2012 26 September 19th Private Lake, Holland, Surrey

Today I decided to give Holland A.S’s Private Lake a go. It had been a few months since I’d been there so I though the time was right.

According to the club rules you cannot enter either of the ponds before 7am so I didn’t have to rush to leave the house, in fact I got up about the same time I usually do for work. On the drive down I noticed that the temperature was a couple of degrees up on the previous week. This was evident when I arrived and saw that there was no mist on the pond.

My favourite swim is peg 8 but today I decided to try the last accessible swim, peg 11. This swim has 2 rod lengths of clear water before the large expanse of lily pads. There is also bed of pads on either side.

I loaded up the trolley to be ready for the longest walk at the venue. When I arrived at the peg I noticed problem number one, the sun although out, was shining straight in my eyes. “Never mind”, I thought “in a few hours it would have moved position and I’ll be fine”.

I then went through my normal set up routine which takes about 30 to 40 minutes. On completion, the swim had been fed, the waggler rod had been set up and the peg laid out just how I like it. I made my first cast, using single red maggot as bait at about 8am.

I didn’t have to wait long for the first bite, a small common of about half a pound. A was very nice start indeed. In fact, by 9.20 I’d accumulated 5 more carp, a tench, a rudd and a crucian.

Confession time now, when I was making preparations for the day’s session I’d forgotten to take the sweet corn out of the freezer. This would have meant that I had to wait a few hours before I could use it if I hadn’t of found some in the fridge. It wasn’t much but it was enough.

As the morning wore on I was still catching fish but the rate dropped enough to concern me. Yes, I had swopped hook bait to corn but based on previous experience at the venue that shouldn’t have caused this much change. I do like to fish a tad over depth so the first thing I did was to take 3 inches off my depth. Straightaway I noticed a change. I was hitting more bites! The problem was apparently sorted.

The rest of the day I caught steadily, even when during the afternoon I switched baits to meat. By the time I packed up I’d added another 27 carp to the virtual net. There was nothing spectacular weight wise, the largest being about 2 pounds. What was somewhat surprising was that no other species got a look in.

Here's a view of the left hand  side of the swim:

 

In conclusion I really enjoyed my day. The sun shone all day which meant that I didn’t have to wear 100 layers of clothing to keep warm. Also, the carp seemed to have grown from very small (2 or 3 ounces in the main) to around the half  to three quarters of a pound mark which is a good sign for the future. On the negative side the lack of other species caught must have been down to the carp bullying them out of the swim. I hope that this does not have any long term effect on the pond.     

2012 25 September 12th Chittenden, Edenbridge, Kent

I have a certain reluctance to fish the club’s carp lake at Chittenden although it is a fine fishery. This is purely down to the fact that in summer it gets very busy and very noisy, that is the constant commentary of certain members. For this reason I hadn’t been down there all summer but today I figured that the crowds might be less and it could be worth a visit.

I set off at around 6:30. The sun was out but there was a chill in the air, this was borne out by the fact that the temperature in the car at one stage registered 4.5 degrees.

There were 2 cars in the car park when I arrived, after a quick look around I saw they were set up on the near bank. This was good news for me as I planned to fish the far side of the first island.

This photo shows the lake when I arrived:

 

I loaded up the trolley and headed off round the lake. Not a lot had changed since my last visit in the spring, even the discarded keep net was still where it was thrown. The NO LITTER policy obviously working!

I quickly set up my 2 rods. Both had size 14 hooks to 6lb main line. The left hand rod had 15ml pineapple frenzy boillies and the left hand one had 10ml monster crab.

I made my first casts dead on 8am. I then settled back on my chair to read my latest Stephen King (11-22-1963) while I waited.

At 9am I decided to feed the swims again with about half a dozen boillies.

The photo below shows the lake after the mist had gone.

 

At 10am I checked the baits on the rods, fed the swims again and re-cast to the same spots. It was about this time that I was joined by a couple of senior members who told me that they had come there because the car park at Nursery Fields was full!

Here is the pineapple swim:

 

At 11am I yet again fed the swims. I began to suspect today was going to be a tough one. I could hear one or two buzzers going off on the other bank but nothing for anyone my side.
Here's the view going up the lake: The angler in the photo was havinga s much luck as me.

