Anglers Paradise 2015

I'm back from my annual week at Anglers Paradise in Devon with my friend Steve, and this is how it went...

 Fri 5th - Sat 5th June: Nirvana Specimen Catfish Lake

The weeks holiday proper didn't start until Saturday, but we like to extend it a little by going a day early and doing a 24h session on one of the complexes day ticket lakes, and after the success of last year we decided to try the specimen catfish lake on the nirvana day ticket complex.

Nirvana Specimen Catfish Lake

This lake has a relatively low stock of catfish with around a dozen whiskered residents, but they're all a good size for English fish, going to over 60lb! We arrived just after mid day and had the whole lake to ourselves, so we decided to fish the same peg as last year which allowed us to access pretty much the entire lake other than the small area on the other side of the island. The weather was a rather chilly 12ºC with patchy cloud and a brisk northerly wind, not ideal conditions but we've caught in much worse so were still hopeful for some action.


I decided to stay clear of the island this year and concentrate on the open water to my right, where I'd caught my PB from last year. Again I used a free running low resistance set up with my simple pellet rig, about 18" long 35lb fox coretex coated braid tied to a size 4 fox kuro s3 hook, with a single 20mm halibut pellet and a sticky baits white krill pop up presented snowman style on the hair. It's what worked for me last year, and as the saying goes, if it's not broke, don't fix it!

Instead of baiting up an area and fishing over it (which never seems to have worked for me in the past) my plan was to put 3 or 4 20mm pellets in a pva bag and cast to a new location every couple of hours in the hope of landing a nice pile of food close enough to a big old moggy to tempt it into having a light snack without having to stray too far from it's resting place. Usually this would be the part of the blog where I describe an epic battle between man and fish and display a beautiful trophy shot of my catch... But the truth is I didn't catch one, so I can't! I didn't have so much as a beep (except those caused by the wind) for the whole of the day and night, and neither did Steve.

In the morning, I decided to change tactics on my left hand rod, and swapped over to my popped up meat rig, with a big old lump of luncheon meat popped up about 9 inches off the bottom, and try fishing closer to the island. It wasn't long until the rod was off, with a rather tentative take, but alas there was nothing on the end when I struck, but my big old lump of meat had vanished... As I hadn't felt any sign of a fish on the strike, I figured it may well still be in the area, so baited up another big lump of meat and cast back to the same spot. Sure enough after about half an hour I had another very tentative bite, but this time I decided to sit on my hands and see if it developed into a proper take. It didn't, but my swinger continued to dance up and down with the odd couple of beeps from the alarm, so I very carefully tightened down and could feel something tugging on my line, so decided to hit it. This time there was something on the end, but it was far too small to be one of the catfish, and after a very short battle, the culprit was revealed to be a very greedy perch!

A nice perch of around 1.5lb

That was all the action we saw on the catfish lake, and at 10am it was time to pack the gear away and have a wander around the lakes while we waited for the bar to open for Zyg to greet us with a glass or 2 of his famous wine.

Sat 6th - Sun 7th June: Octopussy

After seeing Zyg, doing a bit of food shopping in Holsworthy and having a bite to eat in the villa, we decided to do a session on the octopussy lake, as we were already geared up for the cats.

Octopussy lake

We had the lake to ourselves when we arrived, and set up at the dam end, with me on the left near the monk and Steve on the right, as he had a score to settle with a catfish he'd lost at the net on that peg on our first visit in 2010, and it's been haunting him ever since (with a fair bit of help from me!). I decided to fish just off the reeds on the corner of the island with one rod, as I'd had 2 cats from there a couple of years ago, and the other rod in the open water to my left, though not too close to the monk to give myself a fighting chance of steering a catfish away if I was lucky enough to hook one.

It was bright and sunny, but still unseasonably cold with the brisk wind only easing up later on in the evening. Nothing much seemed to be happening for most of the day, but as the wind eased up a little I noticed a fish I assumed to be a carp constantly topping over my left hand rod. I fired out a few dog biscuits and almost instantly the fish was aggressively taking them off the surface. I quickly made up my surface stalking rod, and reeled in my left cat rod to have a crack at the topping fish. I already had a surface rig made up, with 2 pieces of fake corn on a small wide gape hook. A dull brownish piece closest to the hook to mimic the colour of a dog biscuit from below the water, and a normal bright yellow piece on top to make it easier for me to see from the bank. I cast to where the fish had been topping and catapulted out some more dog biscuits. The fish however appeared to have followed the last few remaining biscuits I'd first fired out closer in towards the monk. I gently eased my bait back into position, and I'd barely stopped reeling in when there was a splash and my rod was being torn out my hand! A short scrappy battle ensued and my prize was in the net, a little grass carp which I guessed to be around 10lb

Grass carp off the top from Octopussy

I fired out some more dog biscuits but to no avail, it seemed the grass carp had been the only fish feeding off the top, so I put the stalking rod away and recast my cat rod.

Sunset over octopussy

As the evening wore on, the lake seemed to come alive with carp crashing around in the margins and bays, I would have suspected they were spawning but I wouldn't have thought the lake temperature was anywhere near warm enough yet with the rather chilly start to the summer. As the sun disappeared below the tree line and the light started to fade, I recast some fresh pellets to my island spot, and switched my left hand cat rod over to an eel rod, as I'm quite a fan of the slippery little fellas who most people seem to deem as a pest, and I had it on good authority that were some good ones in there, possibly over 6lb.

