29th May 2009 - Stubpond Fishery Mill Lake

This was the first of a fishing weekend double header. Today was going to be my last visit to Stubpond prior to the opening of my club ponds on Monday.

It was half term this week so I didn't have to do any ferrying about before I left for the fishery. This, coupled with the fact that the fishery had been open before 8 the last two times I'd been meant that it might have been worth leaving a tad earlier.

Anyway the car was loaded and ready to go by 6:55. The sky was clear, there was no wind and I only had a t-shirt on (plus trousers ha ha) - this was a sign of things to come!

Arrived at the venue at 7:30 and yes the gates were open. There was one car in front of me and one behind so I wasn't the only person with the same idea! Anyway after parking the car by Mill Lake I realised they were here for the speci lake and I was left to trundle along the bank on my own. There was no one about to pay my money to so I began to set up.

The lake was calm and the carp were already cruising the surface. Decided to fish the same tactics as I did on my last visit. One swim close in by the reeds to my right and one three quarters of the way across straight in front of me.




I groundbaited both swims with the usual mix of brown crumb, red attractor and scopex flavoured water. Two or three handfuls of hemp were also thrown in. The right side swim (line 1) was my initial target. Single maggot on the hook plus 2 or 3 with every cast brought a fish a throw (rudd mainly but interspersed with the occasional perch, roach and skimmer bream).

After an hour I switched swims and bait to a piece of scopex flavoured sweetcorn as I had seen loads of bubbles signifing fish activity. Alas I never had a single knock. The float was being knocked a lot but I think these were line bites as the float only lifted and never dropped away.

Bread atracted the first carp of the day in swim 1 but this seemed to purely be a one off. The sun was really powering down now and for the next 2 hours both swims died. I continued with the feed in the hope that fish would come in later on.

During this lull in the proceedings every rudd in living creation seemed be swimming on the surface including some which could have easily topped a pound. There were quite a few carp in with them as well. The bailiff came round about this time and said the snakes were out as well! One was curled up in peg 7 - I was on peg 2, charming!

Around 2pm after starting to feed the swim to my left with luncheon meat I had a big knock and out came a 3 pounder. Same tactic on swim 1 yielded this 5lb carp.

The rest of the day continued in the same vein, practically a bite a cast on meat. I missed 2 or 3 good fish, one took me into the reeds on the far side and wouldn't come out. It finally spat the hook.

The last cast of the day brought a definite bite, the rod bent over and the fish came mildly to the surface. It then realised it had been hooked and bolted. Three times it stopped and three times after gaining some ground it made off again. Finally it decided it had had enough and threw the hook out. I was cheesed off big time. It was a monster!

That was it then. A funny old day. Caught 30 odd fish including 1 5lb and 2 3lb carp plus a load of small ones. The sun beat me in the end - I was burnt to a crisp! Went home when they threw me out.

On Monday I'm off to the club's pond in Hurst Green. Never fished it before so am quite excited.

Tight Lines

15th May 2009 - Stubpond Mill Lake

Not the best of days as I awoke on Friday. There was a large cloud cover with a definite threat of rain in the air but thankfully no sign of the predicted wind.

Arrived at the fishery at 7:55 to find I was the first one there, and as it turned out, the only one in the entire complex (except for the weekend night fishers who turned up around 3pm) for the day!

I read on the Maggotdrowning.com forum that fish that hug the island will move away from the bank if there is little or no fishing pressure on them. That is, the more confident they are the further away from the island they will patrol. Coupled with the flat water and next to no wind I decided to fish 2 swims. My normal one by the reed bed (swim 1) and another about three quarters of the way to the island (swim 2). Not far as the island is within pole range but sadly I don't have a pole.

Using water with scopex attractor in I mixed my groundbait - 75% brown crumb and 25% groundbait mix. I fed a large handful of groundbait into each swim plus a large handful of hemp.

As per norm I started with a light match rod setup (4lb line and a size 16 hook). I fed a few maggots and using a single red maggot I cast to swim 1. I thought I would fish this first whilst giving the island fish a chance to move in on the bait in swim 2. Second cast a nice carp of about a pound was in the net.