Noon came and I once again checked my baits before feeding the swim and re-casting. I also started my lunch, small sausage rolls and a couple of very spicy scotch eggs!

Here's my set up :

13:00 arrived and went with no apparent change in the proceedings. So yet again I fed the swims.

Here's the two guys who couldn't get into NF:

 

 At 14:00 I decided on a little change when I reeled in to check my baits. On the monster crab boillie I wrapped some halibut paste round it for some added attraction.

The clear blue sky of the morning was now replaced by a heavily overcast sky. I suspected the rain was imminent.

The action finally started at 14:35 when the pineapple rod’s buzzer went off and I was into a fish. I knew straight away it wasn’t a carp. It turned out to be a small skimmer. How it managed to get the boillie I’ll never know but all that was academic as it came off as I went for the landing net. I was still blanking!

15:00 came and went after I fed the swims again. The wind was also getting stronger. On a positive note I was getting through my book.

Finally at ten to four in the afternoon the buzzer on the pineapple rod went off big time. This time I knew it was something more substantial than a skimmer bream. I took my time playing it, I didn’t want to lose this one. It circled around in front of me for a minute or two before it came to the net. I hadn’t blanked! When I weighed it I found it was a 5.5lb mirror, not a monster but a welcome sight indeed.

At 16:00 I checked the baits for the last time as I’d decided to pack up at half past five.

During this time other people had also decided to leave. As I packed up I wondered why things hadn’t worked out for me. Was I in the wrong swim? I had caught from there before however that was before the island had been heavily pruned. The guy fishing opposite me had been catching consistently throughout the day but he had been the only one.

If someone could offer some advice I would be grateful.    

2012 24 August 26th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge

After a break of two weeks or so I decided that the time was right to pay another visit to the club’s main lake, Nursery Fields.

I was determined to try a new swim but still use my 2 rod attack. When I arrived at the fishery there were three cars already in the car park, undeterred I loaded up the trolley and made my way to the top of the lake. My intention was to fish one of top swims on the far side.

Unlike last time my luck was in as I found that all the swims in that area were free. After some deliberation I chose peg 14. There were lilies to fish to close in and some to fish to on the far side. It seemed very interesting.

 

As usual I started by mixing up the ground bait and when that was done I preceded to set up the rods. I was ready to make my first casts at 7:56. The feeder rod today had small pineapple frenzy boillies. I was trying something different from the usual monster crab.

 

The last few visits to NF had seen me start with maggot on the hook and today was no different. The ground bait and loose feed had obviously done their job because the first hour yielded 8 roach, 2 tench, 1 small barbell and a perch.

At the end of the first hour I repeated the feed and the results also seemed to repeat themselves, 3 roach, 2 tench, another small barbel and my first bream of the session.

The next hour only yielded three fish. This was in part due to the fact that I decided to change hook bait. I started to alternate between corn and meat. Corn was responsible for the roach and meat for the small barbel. The third fish was the first from the feeder rod and was another small bream.

The last hour of the morning session was the slowest so far, one tench on each of the rods. Perhaps this swim wasn’t as good as it first looked.

After my lunch, 2 scotch eggs and some southern fried chicken pieces I went on an all-out meat attack. I was rewarded with 4 barbel and a couple of tench. The quality of the tench was improving but the barbel was still on the small side.

I went back to corn occasionally but mainly it was the meat that was doing the trick. Only three fish in the next hour, again it was tench and barbel however a solitary bream decided to join the party this time.

The swim was really dying now so I decided to return to the maggots. Numbers wise it didn’t get any better as I only caught four in the next hour. A roach, a barbel and one of each from two species new to the session, a Rudd and a crucian carp. Those crucian are really lovely looking fish.

I was not sure that today’s choice of swim wasn’t the best because when the clock struck four I’d only had another couple of barbel. Sadly these were not the two pounders that live in this lake but their smaller siblings.

I packed up at 18:00 having only added another 2 barbel and a tench. The pineapple frenzy boillies on the feeder rod weren’t faring much better although around 5pm the rod tip shot round and I was into a carp, sadly it wasn’t into me and it broke the hook length as it charged towards the nearby lily pads.