Due to lake rules I was limited as to what baits I could use for the eels (usually I'd fish a small fresh deadbait) so I opted for cooked king prawns, which I'd managed to catch a small one on the year before while miraculously managing to avoid the carp and cats. I had action almost straight away, but the suspected eels were either bootlaces and far too small to eat the bait, or they were being rather cunning (which is pretty typical of eels in my experience) and were chewing the bait clean off the hair. I had to make a change to my rig, as I was burning through baits pretty fast and I'd only bought 1 pack of prawns, so I ditched the hair rig and made up a shortish rig consisting of 45lb quicksilver gold (I know Joe hates this stuff, but eels will chew through pretty much everything else with ease) and a size 6 hook to which I mounted the prawn directly. I soon had some more action and it seemed the change had worked as I soon had a fish on, but was it an eel? At first I thought it may have been a cat as it was pulling pretty hard and refused to come off the bottom, but after about a minute I managed to lift the fish off the lake bed and it suddenly felt much lighter, so I knew it wasn't a cat and was almost definitely a half decent eel. It was soon up on the top and was indeed my target species, and with my new 50" net didn't manage to pull the usual trick of wrapping its tail under the net and pulling itself back out, so was netted with ease in the dark, result!

Not one of the monsters, but not a bad one. I didn't weigh it but would hazard a guess at around 2 to 2.5lb

I had another eel of a similar size about 40 minutes later, but sadly I'd managed to deep hook it despite using a short hook link and being on the rods within a few seconds of the first beep, and was forced to cut the line as it's widely believed amongst eel anglers this gives the fish a much better chance of survival than probing around with discourgers and forceps, which in itself can cause severe damage to the fish even if you do manage to unhook it. Because of this I decided not to risk deep hooking another, and switched back to fishing for cats.

The next thing I heard as I was awoken from my slumber in the early hours wasn't my alarm screaming off, but my friend Steve asking if I could give him a hand. I got up and wandered over to his peg, to find he had a catfish resting in his landing net! Apparently he'd been fighting it for around 20 minutes and I'd managed to sleep through the whole thing! Still, I was awake now and able to help lift it from the water and take some photos. Steve wasn't sure if he'd managed to win a bottle with a 20+ (I should probably note here to people not familiar with Anglers Paradise, that you are able to win up to 3 bottles of Zygs wine during a weeks holiday by catching fish over a certain size, and for cats and carp its 20lb or bigger)  but I took one look in the net and could see he'd done it easy, and upon lifting it onto his mat it felt even heavier than it looked and I guessed it'd probably go over 30lb!

After unhooking we weighed it in my sling (as someone hadn't got theirs ready!) and the dial went round to over 42lb! After taking off the weight of the sling, Steve had a new PB catfish of just over 37lb, well done mate!

Steve's new PB cat, over 37lb!

That was all the action we had for the night, and we awoke the next morning to another cold sunny day. The lake was pretty quiet throughout the morning and I didn't hold out much hope of catching a cat in the bright sunshine with such cold temperatures. 

A friendly Chaffinch searching for some breakfast

The other various birds and animals that call Anglers Paradise home were active throughout the day, with chaffinches, robins, a rather brave baby moorhen (who we named bigfoot, because, oddly, he had rather large feet!) and possibly a pied wagtail (I'm not that up to scratch on my birds) making regular visits to my peg, and even in my bivvy picking up stray pellets and bits of boilies, so I took the opportunity to get a few snaps of the birds while the fishing was slow.

As the morning turned into afternoon, the suns rays had had a chance to warm the water and the lake seemed to wake up, with carp constantly crashing in the first bay up the left hand side of the lake. A couple of other anglers had set up down the right side of the lake during the morning, but the left hand side was still completely free, so I decided to cast my left rod up into the opening of the bay, still with the cat "snowman" rig on as I'd had a few mid to high double carp on that rig last year. About 20 minutes later my left rod was screaming off and I was into a fish! I had to coax it back out of the bay at first but other than that there wasn't any real drama during the fight, and I soon had a carp in the net, a rather pretty fully scaled mirror weighing in at 13lb

13lb fully scaled mirror from octopussy

I put the rod back out to the same spot, and it wasn't long until it was off again! Only this time my line snapped almost straight away, and on closer inspection I'd obviously damaged it at some point during the previous fight or on the wooden platform when landing the fish, as the line felt rough and scraped near the break point. My own fault, I'm usually pretty religious at checking my line after a fish if its been near snags during a fight, this time I forgot and I paid the price. I went on to have another run from the bay spot, which turned out to be a small carp of around 6 or 7lb that came off during the fight, before we had to pack up at 5pm ready for the Sunday night barbecue and a night in the villa.

Mon 8th - Tue 9th June: Main lake

Refreshed and re-energised from a decent meal and a proper nights sleep we had a quick walk around the lakes before deciding what to do for the day. We'd have liked to have fished the specimen carp lake as we could see some real big lumps basking in the sun, but it looked like there were already 3 people on the lake and in our experience it doesn't fish well when there are loads of lines in the water, so we decided to hold off till later in the week and fish the main lake instead, as it was unusually empty bar 1 person on the little point, and we could see quite a lot of fish cruising around in the big point swim. It's worth pointing out at this point that we have historically done really, REALLY bad on this lake, we just don't seem to be able to get to grips with it despite all the advice from Joe (the estate manager) who seems to be able to nail it every time he fishes it, so despite having many fish in front of us confidence was mildly optimistic at best! We did however, get some tips from Dion on what pegs had been fishing well lately (which included the big point) and how he'd caught some big fish on the Saturday from the little point swim, which seemed to more fit our fishing style than some of the other advice we'd had in the past.

Big point swim on the main lake

I set up in the big point swim, and baited an area with about 100 boilies to the left of a set of dwarf lily pads at about 30 yards which was right in the path of the visible cruising fish, and over a nice hard clear area on the bottom that I found with the marker float. Steve fished in the peg to my left which didn't have a lot of water to go at, but was a channel between an island and the bank so an ideal ambush point for any passing fish. I changed my free running cat setup over to a bolt rig lead clip system, and decided to fish a cut down cell dumbell tipped with fake corn on one rod, and a big catastrophic (AP's own bait) snowman on the other. Catastrophic is designed as a cat bait, and while there are some very big cats in the main lake, I was using it to try and single out the bigger carp as I really wanted to try break my current pb of 20lb 4oz.

