Whilst I was down in July the weed was doing its best to take a good hold of the lake and by August it has now done a good job of sectioning the lake into lots of separate little areas. This can work in our favour as it stops people casting in to areas where they interfere with the angler near them.
The first session in August was a four nighter, and as I was on the last week of my holiday I decided to go on the Wednesday which meant a fairly quiet lake. The usual suspects were down and I was pleased to hear a few fish had been hooked. The weather was looking good for a chance on the end of a fresh south westerly so I set up on the cottage bank in a favourite swim of mine. A lot of my usual spots had been taken out by the weed, but I still managed to get a decent drop to the left of the weed bed that had reached the top in front of me at about 40 yards. This was my middle rod and was fished with a drop off inline lead and a multi rig set up, my bait for this rod was the Fish ‘n Blood-Fresh Orange in 15mm and topped off with a 10mm Green Beast and Orange pop up, with a scattering of 30 baits around the area. My other two rods were fished down the marginal shelves either side of me - both on inline drop offs but with N-blend tipped with white corn on the left and the prototype R8 tipped with white corn on the right, both were on multi rigs and had a hand full of boilies and chops around them.
After having two bream early on the first evening I thought I was going to be plagued by them but at 01.30hrs my middle rod ripped off and I was into a carp that kited to the left. With a bit of side strain I got it under control then with out any warning I felt the line grate and then it all went solid ,after trying all the normal tactics I realised I’d been done by a snag that I didn’t even know was there after fishing the swim on and off for almost two years. Disaster. A few more bream and a tench and the session was over and I drove away with that 'what if' feeling, but at the end of the day there was nothing more I could have done.
The second session in August started on the 25th and this time I went in a swim called the 'middle bungalow' which was to the left of 'the wides' and controls a lot of water. As I turned up I saw a fish stick its head out in a swim to my left but as a mate of mine had been doing a bit of time in there and was due down I left it alone. Now call me old fashioned but I believe in angling etiquette and not doing the dirty on your mates.
Well for the first two nights it was fairly quiet other than a few single bleeps even though everything looked perfect for a bite. There were fish starting to get caught around the lake so I knew there was a chance and on the final night things started to happen, firstly a bream hung itself on my left rod that was fished on a hinge rig using an N-Blend pop up and then at 01.30hrs on the 28th a carp picked up my choddie rig which was being fished with a white fluoro N-Blend. After a tense ten minutes of stale mate with the fish holding its ground in a weed bed, and me just keeping the pressure on. I felt a slight kick and it ripped out of the weed and kited left and the next thing it was lying in the folds of my landing net.
Two scale at 27.04lb - and I was one happy angler, the rest of the night was quiet but I drove home the next day knowing that i'd done everything right after all.
See you again soon.