So in conclusion did I have a good day? Of course I did I was out of the house, away from the TV and out fishing. I did catch 44 fish so that was ok. I might go back to monster crab on the feeder rod next time though.    

2012 23 August 9th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge

I thought that as the weather was looking good today I would take advantage and have the afternoon off work to go and land some of the NF carp.

I left work at 12, arrived home about an hour later, packed the car and set off for the fishery. There were a few cars in the car park when I arrived so I pretty confident my favourite carping peg would be free.

I quickly loaded up the trolley before heading out to the top of the lake. Sure enough the peg was empty. Lady luck was on my side today.

I set up both rods exactly the same except for the boille flavour and size. On the left rod it was 10mm monster crab and on the right it was 15mm pineapple frenzy. At 15.00 on the dot I made my first casts.

On my last carping session I had to wait nearly three hours for my first bite, today it was only half that as at 16:30 the crab rod’s buzzer went off and I was into my first fish, a tench of around a pound.

Twenty minutes later, same rod, same result. These tench seem to really love crab. If the carp don’t come out to play I felt sure the tench would keep coming. I was wrong as it turned out.

That was it for the early action. I had to wait an hour before the buzzer went off again. Yet again it was the crab rod, only this time it was one of the lakes barbel that had taken it. Thirty minutes later another one took it. Three hours in, four fish, two tench and two barbel not a bad start.

I had to wait an hour and fifteen minutes for the next take. Yet again it was on the crab rod. It wasn’t a carp but another barbel, they do fight like carp though! Just after I put it back the other rod went off and I was into something a little better. A few minutes later it was on the bank, 2.5lb common carp. Mission accomplished.  

Time was beginning to run out. I had to ensure that by the time I had packed up and returned to the car the light would still be good enough for me to see the padlock. To this end I set myself a time of 20:00 to finish fishing.

I was beginning to think about packing up when the pineapple frenzy rod’s buzzer sounded and I was into my biggest fish of the day, a 4lb carp. It was dead on 20:00 when I returned it to the water.

I loaded up the trolley and headed back to the car. There were still another one or two anglers present when I left.

In conclusion, monster crab will catch anything that swims but pineapple will catch the larger ones. So in a way my plan worked a treat!

2012 22 August 5th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge Kent

Today I was determined to get a century of fish after coming within 5 of that total on my last float fishing visit a week or so earlier.

For once the weather seemed to be of the typical summer variety as I left home around 6am for the 30 minute journey to the fishery.

Over the previous few days and on the journey down I decided that I would fish the reed bed on peg 15 which meant that I could fish a feeder to the island so when I got to the lake I was overjoyed to find only one other car there.

I loaded up the trolley and headed out to peg 15. Can you manage my horror when I discovered that the only other angler present had also chosen peg 15! Gobsmacked I walked past him (complete with the evil eye ‘lol’ ) and settled into to peg 7.

With all plans for peg 15 banished I mixed up a generous helping of ground bait. When it was ready I fed two large balls together with a lot of hemp and a mixture of maggots and casters. With that exercise complete I proceeded to set up my two rods.

The first was the waggler rod. As I was planning to use maggots for the bulk of the session I used a very small 2bb float to a size 18 hook on 5lb main line. The feeder rod had a small cage feeder to a size 14 on 6lb main line. Next I set the peg up so that everything was easily accessible and anything I wouldn’t need all the time was put away in the box. I was still wary of the rain!

I made my first casts at 8:09. Now if you have read any of my previous posts you will have realised I’m sure that I don’t very often break with tradition however today I did. I had decided that instead of feeding maggots every cast I would feed some Nash scopex feed pellets.

The plan seemed to work as almost immediately I was into fish. They weren’t huge but they were swimming so they all count! I normally pack up around 6pm when I’m doing an all day session so using my analytical skills I calculated that I would need 10 an hour to reach the magic ton.

How do I count them I hear you ask? Well each species is allocated a piece of bait (corn, meat etc) and then every hour or when the species caught outnumbers the bait I log the total and start again.

As I stated previously the fish were coming in thick and fast so by 8.56 I’d caught perch, gudgeon, crucian carp, roach, rudd, bream and tench for a total of 16 fish. A promising enough start to the session.