It didn't take long before Steve had a take, a little pasty of maybe a couple of pound, not exactly what we were after, but at least he wasn't blanking, which was a big improvement over previous years! He re-baited his spots and cast back out, and it wasn't too long before his rod was off again, only this time it definitely wasn't a pasty! A fairly lengthy battle broke out as he tried to wrestle it away from the various danger areas of lily pads, and at one point it looked like he was going to lose, but he didn't and eventually he slipped the net under a lovely fully scaled mirror of 24lb 12oz, his second bottle winning fish!

Steve looking rather chuffed with his 24lb 12oz mirror from the main lake

The rest of the afternoon passed without so much as a liner, despite there being groups of fish constantly cruising around the area. I tried zig fishing for a couple of hours about a foot below the surface in an attempt to intercept one of the scaly submarines but it just wasn't to be. As evening approached I put out 20 or 30 fresh baits over my spot and switched my rods back to bottom baits. I was busy sorting out my rig wallets in my bivvy when my cell rod beeped a couple of times before screaming off. I did the obligatory "wave your hands around your head" dance while my brain took a few milliseconds to wake up and register what was happening before dashing to my rods and lifting into what felt like a fairly good fish. Obviously it ploughed straight through the set of dwarf lily pads, but I wasn't too worried as they weren't very thick and pulled out the lake bed fairly easy if the line did get caught on them. Thankfully the lead clip system had worked like a dream and dropped the lead, allowing me to easily navigate the fish out of the pads and into open water where I played it safely to the net. It looked a nice fish I was sure it wasn't a bottle winner and guessed it would weigh in around 18lb. I let it rest for a while in the margins in the safety of my sling while I got the scales and camera ready and weighed it in at 17lb 4oz. A much welcomed fish from a lake I've struggled with.

17lb 4oz mirror from the main lake

By now the sun was riding low in the sky, and it was time to top up the swims with some more bait, and get the spots measured out with a set of fox marker sticks so we could be sure of hitting the right spots in the darkness of night. The insects were out in force as soon as the sun had set, and we were being slowly eaten alive, so we called it an early night and went to hide in our bivvies behind the safety of the mossy nets. It felt like I'd only just drifted off to sleep when I was rudely awoken by a high pitched squealing and blue flashing lights. I don't know why but it took me a second to realise that this wasn't a police car passing my bivvy, but in fact being caused by my receiver set as my right hand rod was tearing off across the lake! Maybe it's old age as I had just turned 36 on the Saturday! I got on the rods as quick as I could and lifted into the fish. The sky had clouded over and the moon hadn't yet risen so it was very dark. I had no idea where the fish was, only a general sense of its direction from the force on the rod and the occasional splash of its tail. Eventually it came into head torch range and was soon in the net, and looked to be a little bigger than the first one while in the net. Had I done it? Had I landed my first bottle winning fish of the holiday?.. No! I hadn't. While it was indeed an inch or 2 longer, it wasn't quite as deep or fat as the first fish, and weighed in at an almost identical 17lb on the nose!

17lb mirror from the main lake

I was still pretty happy though, I'd had 2 good fish from a lake I'd fished for 96 hours in the past without so much as a line bite! Maybe I was finally getting to grips with the main lake... The rest of the night passed without event and we managed to get a fairly decent amount of sleep. The morning proved more eventful however as Steve's rod was off again and he was in to another good fish. Again the game of cat and mouse (or Steve and carp) was played dangerously close to the lily pads, but Steve was once again the victor and had caught himself a lovely 19lb common, just 1lb shy of winning his 3rd bottle and we still had the rest of the week ahead of us!

Steve with a 19lb common from the main lake

As the sun rose into the sky, the mist burnt off the lake and it seemed to go eerily quiet... That is all apart from the guy on little point who seemed to be reeling them in 2 at a time from the sounds of it! We had a decision to make, we could stay on main for another 24h, or we could try our luck on the specimen carp lake. We reeled in and had a quick look at the specimen lake. Everyone had left apart from 1 guy, who was fishing round the opposite side of the lake that we wanted to fish, and the area we wanted to fish still had at least 4 or 5 big carp basking in the morning sun... I think our mind was made up!

Tue 9th - Wed 10th June: Specimen Carp Lake

We moved all our kit up onto the specimen lake ready for 9am when we were able to get a day ticket from the tackle shop and receive some worldly advice (mostly abuse!) from Rich, the resident tackle shop goblin, who found it highly amusing that Steve had won 2 bottles while I hadn't won any, and had for some reason developed a fetish for withy pool rigs...

We got all our gear set up as quietly as possible on the lake, but after watching the water for a while I wasn't really feeling it, it didn't feel right. There were big fish in front of us, some as close as just a few feet from the bank, but they were just sitting there. Usually in this lake you see the big fish quite often, but they're generally cruising around their patrol routes around the island and a few margin spots, this year they were just sat there still, doing nothing. The area we were fishing (near the ramp swim) had also become completely covered in a light scattering of dwarf lily pads since last year, and it was proving tricky to get a bait out where I could be confident I hadn't snagged any lily pads, and hadn't pinned so many down with my mainline so as to create a big flashing neon arrow telling the fish exactly which area to avoid like the plague. Also, the whole area was a lot more coloured than the rest of the lake, at first we'd (rather hopefully) put this down to feeding, but given the time of year, the odd fish behaviour and the now weedy environment, I began to wonder if they had been spawning, or were getting ready to spawn. Because of this I took the decision to move round the corner to the narrow channel just past the pagoda. It was a lot clearer here, and was a good choke point that the fish would pass through if entering or leaving the bay area we'd originally intended to fish.

