looking dead baits hidden in the depths of the freezer left over from last year, so took them with me, a roach and a small mackerel, with the intention of chopping them up and throwing them out at the end of the session as a bit of pre-baiting ready for the impending predator season

As it turns out, the carp were no-where to be seen (which is pretty standard) but we weren't really picking up any bream either, so I knocked up a wire trace and swapped a rod over to a predator rod with about an hour of daylight left. To cut a long story short, I lost a decent fish right off the bat on the roach, had a few "ghost runs" and pickups on the mackerel tail, and ended up being left with only the head of the mackerel as bait, as I don't generally use the heads of mackerel as I never catch anything on them and usually end up being harassed by boot lace eels chewing at the gills if I leave them on and fish the whole thing. Anyway, it's all I had and the carp (bream) fishing was pretty non-existent so I launched the head out. It rattled off soon after and as the hooks struck home the rod hooped over. The fish didn't want to come off the bottom, as is usually the way with the better fish, and I could feel it thrashing it's head around so was fully expecting to see a rather angry pike on the end when I finally got it in. I'd barely had chance to see what it was before Steve had ninja'd it into the net as it finally popped up off the bottom and hit the surface. Needless to say it wasn't a pike, it was another big zed, or more accurately, the same big zed (distinguishable by a dark spot on its left flank) that I had caught last year, only this time it was bigger! After weighing a couple of times, we both agreed it was 16lb on the nose! Now, you're probably all expecting me to put up a picture of this fish here, but I can't do that as all the photo's give the location away and as it's early into the predator season I'd understandably quite like to keep the spot to myself for as long as possible. I did try "photoshopping" in a different background which looked ok, but you could tell it wasn't quite right and I didn't want to put up with all the crap from the "non believers" so decided not to post it (hence no blog at the time)... But fear not, the story doesn't end there my friends!

Fast forward a month, to the full moon at the start of November (you can see where this is going...). Steve had a free pass from his pig (his rather affectionate name for his other half) to go fishing, so we went back to the spot, but this time I was only targeting the predators, specifically the zander. I even joked with him that as it was a full moon, I was going to catch the big zander again. Well, during a rather hectic evening, involving 2 pike, 4 or 5 zander and an eel (getting 2 sets of trebles out of an eel is interesting to say the least!) I only went and caught it again! Exactly the same weight as the month before, 16lb on the nose. But this time it was in the dark, which gave us the opportunity to get a photo that gives nothing away, so here it is for all to see...

...But, that's not the end of the story either! As I had a photo that I was happy to share, I figured I'd try my luck and send it off to the angling times, and I've only gone and won a weekly Drennan award! I'm off to go make up some traces ready for the next full moon... ;)

Anglers Paradise 2017 - Session 3

Session 3 - Octopussy

Dragonfly on Octopussy

We only had a fairly short session on Octopussy as we had to pack up around 5pm to be ready in time for the BBQ. Catfish were the target and I was able to get on the peg I'd caught stumpy from for the last 3 years, so putting a bait in stumpy's spot was a no brainer. The other rod I figured I'd move around every couple of hours, trying in the bay, margins, open water etc... For baits I'd opted for 2 x 28mm halibut pellets topped with a large pop-up in stumpy's spot, as I didn't want to be picking up any greedy carp. For the roving rod I went for a single 22mm pellet topped with about 3/4 of a 15mm krill pop up.

Not much happened for the first half of the day, in fact that's probably overstating the action we had! No liners, no beeps, no signs of catfish anywhere... I've seen more life in a morgue! There were a few small grass carp hugging tight to the back and edges of the bay though, so I brought in the roving rod and broke out the floater gear and dog biscuits. They took quite a lot of convincing to eat anything at all, and when they did it was only the biscuits that had drifted near them, and even then they only took a few at a time, they simply weren't in the mood. One of the fish taking the biscuits did look half decent for Octopussy though, and this was the most action we'd seen for the last 4 hours or so, so I decided to have a go.

First cast couldn't have landed in a better place, and almost instantly the bigger grassy came up and slurped in my bait, and with my ninja quick reflexes I struck... Into thin air. There was a large swirl as the fish spooked, never to be seen again, and most of the smaller fish went with it, brilliant!

Steve with a small grassy from Octopussy

It turns out they all went to Steve's swim, who also had the floater gear out, and it didn't take long for him to bag one. He wasn't fussed about having a photo, but it was a nice day and I didn't have anything better to do having just voided my swim of all fish so I made him have one! I switched back to fishing 2 cat rods for the next couple of hours, again with less life than a Cliff Richard concert, when I noticed a half decent carp had turned up and was munching down the remaining dog biscuits still floating around from earlier. So back in came the cat rod, back out went the floater rod and not long after I watched my bait vanish into the abyss of a pair of slurping lips. Even more ninja like than before, I struck... into more thin air, followed by another large swirl as the fish spooked also never to be seen again, double brilliant! I put my cat rod back out for the remaining couple of hours but nothing came of it, I was heading to the BBQ with a cheque book and pen.

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!