I couldn’t relax though as I was aware that the swims at NF tend to switch off during the lunch hour. I kept to the plan, maggot on the hook, pellets loose fed every cast and a generous helping of ground bait and hemp every hour.

The next hour yielded perch, gudgeon, crucian carp, roach, rudd and my first barbel of the session for 17 fish making the total 33.

For the next hour I started to experiment with corn every other fish. The catch rate slowed somewhat but I still managed to get perch, gudgeon, roach, rudd and barbel for 13 fish making the total 46.

Between 11 and 12 the bites began to dry up although I have to say I was beginning to favour the corn.  Into the net went some crucians, rudd, bream and barbel for 7 fish. The total was now 53 over halfway with six fishing hours to go. Some of the bream were quite good:

I decided as the fishing was slowing down to take a break and have my lunch. Even so I still managed in the next hour to get another crucian and four more bream. At lunch as the cricketers say the score was now 58.

After the lunch period I decided that if I wanted to hit the magic century I would have to switch back to maggots. For the next hour or so I did precisely that. I was rewarded with thirteen fish. Five of them roach. The total had moved on to 71.

Perhaps I was getting a bit over confident because during the mid-afternoon period I only managed three fish, a solitary barbel and a couple of tench. It was now 3pm and the total was 74.

The chances of hitting my target were looking pretty slim as the swim was still not producing in the afternoon as it had been in the morning. By 4pm only 4 more fish were caught, although one was a perch, the first for over 4 hours. I was still 22 away from the magic ton.    
 

The previous stated total did not include anything caught on the feeder rod. All through the day I’d been catching one or two an hour on the feeder. They totalled by the end of the session fourteen which comprised of three bream and eleven tench. When these were included the total now stood at 92 with an hour or so to go.

As the evening set in I thought I would alternate the hook bait between meat, corn and maggot. I was pretty confident that I could catch eight fish in the time so I decided to go for a better quality of fish to end the session on.

The maggots still accounted for a couple of rudd but the meat and corn brought in some good tench and three of the larger barbell. I had ten in total by the end of the session, which meant that I finished the day on 102. The objective had been met!

This is fish number 100.

As I drove home I reflected on what a great day’s fishing I’d had.

2012 21 July 27th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge, Kent

Today the weather was so good that I decided to leave work at noon to go home and get my carp gear out before heading to Nursery Fields in Edenbridge.

My intention today was to fish peg 17 at the top of the fishery. I like this peg simply for the reason that it is the shortest cast distance to the island of all the pegs which means that I can use a small bomb and hand feed rather than use a feeder.

I left the house about 2pm for the thirty minute journey to the fishery. When I arrived there were about 10 cars in the car park. Undeterred I loaded up the trolley and headed off up the lake. When I got to the top someone else was in my swim! I couldn’t believe it I’d never seen another person in that swim before. Anyway I carried on round the lake and settled for peg 15.

Today was quite a warm day and I was already beginning to feel the effects of it when I started to set up which is why I was totally gutted to discover that I had inadvertently left my rod pod in the garage. I started to panic but managed to calm myself down enough to review my options.

I emptied my rod rest section of my holdall and after a few adjustments I managed to set 4 of them up to use as a substitute pod. The only drawback being that I had to have one rod each side of the swim with my chair in the middle.

Now I had the set up sorted I baited up my two chosen swims, the first on the left was only 3 rod lengths away and 2 out from the reed bed, the second was about two thirds of the way to the island straight in front me. On the first rod I fished 10ml monster crab boillies and on the other I used 15ml pineapple frenzy ones.

I made my first cast at 15:22 and then sat back with a bottle of coke and my kindle to wait for the action to start. My plan was to recast and to top up the feed every hour.

I don’t know if it was the heat of the day or my poor angling skills but I never got a sniff as the time first went past 4 and then five and then 6 and then 7 until at 19:10 the buzzer went off on the monster crab rod and I was into what turned out to be a 4lb mirror carp.

I was now off and running, eighteen minutes later a tench took the monster crab boillie. Not to be outdone a common carp of around 2lb took the pineapple boillie on offer. Just after I cast out, the crab rod went off again and in came another tench.