Specimen carp lake

Steve decided to remain where he was, just around the corner to the right of the pagoda, and then another couple of anglers turned up and set up a couple of pegs to my left, so it looked like my plan was failing, as now any fish that did decide to swim through the narrow channel had to swim past either Steve's baits, or the other 2 anglers baits and lines to get to mine, so confidence was starting to bomb pretty badly. I baited the gaps between the points of the island and the bank with around 30 boilies each, and cast a rod to each, the left with a paradise baits pink stink wafter, the right with a trusty old whittled down cell dumbell.

Specimens of the future?

For the whole 24h we did on specimen carp, I didn't see 1 single big fish pass through my swim. In fact I didn't see 1 single big fish anywhere on the whole lake, except in the weedy area by the ramp. The only other signs of life I saw were a couple of grass carp amongst the pads up around the top end of the lake, and a shoal of baby carp that seemed to appear like magic after I baited a margin spot with a handful of pellets. Needless to say I didn't catch anything, I didn't even get a liner or a single beep from an overly optimistic baby carp. Steve caught a small carp around 6lb in the night but that was it. The story was the same for the anglers to my left too, not so much as a beep between them. As soon as the sun was up in the sky in the morning I packed my kit down with no real plan as to where to go next, I just knew I didn't want to stay where I was.

Wed 10th - Thu 11th June: Octopussy - Part 2

After consulting with Steve, we decided to give octopussy another go. There had been a freezing cold wind the day before on the specimen lake, but on Wednesday the wind had changed direction and was much warmer and gentler, it felt a little humid and generally more like how summer should feel so we felt we had a good chance of a catfish, and octopussy only had 1 person on it, in the swim Steve had fished on Saturday.

Octopussy lake

This left the 2 pegs with the big bay on the road side of the lake completely free, and I'd caught 2 catfish from these pegs in previous years, both weighing in at 27lb 8oz. I opted for the left hand peg, and Steve took the right hand peg. I opted to fish 1 rod half way up the left side of the bay near a small set of lily pads, and the other rod in the corner of the lake under a tree, where Steve had caught his 37 earlier in the week. I decided to fish my catfish snowman rig on the right hand rod, and a 3 * 20mm pellet rig on the left. Almost instantly I had a rather snatchy take on the right hand rod, no more than 2 or 3 minutes of casting out, but there was nothing there on the strike. I recast, and had another take within a minute, this time I connected with what I think was a small carp as it didn't stay on for long, whatever it was it wasn't very big. On re-casting again, I got more snatches at the bait and it became clear that I was being plagued by some ambitious pasties. I switched my cat rig over to a small carp rig for a few casts just to try and catch them to stop them messing with my cat rigs, and hooked a few small fish of around 1-2lb, only 1 of which I got all the way to the bank, at which point the bites dried up, so I swapped back to my cat rig.

Steve caught bigfoot!

Not much really happened after that for the rest of the morning. There were plenty of carp crashing around and the other guy on the lake (who was carp fishing) seemed to be getting some good action, but we were here for the cats so resisted the urge to go after the carp. The lake certainly felt more alive this time round and I was much more confident, but as it was bright and sunny (and actually warm now!) I figured I'd probably have to wait until the sun was lower in the sky before the cats came out to play, so decided to have a little snooze in the sun. I was awoken by Steve laughing, and it transpired that bigfoot, the fearless baby moorhen, had jumped off of Steve's peg into his landing net, rather than into the lake and was having a bit of trouble getting back out! After a quick photo of the incident we set him free, at which point he just calmly climbed back out of the water onto the bank and continued to stride around our pegs laughing in the face of danger as his mother nervously chirped away at him from the safety of the island.

As the afternoon turned into evening and the shadows started to get a bit longer on the lake, I had a very slow steady take on my right hand rod which had catfish written all over it! I jumped out my chair excitedly, rushed to my rods and then struck... Into thin air. I was starting to get a bit frustrated, it seemed like things just weren't going to go my way at all on this holiday. Then to make things worse, almost straight after my missed take, Steve gets a run and it's clear he's into another catfish! It gave him quite a run around in the bay and I was expecting to see some giant mutant tadpole come sailing towards the net when he finally had it beat, but it was only a baby at 13lb, so naturally in the style of Des Taylor I told Steve to man up and stop fighting them like a pansy and questioned how he ever managed to get the 37 pounder in at all!

Steve with a 13lb kitten

Naturally karma was soon to come kick me square in the balls as Steve's rod rattled off again, and it was clear he was into another catfish! This time it was REALLY kicking his arse, dragging him all over the place into parts of the lake so far under overhanging trees I genuinely thought it had climbed out the lake and started going across the island! I'd like to say that Steve manned up and took control of the situation, but in reality I think the catfish just got bored of toying with him and decided to swim into the net. Nether the less in the net it was, and Steve had obviously done the grand slam of winning all 3 bottles of wine in a week, as the scales twirled round to show a cool 26lb 8oz. Well played my friend, well played...

Steve with a 26lb 8oz catfish. Did you notice they both have the same facial expression?

I succumbed to defeat. It was clear that despite finally finishing "The Compleat Angler", sir Izaak was not happy with me (maybe because it took me over 3 years to read his book and I still didn't understand half of what he wrote...) and had decided to smite me down with some kind of anti-catfish or bottle winning curse to get his revenge. Still, never a quitter I re-baited my rods and put them back out ready for the night ahead, only this time I moved the left rod to the middle of the thin channel between the island and the bank to my left so that any roaming catfish would have to pass by it at some point.

Obviously the next time I opened my eyes was because the sun was shining in my bivvy and the birds were singing so loudly I could barely hear the massive bird scaring air canon that decided it was going to fire off at 5 in the morning. I was feeling quite sad that my best chance of a catfish, and probably a bottle had all but slipped through my fingers, but also weirdly relieved that the pressure was off to win a bottle. Still, I decided seems as I was awake, I may as well change my baits before going back to sleep as chances are my pellets had been whittled away to nothing during the night. I changed the bait on both rods which had indeed turned from 20mm pellets into pathetic little matchsticks and put them back out onto the spots I'd fished during the night with a handful of freebies over each. 

