Bigger and Better Things.
There most likely has been a sever delay on my writing and other happenings on twitter recently, I obtained a job doing some delivery driving for Pizza Hut, I did so many shift I didn’t have a social life and I was fully knackered at the end of the week and was craving a session to chill out and finally wet my line again. I finally find time in between doing assignment work, which I had 5 due in the week of the 30th April, I managed to get them all done over the weekend and text a good mate from college to go up and have a wonder around some new lakes that I have never even seen before, I take this a fresh start to try to catch some fish that I fancy targeting and hopefully making famous over the next few months.
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| The Fox Rapide System/Solid Bag |
After pacing round a couple hundred yards of otter fence I had found the missing ingredient which I was waiting to add into the “carp fishing recipe” with some stunning carp I am definitely fishing there for the time being, I’m going to name it the secret lake for my own personal reasons. We then looked around the lagoon that resides next to the small secret lake to see just an expanse of water which holds some stunning fish to my mates knowledge, looking at this lagoon and the secret lake I took up the decision to get onto the lagoon for a nights fishing after getting some of the college work done with reigns over my fishing time, not forgetting it taking over my social life.
After taking a visit to the local Tesco I look through the pages of the recent Carp Talk magazine to look for some more inspiration, I see it littered with huge carp; hopefully I will be seeing my cheesy smile in there very soon cradling a secret lake carp!
I have been thinking through the tactics that I will be using and they aren’t complex by any stretch of the imagination, they are as follows:-
· Solid Bags of Velocity Baits The M&Ms pellet in 1mm with an NV-R pop-up
· A 9-10 inch hair rig with a size 8 Korda Choddy hook with Velocity Baits 14mm AK4-R pop-up(red), coupled with a small PVA bag of the NV-R stick mix.
As I’m a member of the Velocity Baits members group there has been a huge amount of 30lb+ fish caught on the bait so I have no reason to change and hopefully enter that list myself.
I will be coupling these tactics with a Spomb mix yet again simple and very affective and hopefully to the lagoon carps taste:-
· 7.5kg – 10kg of Bird seed(from a farm shop)
· 2.5kg – NV-R Boilies in 10mm
· NV-R Stick Mix
· Tin of sweet corn
I see this spod mix as a very simple yet affective Spomb mix, it boats attraction and it had all the small food items in hope to keep the carp in the swim investigating for more food tripping one or two up along the way, in another sense of this I hope that the carp do not get pre-occupied on my free offerings and to stumble upon my rigs. I am in great favour of using solid bag tactics; they are ever so simple to tie up once you get the hang of how it’s done, I have at least 5 tied up for when I’m fishing, I then tie one extra up when if I catch a fish on them, this has been made oh so easier with the new Fox Rapide system which I greatly fell in love with when I saw it on Facebook and watched videos of it on YouTube, amazing!
Anyway enough chat onto the session ahead:-
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| Prepartion is Key |
After rattling off the assignments I was tasked to do I made my way up to the lake at around 11:00am enjoying the 25 minute drive, I am greeted to swim of choice, just what I like when I arrive at the lake. With being able to park behind the swim on the agenda I stand and examine the water for about 10-15 minutes in order to see if there are any chances of quick bites with the pre-tied solids.
I line up to horizon markers to where I want to position the traps along with the Spomb mix, I cast in a direct straight line with just a lead tied onto the end of my main line to see what the lake bed consisted of. I then clip up to a clear spot at round 90 yards range... just for the record I haven’t tried hitting 90 yards in the dark so this could end badly! I then press 2 bank sticks in the ground to clip up the Spomb rod and the other rod to save disturbance. With all this done I then begin to mix up the carpy grub that I will be using which has all been pre-cooked by yours sincerely.
I then set about putting around 3kg of the mix to the 90 yard spot. With all the bait deposited I leave the spot to work SOME magic whilst I begin setting up the bank sticks in my swim and get them all sorted before enduring the task of putting some more Spombs of bait out to get the rod out onto the spot. With both of the rods banged hard on the clip and myself brimming with confidence, I then set both rods on the sticks and set about setting up my mammoth of a bivvy which is a 2-man bivvy, I’m not exactly the biggest of fisherman but I love the space and with all the downpours I don’t exactly fancy being washed out of my small Maver brolly fed up and soaked wanting to go home!
Bivvy all set, rods all set, swim primed with carpy grub and sitting in my chair firing up the stove for a well-earned cup of tea I peer endlessly at the water to see what’s going on, no signs of activity as of yet but hopefully some goings on under the surface will be a good starting point.
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| My "Bits Bucket" |
I was craving a night out on the bank as I have been a good lad and stayed at home to do college work when I could have been on the bank, I believe I deserve it, one night shouldn’t in theory do any harm, I haven’t done a night since the BYCAC back in August last year when I reached the finals, that was the last time I did a night. When college is all cleared out the way I’ll be aiming for one night a week or even one night every other week most definitely!
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| Lovely Glugs! |
With everything in prime position and endless amounts of bacon an sausages on constant on the stove, there was no action, I took the idea of re-casting the rods with fresh bait and changing one rod to double pop-up corn and a very carpy bag of NV-R stick mix with the matching glug, both banged the clip and I was happy. I have been fishing the lines incredibly slack to reduce disturbance, bow string tight lines are a massive no no!
The night goes on and with the burgers cooking away the left rod lets out what appeared to be a savage liner that had me on the edge of the chair, what will unfold? Unfortunately nothing unfolded from that liner but I retired to the bivvy after a few rounds of double burger rolls. I lay there with my eye lids slowly closing telling me to sleep so I did just that. Lying in the most awkward position my arms went dead, that’s not the first time that’s happened by hey ho! With no carpy action during the night I wake up to some light rain, I fired up the kettle and sat back for a further half an hour, still nothing, time to load the car and make the trip home.
This has been an enjoyable session, I will be returning to “The Lagoon” very soon seeking some action from the stunners that reside in there.
Thanks for Reading!
