My first June fishing session of 2008 saw me in two minds about what to do, I really wanted to have a go for a north west catfish but I received a report from one of my mates on Friday stating the lake was full and that anglers where turning up at his lake to try and find somewhere to fish. That wasn’t an ideal situation for me so I decided not to fish on Friday after work. Instead, I opted to go on Saturday afternoon in the hope that a few anglers would have gone home after their Friday overnighter.
This tactic seemed to work and I found one of my preferred new lakes almost empty of anglers on Saturday afternoon!, sadly it wasn’t a catfish water so it was just the usual carp to aim for this week.
The lake was only small but despite this it had a few decent carp in so I set about trying to find them. After a few hours of looking hard for these elusive carp I gave up!. I’ve never known carp hide so well on such a small lake, if it wasn’t for the fact that I know the fish are in there I’d have said the lake had no fish in!.
I took a chance and set up near the middle of the lake, I had plenty of open water to fish and a far tree line to cast to. I opted for two rods in open water and one to the tree’s. I wanted to be tight to the far margin trees so I used a pole elastic line marker
in conjunction with the line clip on my spool to edge my hookbait virtually under the trees on the far bank. I simply cast close to the trees then took a bit of line off the spool and clipped it up, I gradually edged my casts closer to the trees, each time letting off a little more line and re-clipping until it was really tight to the far bank. Once done, I added the pole elastic to the line by tying it in an overhand knot, the elastic locks in place and I was left with a perfect line marker for the exact distance I needed. I’ve used this useful tackle tip on numerous occasions when I’ve needed to fish tight to a visible feature and it really works a treat enabling you to fish really tight to a feature without loosing any end tackle.
My other two rods where fished in open water around some clean sandy areas that I could actually see with the aid of my optix sunglasses. It was shallow in this area and despite not seeing any carp I figured I might get a chance after dark.
With the rods out I sat back to enjoy the Saturday afternoon sunshine. Being in the middle of the lake I had a good view so I sat and waited for a carp to show itself, I was still sat watching as it got dark and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t even seen a fish after 8 hours of watching the water.
The night remained quiet and I was up early morning watching the water again, nothing showed and as the morning wore on I became resigned to the fact that I was going to blank, I’d already decided to pack up at midday and at 5 to 12 a fish crashed out at the far end of the lake. That was typical, just 5 minutes to go and a fish shows in a swim I’d looked at but decided against fishing!. I packed away my gear and left for home wondering how so many big carp can hide in such a small water?.
Despite blanking this week I was happy to at least be back chasing some big fish again, I’m sure there will be more blanks to come over the coming months but at least I’ve a chance at catching a reasonably big carp by north west standards. Obviously pin point location is going to be crucial on such a small lake and that's not going to be easy with the fish being reluctant to show themselves. I can already see this lake is going to require time and a close attention to detail in order to crack it but I know what needs to be done and I'll be back for another try soon.
Tight Lines
Mark.
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