I climbed back into my warm sleeping bag and closed my eyes. I was just drifting off back to sleep when that police car was back that I'd seen on main... Wait, no I had a run! And it was on the 3 pellet rig in the narrow channel, so hopefully wasn't a greedy little carp either. I leapt out of bed and over to my rods where my left hand spool was slowly ticking round with the culprit obviously unaware it had been hooked. I said a little prayer to Izaak hoping that this time there would be some resistance when I struck, flicked the bait runner off and lifted the rod into the air. The tip arched over and all hell broke loose, finally, cat on! I played it hard at first, preferring to turn the fish well before it reaches the snags rather than Steve's method of letting it do what it likes and pray it doesn't come off. Once I'd shown it who was boss, the catfish was soon under control in open water so I backed the drag off and played it out until it was ready for the net, which it glided into clean as a whistle, that little extra size over a standard 42" really seems to have helped. I quickly weighed it in and rested it up in the sling before phoning Steve to get his lazy arse out of bed and come photograph my 26lb catfish for me. Yes, I'd won a bottle!

26lb catfish from octopussy

Upon photographing the fish, it looked oddly familiar as half of its left whisker was missing, and I was sure I'd caught one like it before, so upon arriving home after the holiday, I checked my old photos and sure enough, the 27lb 8oz fish I had last year, not only from the very same peg, but from within 10ft of the same spot I was fishing also had half its left whisker missing! Was it the same fish? I think so, what do you think?

2015 catfish at 26lb

2014 catfish at 27lb 8oz

Suddenly feeling somewhat happier I recast my rods and went back to sleep for a couple of hours dreaming of making an amazing comeback at the last minute and "winning" the holiday. When we awoke it was already really warm but still fairly early in the morning. The sun was out but it was forecast to turn stormy by night time with heavy rain and even thundery showers. Any sensible person would have called it quits and packed all the gear away and just done a day somewhere, after all we'd paid a load of money for the villa and only slept in it for 1 night and the holiday was almost over...

Thu 11th - Fri 12th June: Main lake - Part 2

Of course, I'm not sensible and convinced Steve we should do another night on the main lake. It had been pretty much empty all week, where as its usually rammed to the gills (excuse the pun) I guess we'd just hit a lucky week where most of the residents were more match / pleasure anglers. The weather felt right and with some warm wet stormy weather forecast for the evening was only going to get better (fishing wise, not necessarily for us!). I really wanted to have another go at breaking my PB and it didn't really take much twisting of Steve's arm to convince him it was a good idea. We had a quick recon mission down to the main lake to find it was in fact completely empty, and decided to fish the same pegs we had earlier in the week as they'd done quite well for us and were some of the only places any decent amount of bait had gone in all week.

After moving all the gear down from octopussy and setting the rods back up for carp fishing, we baited up our swims with around half a kilo of boilies and headed back to the Villa for an hour or so to get some food and freshen up a little as we had gotten a little on the ripe side by now! Upon our return another angler had set up in the little point swim, and shortly after a whole stream of people appeared and headed off round the far side of lake. We put the rods out and set about getting the bivvys tidied up ready for the day ahead, and it wasn't long until one of my rods was screaming off. A fairly short battle later I had a nice sized common in the net. I knew it wasn't a PB but weighed it in all the same at 16lb 4oz.

16lb 4oz Common from the main lake

Hopes were high with a fish so early on in the session, and in the middle of the day when it tends to be fairly quiet. I had to re-make my rig as the hook point had become damaged at some point, but I soon had it back out on the spot and surrounded it with another 20-30 boilies. Fish could be seen cruising around all day over my spot but they didn't appear to be feeding. I did manage to get a couple of fish up on the surface later in the evening at about 60 yards by catapulting out pva bags of dog biscuits. I tried for an hour or 2 to snag one but they did the usual trick of eating every floater out there bar the one on the hook. Still, I was pretty confident we'd be in for a good night and so far we'd only had a couple of short but heavy rain showers so it didn't look like we were in for a pasting from the weather either. I put the cell rod back out over my spot, but decided to put the pink stink rod next to an overhanging tree only a rod length or so away in the right hand margin where I'd seen a few fish loitering around while I had been surface fishing, and covered it with a handful of boilies.

Night time came and we went to bed with a light drizzle in the air with a good feeling about the night to come. The next thing I know, it's morning. Not a single beep during the night and I was feeling slightly cheated that neither of us had caught and that my chance of beating my PB was pretty much over, when out of nowhere my right hand margin rod let out a couple of beeps before screeching into life! I dashed out of the bivvy to find my rod hooped round top the right, line zooming off the spool as something had ran off into the marginal bay to my right. It was a little dicey at first as my line had gone through the overhanging tree branches in the water, but by dipping the rod tip into the lake it was soon free and the fish was heading out into the open water in the middle of the lake. It felt a big fish and I was optimistic that it could be a new PB while gently coercing it into the net. I looked down at my prize and it didn't look as big as it had felt, it looked another mid double sized fish, if not a little smaller than the ones I'd already caught. Still, it was a fish all the same and I was keen to have a look at it so began to lift it from the water. It was at this point I realised that it was a fair bit heavier than it looked from the top down, and I was wondering if I'd maybe managed to just sneak a new PB after all. Once on the mat it become clear it was full of spawn as its belly was huge, so I didn't want to mess it around too much. We weighed it quickly and took a few quick photos before resting her up in the sling making sure she was well recovered and ready go back to her watery home. It was indeed a new PB of 24lb and a second bottle winning fish in under 24h, so I was a very happy camper, but the story doesn't end there...

