Soggy Drayton Session

           Here is the long awaited blog from Drayton with my mate Sam Burden where we made plans to fish Drayton as it was a water I have visited and seen a gob smacking amount of fish being caught by Kev Hewitt and Mark Bartlett. We made the 50+ mile trip at the crack of dawn and arrived bang on time for gate opening time, the lake was dead! We set up in fine weather which was bearable at the time, then the rain set in, not thinking it was here to stay we fished on, Sam was number one on the list with an absolute screamer resulting in a small mirror on a 13ft zig. Using black and yellow foam, almost looking like a bumblebee!

          The rain persisted whilst me being me getting a big depressed as I was soaked to the skin, I wasnt going to let it get the better of me and kept on fishing whilst Sam was withdrawing a few carp with me still on

nil! Our zig slop mixes were comparable, I was using just a bog standard £1.00 for one kilo groundbait mixed so that it clouded the water, this was brilliant, I had all the rods clipped up at around 80 yards a comfortable distance to chuck a 3oz lead and 13ft zig coupled with copious Spods of bait to keep an attractive cloud going.

My Spod Mix ;-

• £1.00 for 1kg Brown Crumb Groundbait
• 1.00mm The M&M's Pellet from Velocity Baits
• 4mm Halibut Pellets

Sams Spod Mix ;-

• Brown Crumb Groundbait
• Crushed Hemp

          Finally! An absolute screamer to me, I hook into the fish and play the rod low, the tip of the rod in this situation should be kept low to the water surface to reduce pressure on the hook holds, an interesting tactic adopted from the guys in the match scene and a good effective one it is as well. Bites were few and far between for me as I was taking the strain. Sam had a double take out of the blue, he took one and I took the other, we managed to steer the fish away from each other as when you fish at a good range the fish kite an incredible amount wiping out your neighbours rods often. This resulted in 2 small mirrors.

          The rain was still pelting down near enough going for 2 and a half hours now! The things we do to catch a few fish, definitely not fair weather fisherman for sure! I put out a fresh zig onto my spot no time to put the rod on the rest and I felt an odd resistance.. The fish nabbed the zig whilst the lead was heading for the bottom, playing the fish in gob smacked and speechless it resulted in another small dumpy fish.

          I thought I went perfectly prepared with the slop, how wrong I was. I bought 5kg of groundbait which was all gone around 2.00pm, next time preparation really will be key, I pre-tie my zigs before I get out on the bank to save time, after all the longer the rods are in the water the more bites you are likely to get.

          Previously in the session I managed to crack off meaning I lost my spod, in my tackle bag I usually keep 4-5 spare spods as you never know how your luck can turn out! I didnt have any in my bag which was devastating, I had no option but to use the Spomb, this didnt seem to put the fish off one bit as I was spombing I was getting takes, this seemed to help with the volume of bait I was able to get over the 2 rods, not reducing the strain my shoulders took in the mean time. A flurry of steady action for the both of us resulted in 45 hooked fish between us, losing some of them was the unfortunate side of this.

          I'm afraid with not writing this blog the day after the session I have little information which is no fault but my own, next session will be a long session on the bank trying to prepare for my charity match on the 18th of August. Let's see what this session brings, plenty of photography and a lot more information for sure, until next time, stay tuned, Ross.



Dumpy Drayton Mirror