Caught another carp in the first hour in the same way and then had a few silver fish. Each time I caught a fish I fed 2 or 3 red coloured scopex flavoured sweetcorn into each swim. On the hour I fed both swims with more groundbait. After the first hour I attacked swim 2 as I'd seen bubbles around the area of the bait.

I also switched hookbait to the scopex sweetcorn. Barely had the sweetcorn hit the water when off the float went and a few minutes later another carp was in the net. For the rest of the morning I was fairly successful on the corn, switching swims did the trick as the fish kept on the feed.

At mid-day it all changed - the rain arrived and with it the wind and as a consequence the temprature dropped as well. Casting to swim 2 became difficult so I decided to concentrate on swim 1. I also changed baits to bread and meat to see what, if anything was interested. I caught carp on both however the highlight of the dinnertime session was when the float disppeared while I was fishing a large(ish) bit of bread and up popped a gudgeon!

For the rest of the day I couldn't fish the second swim as conditions were too bad. I had one wonderful bite on meat which felt like a good fish however it spat the hook out after 3 runs to the island - shame. As it was 16:40 I decided enough was enough (it closes at 5) and headed home.

Here is my best carp of the day - just over 3lb.

All in all I enjoyed my day (which is the main thing). I had around 40 fish including Carp, Roach, Rudd, Perch, Gudgeon, Tench (just the one! Why always one?) and Bream.

Less than a month now until my club waters open so am looking forward to that.

Tight Lines.

1st May - Mill Lake - Stubpond Revisited

Summer's here, or at least that was what the preceeding few days were telling me as on Friday I headed back to Stubpond for my first session in May.

The car was loaded and ready for the off around 7:10. The sky was clear and I suspected that today was going to be a hot one. An uneventful journey down meant that I arrived around 7:55 to find the gates open early again.

I set up in my favourite swim as there was no one on the lake, if the swim was taken I would have trekked up to the top swims and try my luck there.

The lake was dead calm and the vegatation in the margins and on the far bank was getting greener. Still no real sign of the lily pads though.



I intended to incorporate the same game plan as last time, which was to target the silver fish early until the carp and/or bream moved in. To this end I set up two rods. A light setup on the 13' match rod (size 16 hook with 4lb pound line and a heavier setup on the 12' float rod of size 14 hook and 5lb man line).

I'd watched a Matt Hayes program the other day and he was raving on aboout Scopex as a flavour to mix in with groundbait and/or sweetcorn. I decided to give this a go. The night before my visit I'd flavoured some sweetcorn with Scopex and also flavoured some water so that I could add it to my groundbait mix. I'd also coloured the sweetcorn red.

A large ball of goundbait (brown crumb and an attractor plus a few bits of normal sweetcorn) plus a handful or two of hemp were dispatched at the point where the weeds met open water.

Half a dozen maggots were thrown in with every cast.

The first hour yielded 25 rudd and roach, no monsters but pleasing to see there was life in the swim.

For the second hour I switched to using the Scopes sweetcorn and feeding a few hemp seeds every few minutes on top of the second ball of groundbait. The only real success was a F1 around the pound mark.

I also had a small tench and a few small carp (up to a pound) on the sweetcorn but nothing spectacular.

I alternated tactics btween the sweetcorn and single maggot until two o'clock when I begun to loose feed meat on the chance the carp had woken up and moved in.

As the day wore on it became obvious that the carp were not going to show. I continued to catch roach and rudd on the maggot. Was it the weather? I did see 3 good carp on the surface but by Stubpond standards this wasn't very many.

Anyway towards the end of the day I finally got a bite on the meat - it was this 2lb bream.


So what was wrong? There was a guy 3 or 4 swims along from me fishing the pole to the island and he could only get bites when he switched to paste.

At the end of the day we decided that they must have been spawning. Still I had a great day, I caught 69 fish including, rudd, roach, perch, a single tench, FI, common carp and a good bream.

Tight lines