My new PB of 24lb from the main carp lake on a pink stink wafter hookbait

I was quick to get my rod back out on the margin spot, with another 8-10 boilies scattered around it. I'd barely gone back to sleep when the rod was off again! I lifted into another fish, this time it hadn't taken me through the tree so didn't cause any drama. It didn't feel very big and came in pretty easy. It looked a low double in the net, and I'd just collapsed my net to lift it out the water when my other rod screamed off. Stood on the bars of my collapsed net to secure the first fish in the water, I lifted into the second fish which almost instantly rolled on the surface at about 35 yards and looked to be a good size. I yelled at Steve to wake him up as I had no net to land it in, so he kindly netted it for me using his own net. The first fish, as suspected was a low double of 12lb 8, and the second fish was another bottle winner at 21lb! 3 bottle winning fish in the space of 24h. I could hardly believe it, everything had come good right at the end, happy days!

My 3rd bottle winning fish in 24h, a 21lb mirror from the main lake

Sadly Steve didn't get any fish on our 2nd visit to main, but he'd already had an amazing week so I don't think he was too bothered by the blank. And as a Brucey bonus, there was a gap in the wet weather that had been forecast for the whole day, so we took the opportunity to get all the kit down and packed up in the dry. We were completely knackered and had skin like the surface of the moon from all the insect bites, but we still had the best part of a days fishing left, so we carted all the gear back up the villa and decided we'd have a bit of fun with minimal gear on the smaller fish lakes for the day.

Fri 12th June: Float lake

After a couple hours rest in the villa and a quick trip to the tackle shop to taunt the goblin, we grabbed a couple of rods and headed to the float lake for a few hours fishing. We only barely managed to squeeze ourselves on as the lake was pretty full, but oddly the pegs that were free were our favourite ones anyway, so it didn't really matter. The lake soon emptied though as the weather forecast came true and the heavens opened dispensing the famous Devonshire "liquid sunshine" over everyone that hadn't run for cover, which was pretty much everyone except for us! Despite the rain, heavy at times, it didn't put the fish off, and I must of caught 20-30 fish off the top using a tiny floater rig I'd made just for the float lake. Most of the fish were koi to about 4 or 5lb with the odd chub and blue orfe thrown in. I did hook a rather nice looking golden orfe at one point of probably around 3lb but the little bugger came off. Steve had a good day fishing on the bottom with corn, catching just about every species imaginable, with a few odd looking creations that seemed to be a bit of everything themselves! I only managed the one photo of a rather pretty little koi before the monsoons came, as I didn't want to risk ruining my camera in the rain, but all in all it was a rather fun end to an eventful week.

Pretty little koi of maybe around 2.5 to 3lb from the float lake.

Summary

We had a good week as always, with plenty of banter with Zyg and Rich, met a few new people, got some sound advice from Dion, Rich and the other tackle shop guy (who we decided to call fake Joe, sorry!) so thanks to those guys for helping us out. The only thing that was missing was Zenia and Joe who were off on their own holidays with their little family. Looking forward to next years trip already, only 365 days to go... ;-)

Spinning for brownies

It's trout season again and as the Easter weather was actually nice for once I thought I'd spend a couple of hours in the evening wandering the banks of my local river Frome.

The river Frome in the Stroud valleys.

My spinner of choice, barbs crushed down.

I take as little kit as possible, just a small 1000 sized reel, an ultra light spinning rod, a pair of scissors that double as forceps, a net and roll up mat, and a small box of spinners. My spinners of choice are the plain Mepps Aglia range, in a size 00 to a size 1, as the local trout rarely go over a pound. The river pretty much contains nothing but trout and the odd micro species (bullhead, minnows etc...) this far upstream, so there's no need to worry about pike or anything like that so I use a 6lb braided line tied direct to the spinner. I'd prefer to have a swivel and quick link in the mix, but I find them too bulky for the smaller spinners to work properly, and also the trout can see them in the clear water and will often shy away from the lure once they get close.

A small wild brownie near the rivers edge.

The trout are pretty easy to locate, in the shallower runs you merely need to take a stealthy approach and look in the water to find them. They can blend in quite well with the bottom in places, but the movement as they swim against the current is what usually gives them away. In the deeper sections it's still possible to see them if the lighting is just right, but the usual sign you'll get that there's a trout about will be the sound of a splash as it takes an insect from the surface of the water. Obvious features like undercut banks, protruding roots, fallen trees etc. are good places to try too as they're quite often the home of a trout or 2.

My first brownie of the season

I had my first take on about my 3rd or 4th cast, but the hooks didn't take and the fish was off again just as fast. The same happened for the next 4 takes! I do get quite a lot of fish drop off as many are quite small and I think aren't heavy enough to provide enough resistance to set the hooks, despite using a brand new spinner with sharp hook points. Still, 5 in a row seemed like a pretty harsh run of luck, but it didn't take long before I finally got one in the net. It wasn't very big, maybe 6-8oz but on the light gear still put up a good scrap in the flow.

After catching that first fish my luck seemed to turn and I didn't have any more drop off or missed takes, until towards the end of the session when a monster of a fish smashed the lure hard enough to hoop the rod tip right round just for an instant before it was off back to its hiding place. I managed 10 fish in total in around 2-3 hours, all in the 6-10 oz range. Previous experience tells me that the fish are quite territorial and tend to stay in the same area, so I'll be back for another crack at the legendary "one that got away" another day. All of the fish I catch are returned, and I urge everyone else to do the same. If you want a trout for the table then buy one from a shop or fish a stocked trout fishery, our wild fish already have enough problems and don't need us adding to them.

Solar eclipse

Not fishing related I know, but as it's such a rare event I thought I'd share an image with you all. I took the day off work in the hope the weather would play ball and I could get some shots of the eclipse. It looked like it was going to be too foggy and cloudy at first, but after a slight location change and a bit of luck from the weather gods I managed to find some relatively clear skies, though I had missed about 15-20 minutes of the start of the eclipse while moving. I took over 300 images in total, and compiled this image from 20 of them.

