DT - So last time we were talking about how consistent you’d been and some of the effort you’d gone too to try and be top rod this year, this time we’ll catch up with how things have gone since the first piece and hear about another cracking session you’ve just had!
PB – Yeah things have carried on exactly the same and if you remember I said last time I was hoping to get over 40 fish for the year? Well I’m on 38 fish now so its still on and I’m still top rod too – which is really pleasing.
DT – Still catching them on the white N-Blend Fluoro’s?
PB – Yes mate, as you know Fryernings is full of crayfish so we have to shrink tube them up but I’ve been doing something a little bit different with mine, and that’s using a Rig Marole bore ring on the d-ring of the choddy – when wound through the plastic shrink tube its tough as old boots and really easy to work with. A cracking little product.
DT – That’s a nice little tip. So have you still been having them from the same sorts of areas?
PB – Well its funny you say that as I was politely asked to fish a different area! It’s just that I’d been having quite a few from the Lodge area and I was going back in there nearly every trip if I could. So Chris (the owner) politely told me to go and fish somewhere else on the lake! Which I did.
DT – So where did you go from there?
PB – Into a swim called the Royal Box, obviously it’s called that because its got a huge amount of water in front of it. I picked it because I’d fished it a few times before and had an idea of the areas to go at and there’d been a couple of fish out from nearby recently too. Add to that an island with a nice shelving margin and a massive weed bed and it seemed like the most logical place to start. I could see on the weather reports that there was some colder weather due to arrive so I hoped the fish would be hanging about the slightly deeper water in front of me. They were definitely about though as I could see their backs out of the weed as they soaked up the last of the sun. I tried to cover a few options. A baits was put onto one of the gravel humps and another rod fished into the silt at about 9ft deep with the last one dropped just over the weed. Some of the lads said the swim was unfishable but it wasn’t, it was just really hard work. I spent pretty much all weekend in my waders out in the water. Clearing weed, sinking the braid – that kind of thing.
DT - So what type of rigs were you using?
PB – On the middle rod I was spodding a mix of particles and the 10mm N-Blend baits. That rod had a nice short 4” Rig Marole Hydrolink Micro hook length in 25lb. With the fluorocarbon insert it’s perfect because I can keep it supple where it needs to be and still keep the bait away from the lead. When I look at it in the edge it sits nicely on the weed too. The other two rods had choddies on them with the bore-rings.
DT – And they worked?
PB – Yeah! The weather started off high pressure and sunny but that quickly changed to low pressure and cooler but there was plenty of food out there to keep them in the area.
DT – How much?
PB – Well every 4 of 5 hours I was spodding a bit more out there. Over the weekend I think I used about 15k of particle over just one rod and the two on choddies were baited quite lightly, a few baits scattered about. Maybe a kilo over both rods. I was also spraying the bait about as well with lines of baits coming in through the weed and they couldn’t really move without seeing a bait somewhere! And the routes were leading to either of the choddies. On the first night I had a couple of 20’s – a 27 and a 29. Both off the spodded particle area. On the second night I had a 31 off the baited spot and after casting a single choddy at a showing fish I had a 26 (I think!) and then on the 3rd night the spot at the back of the weed did its first bite when I had the fully scaled at 33lb 10oz and then the Mommon at 39lb 8oz which I was really made up with as it was a target fish. I also had a couple of small ones too but they were only about 10lb.
DT – So the bait behind the weed, was it still in place from the initial bait up? Had you added any extra freebies?
PB – No mate, I was repositioning it every night and re-baiting with a kilo to a kilo and a half of N-Blend. In fact I was resting the swim during the day. Late morning each day I was winding in and leaving them out of the water until the evening when I re-did them for the night ahead. At times the fish were getting ridiculously close in which I knew they wouldn’t have if the lines had stayed out.
DT – sounds like you’ve got the place sussed! It’s interesting that the two fish you had off that spot behind the weed were off the two biggest fish of the weekend and it was on a boilie only approach. I know Neil (Messenger) only uses boilies and he thinks that this means a bigger average weight of the fish.
PB – Well you know what its like you think you’ve got something that works and the little sods change the rules again!
DT – They certainly do. Thanks for your time and we look forward to speaking to you again soon.