I began to feel that the swims were really coming to life however I was now becoming concerned that the light was going to beat me. Just after 8pm the buzzer on the pineapple rod went off and I was into my biggest fish of the day, a 6.5lb common.

The last fish of the day came on the crab rod and was another tench. This came in as I was packing up at 8.36.

In conclusion I caught six fish in 90 minutes which is it had continued across the whole session would have been fabulous however bearing in mind the disaster that could have been thanks to the forgotten rod pod I was happy enough

2012 20 July 20th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge, Kent

I took another Friday off from work with a plan to restore my fishing mojo which I think I’d lost five days earlier on peg 2!

I arrived at the fishery just before seven am to find the car park empty which of course meant that I would have first choice of peg.

I started walking around the bottom of the lake in ascending peg order. As the back straight starts there are some fine fishy looking pegs. Today I opted for peg 7 which for me is the perfect NF peg. It has a bed of lilies quite close in to fish to (although they are on the left of the peg) and another set on the far bank where you can drop a feeder close to.

I mixed up the usual amount of ground bait, brown crumb mixed in with samples of hook bait and fed the waggler swim heavily. I also threw in a large proportion of my freshly cooked hemp and a couple of handfuls of maggots. Next I set up the two rods.

As usual for NF I set up the float rod with as small a waggler as possible which in this case was a 2bb one and a size 18 hook on 2.5lb breaking strain hook length. The only concession to the larger carp in the water was the 5lb main line. The feeder rod I set up with a size 14 hook to 6lb hook length and main line and a small cage feeder. For bait I intended using 10ml monster crab boillies.

For the float rod I intended to start with until at least lunchtime with maggots. My plan was to keep feed going into the swim catching maybe some small fish in the hope that the continual feeding of the small fish would attract the larger ones. That was the plan anyway.

I made my first casts at 7:45. The float dipped almost straight away and I was into the first of my 14 roach. It wasn’t huge, around an ounce I would say but it was the blank breaker so it was important.

This was quickly followed by a couple of skimmer bream and one of the many small barbel that reside in this lake.

The feeder rod was also seeing some early action with two good (relatively speaking) tench coming to the net in that first hour. The signs were good that today could turn out to be a great day.

One species that you tend to get when solely using maggots is the striped predator, the perch. There are quite a few in NF however I’ve never caught anything over a couple of ounces. Today I caught seven of the little beggars.

The bream seem mostly to be skimmers although you can catch the odd one of around 2lb if you get lucky. Today I caught 8. I did notice that due I suppose to the shallowness of the water some of the skimmers actually jump out of the water in a bold strike out for freedom.

Though when you catch a good one they look absolutely fantastic the norm is that the very small rudd will gobble a maggot down as soon as it hits the water. I tend to have the bulk of the shot down the hook end when using maggots so that the bait drops quickly through the water. Today I still managed to catch eleven of them.

Nursery Field’s barbel seem to come in two sizes, the small ones which can be taken mainly on maggot and corn are about 5 to 7 inches long. The other ones around the 2lb mark. I’ve, like today tended to catch them at the end of the session on meat and sometimes corn. Fiftteen made the net today, two or three were of the latter variety.

My favourite looking fish of them all is the crucian carp. This lake appears to be full of them. I was surprised at how many could be taken on maggot. The larger ones take corn but the bites are harder to hit. By the close of play the virtual net contained seventeen of them.

No description of a session using maggot would be complete without a mention of the mighty gudgeon. You know you are fishing ‘bottom’ when you get these, an organic plummet if you will. Anyway I managed with some effort to land five of these little scrappers.

The last but by no means least of the species that I caught today is the tench. I’ve never seen one over 2lb from here but even so they do put up a decent fight. Four of them came on the waggler rod the remaining thirteen came on the feeder rod.

Sadly today was not a day for the common or mirror carp to put in appearance which was the first of only two negatives coming out of the session. The other was the weather, at around 6pm the heavens opened and I and my equipment got absolutely drenched which forced me when it finally abated to pack up and go home. Before I left I counted the fish I’d caught and the total was 95, five short of the magic ton.

I will return for another crack at the hundred very soon.