Solar eclipse 20th March 2015 - Taken using a Canon 700D and 300mm lens fitted with a solar filter.

Not too shabby for hobby level gear, you can even make out a sunspot at the 10 o'clock position on the sun.

Gardners Pool 2015 - Session 2

Steve and I headed back to Gardners Pool for round 2 of our 2015 fishing campaign. This time the weather was overcast with forecast rain and a fairly brisk south westerly, ideal for fishing but not ideal for sitting on the bank, and as such we had the entire lake to ourselves this week, bonus!

Dave the duck getting in a bit of a flap

Logic would have had us set up in the north east corner to make the most of the conditions, but we didn't really want the full brunt of the weather in our faces, so we opted for a couple of pegs on the west bank that were sheltered from the wind but had also done well for us in the past. After the previous sessions success, I decided to stick with the corn approach on my right hand rod, and my left rod I opted to go with a small maggot clip and a maggot feeder instead of the usual lead setup. 

After the rods were in, I had a little play with my camera as I'd just bought a new telephoto lens that I wanted to test out, so set about taking a picture of just about everything that moved, though it proved difficult to achieve a sharp image in the low light while using the camera hand held, and the picture of Dave the duck was about the best I managed. Still, the whole point was to figure it out so I'll be more prepared next time.

A mint common at 14lb taken on maggot.

It was while I was putting the camera away that my left hand rod rattled off with a confident take from a fish. It put up a fairly good account for itself considering the water was still very cold, giving me a brown trousers moment as it made a bee line for an overhanging tree down the left margin, but I managed to turn it and shortly after it was in the net. It was another mint common of 14lb exactly, a good start to the session. After returning the fish I loaded the maggot clip with fresh maggots and filled the feeder before casting back out to the same spot.

It wasn't long before the rod was off again, but this time it felt much smaller. I've never really had any really small carp from the lake, and while there are some big bream in the lake it felt too lively to be one of those, and it didn't feel like an eel so I started to wonder if I'd managed to bag myself a big roach or rudd of which I suspect there are a few in the lake. As it turns out, no I hadn't and there are some really small carp in the lake as I soon had a little pasty of maybe 2-3lb in the net. Slightly disappointed it wasn't a monster silver, I unhooked it in the water and released it with minimum fuss, though on the bright side it meant I was thrashing Steve once again, which is always a good thing!

Cheryl Vole having a nibble on a bit of wood.

With the rods back out I settled down into my chair to wait for the next bit of action when I noticed a constant clicking sound. I didn't think much of it at first but after a couple of minutes it was starting to drive me insane so I decided to find the source of the noise and put it to a stop. I'd figured it was probably a pull cord or a loose flap on my gear flailing about in the wind, but after a little bit of bank side sleuthing I discovered our old friend Cheryl Vole had made an appearance, and she had her chops around some wood! I have no idea why, but it seems she really wanted to chew up that bit of stick as she didn't even bat an eyelid as I crept over with the camera to take a rather blurry photo. I tossed her a few boilies in the hope she'd rather (quietly) eat those instead, but no, she really liked chewing on that stick so I just had to grin and bare it for the rest of the session.

Thankfully my mind was soon distracted by another run, this time on the corn rod. The fish managed to get around the point to my right and had gone right into the margins so I could feel my line grating on the dead reeds that lined the bank. I kept on a steady pressure and soon had it back into open water, and shortly after I had it in the net. Not quite a minter this time as it had some mouth damage, but otherwise not a bad looking fish at 13lb 4oz.

13lb 4oz caught on imitation corn.

I checked my line for damage and all was good, so I put the rod back out on the spot. Shortly after I had another run on the corn rod but the fish managed to shake the hook before I hit it. It was getting towards the end of the day now so I started to pack my gear away when I had another run on the corn rod, and again the fish managed to shake the hook. I decided to call it a day and packed down my rods at which point I realised the hook on my corn rod had bent ever so slightly out of shape, which had almost certainly been the cause for the 2 dropped runs at the end. Usually I check my rigs after each fish but it had slipped my mind this time when I had inspected the line for damage instead. Still, I don't feel I put anywhere near enough pressure on the fish to bend the hook so still felt a little cheated, so another black mark in the book against Korda hooks as it wasn't the first time they've let me down. I think I'm going to give the deception angling hooks ago this year as I've heard pretty good reviews on them from the various facebook groups I'm in, and they're cheap as chips in comparison to the big named brands which is always a bonus!

Steve managed to blank again, so I won the second kinder egg of the year and bragging rights until our next session, hahaha unlucky mate!

The score so far: Jake 5, Steve 0

Gardners Pool 2015 - Session 1

The days are just about getting long enough now to make it worth the effort to get out on the bank after work on a Friday (I finish early on Fridays), so Steve and myself decided to head to Gardners Pool for a few hours.

The rods are in and the traps are set...

As the weather was pretty good for the time of year, the lake was pretty busy so we were limited as to where we could fish. We had wanted to fish the deeper north west corner, but both pegs were already taken, but the north "grass" bank was free. Normally I don't like this peg as it's normally shallow enough for the various bird life to reach the bottom, can be quite weedy and is quite snaggy. But at this time of the year the water level is up, the weed is minimal, and without the vast sets of lily pads, the snags offer some of the best cover on the lake, and to top it off a mild breeze was blowing straight into the NE corner where the snags are, so it was pretty much the ideal location for the day.

Partially submerged trees offering some cover during winter

I baited the snaggy area to my left with about a quarter of a small tin of corn spread along about 10ft of the tree line, and baited a second area about 20 yards out in front of me (that would be on the edge of the pads in the summer) with 10 boilies. On my left rod I was using a 2 pieces of enterprise fake corn on a size 10 korum hook, popped up just a little off the bottom on a fairly short rig, and on the right rod I was using a single 15mm CCMoore live system boilie, with a tiny bag of Sonubaits tigerfish pellets. Both rods were cast to the baited areas and the waiting game began...

About 20 minutes had gone by and neither of us had seen any action. I was confident that the fish would be in the area, but the water was still freezing cold so were probably still feeling pretty lethargic, so I made a decision to recast my baits to slightly different positions in the hope of landing on a fish. The left rod I cast a few feet further down the tree line, and slightly closer to the trees. The right rod I was going to cast a little more to the right to an area that would be in the pads during summer, but as I was about to cast, the left rod banged round followed by a flurry of beeps on the alarm, probably no more than a minute of casting it out! I lifted into the fish and guided it surprisingly easily away from the snaggy branches in the margins. It didn't put up much of a fight (they usually go off like a rocket as the lake is pretty shallow) which further confirmed my theory that the fish hadn't really woken up yet from their winter nap. Without too much drama it was in the net, a proper mint common of 14lb.

First GP carp of the year at 14lb

I got the left rod back out on the same spot, and finally got the right rod back in the water. Another half an hour or so went by without so much as a beep, so I decided to have a little muck about with the camera for 10 minutes, during which time a pheasant had snuck up behind me on the bank. I decided to try end get close enough to get a decent photo, but it wasn't having any of it and immediately took to the air and flew off over the lake, but as luck would have it I had the camera on a continuous shooting mode, so I did my best to track it's flight path while holding the shutter release button, and managed to get one of the many shots in focus, sadly against a backdrop of the sun so its a silhouette rather than the colourful image I'd hoped for, but not bad for a split second bit of thinking!

We named him Phil as it's tradition to name all animals at GP!

I decided to reposition the rods again, and put another catapult pouch of corn down the tree line. It took all of about 5 minutes before the left rod was off again, this time with a bit more conviction than before. Again I guided the fish away from the snags, and after a couple of minutes fighting it under the rod tip it was ready for the net... At which point the hook pulled. I wasn't too bothered as it was only a little one, and it meant that I wouldn't have to get my hands wet in the icy cold water. I checked the rig and all was good, so I put it back out on the spot, followed by another pouch of corn. Ten to fifteen minutes later it was off again and it felt like a better fish this time and proved more troublesome to guide away from the snaggy tree branches. I did eventually get it clear of the trees, and shortly after it was in the net, somewhat smaller than I had expected, another common.

I didn't bother to weigh it but guessed at around 8lb as it was quite the little porker! The rod went back out on the spot, with another pouch of corn over the top. A little while later it rattled off again and a battle ensued with another fish. It didn't last long however, as it dropped off the end about 30 seconds into the fight, a problem I seem to consistently suffer with when using shorter rigs, why I keep trying them just because short rigs are "the in thing" is beyond me as they clearly don't work well for me! By now the sun was setting and it was getting that time of day to call it quits. Steve hadn't had so much as a sniff for the whole session, so despite losing 2 fish, it meant I was the clear victor and had won the coveted kinder surprise egg, which I kindly shared with my fishing friend while gleefully gloating about how well I'd done and repeatedly asking him how many he had caught, as only a true friend would!

The score so far: Jake 2, Steve 0

A little slice of angling history...

Last autumn after reading a post on Martin Bowlers facebook page, I put my name down on a list to show my interest in acquiring a limited edition print of a never before released image of Chris Yates with "the Bishop", signed and numbered by the man himself! Like many anglers of my generation, A passion for angling was a big inspiration to me, and I always admired the quirkyness of Mr Yates and as such he'd become a bit of a childhood hero of mine. Well in true Chris Yates fashion, about 5 months later he finally got around to getting the prints made up (51 in total, 1 for every pound that the Bishop weighed when he broke the British carp record back in 1980) and I managed to get my hands on one!

The Bishop

A quickie on the Stroudwater canal

I managed to get out for 3 hours on the Stroudwater canal after some roach or perch, which ever decided it was hungry! I started off below Ryeford lock with a big worm suspended just off bottom under a small bobber float. Without any joy after about 15 minutes I decided to move above the lock and have a crack at some roach using bread for bait. I managed 3 fish in about 2 hours, for a total weight of about 5 ounces, not exactly my best session, but at least I wasn't blanking! With about half an hour to go before sunset I decided to give up on the roach as they weren't really having it, and head down to a bridge which is usually good for a perch or two.

I hooked the biggest worm I had in my tub and cast it to the far bank just out from under the bridge. After a couple of minutes I gave it a bit of a twitch to try and coax any nearby stripy's to attack the worm, and almost instantly the float twitched a little, or at least I thought it did! I gave it another little tug to see if I had imagined it, but sure enough almost straight after it twitched back towards the far bank. I struck into the fish expecting to feel the usual jaggedy scrap from a small perch, but instead it pulled back, quite hard! I only had 2lb line, so I backed the drag off as this was a fish I didn't want to lose! After about 3 minutes playing it up and down the bank, it finally surfaced... But it wasn't the monster perch I was hoping for, it was a pike of about 3lb! After 1 more final dash for freedom I managed to get it in the net, at which point I realised I didn't have any forceps on me. I figured I must have hooked it in the scissors anyway as it didn't bite through the line, and on closer inspection I had indeed hooked it... at the very back of its throat, brilliant! He seemed to be pretty well behaved, so I carefully slid my fingers into his mouth, avoiding the rows of teeth and set about removing the hook. It was at this point he decided being well behaved was boring, and that thrashing his head around was a much better lifestyle choice. Needless to say he got me, and bit through the line, and ended up back in the canal! With my rig ruined, and my leaking finger, I decided to call it a day and head for home.

All I had to show for my efforts was a leaking finger.