Last March a few regulars on the FISHINGmagic site paid a visit toSway Lakes in the New Forest, a trip that turned up some terrificroach topped by a magnificent fish of 2lb 12oz to site regular andfellow SWAG member Dave ‘Coops’ Cooper. He also managed a back-upfish or two! Click on the links below and take a look.
So, after making sure Coops was up to his neck in other things andtherefore removing the competition, Stu ‘Skive’ Johnson, Rik ‘CarpAngler’ Belenger and myself decided to have a trip down there – wellat least I did, Rik lives nearby and Skive had one of his veryopportune ‘business meetings’ that have an uncanny knack of puttinghim in the same part of the country as any potentially decentfishing!
It was late afternoon when we arrived and the water was heavingwith fish activity. There were bubblers all over the place and Stu’sswim was exploding with fry as what we suspected were perch ploughedinto them. I say ‘suspected’ because the water is also home to atleast two species of catfish along with a fair few eels and also theodd largish terrapin!
Stu decided to try a lob first and was promptly smashed to bits bysomething he couldn’t stop – carp or cat? Could have been either.
We all settled down to some serious fishing in anticipation ofsome serious roach but we hadn’t anticipated that everything in thewater was on the feed. Stu was first in with a handy tench, I hookedand lost a carp and Rik turned up a big brown football of a fish thatnone of us were prepared to classify as any species we knew but wasprobably a brown goldfish/crucian cross! After that it was a fish achuck, with perch dominating and looking like the roach wouldn’t geta look in.
We thought that dusk would bring on the big roach but much to oursurprise it went dead! Perhaps the nocturnal predators that prowl thewater were stocking up for a long winter, who knows, but that coupledwith a couple of total idiots who arrived in the swim next to me andproceeded to shine high powered lights all over the water and pummeltent pegs in finished it for me! I lost it slightly and after aslight exchange of obscenities I succumbed to Rik and Stu’sinsistence that I accompanied them to the local ale house!
Next day I couldn’t face a day’s fishing next to the idiots so Imoved to another part of the lake. Rik and Stu were far enough awayfrom the imbeciles to not be bothered by them (lucky imbeciles!) sostayed put. The day started as did the previous one, we were hammeredby bits and perch, and I do mean hammered! It seemed as if we justcouldn’t stop them taking the bait.
I had only bought caster, but lots of ’em! My mind was mullingover what to do – keep feeding little and often, or to go for brokeand hope to feed off the bits and also hope the big roach werenearby? I decided to put all my bait in front of me and feed heavily!Rik was ringing the changes and catching perch (big ‘uns too!) onstrawberry sweetcorn, so between us we were covering the options.
Still the bits came thick and fast for what seemed like an age.Just as I was hoping my bait wouldn’t run out soon I struck into abetter fish and a magnificent redfin was played very gingerly intothe net. A quick call to Rik on the mobile and he was on the way tomy swim to take a pic of my two-pounder. But I was having troublezeroing my new scales and it wasn’t to be! Following a rollicking offRik and Stu for disturbing them I got back to fishing!
I kept on feeding caster often and heavily and hit into another’two’, got it into the landing net and phoned Stu to see if Rik wasin a good mood because I couldn’t trust my scales! With the fish inthe landing net I decided to cast in again and was soon into anothermighty redfin. I carefully slid this one into the landing net and sawit was bigger than the first. From then on I lost all track of whocaught what as we all had a bit of fun with each other, i rememberRik catching what looked like the biggest fish of the day and yet it’only’ made 1lb 15oz..I’m convinced he set the scales wrong!
I went on to catch a fantastic golden tench of 5lb 9oz, a first’golden’ for me and also what we think was a couple of Pumpkinseeds.These were also a first so therefore a personal best!
We had roach to 2lb but more importantly we all enjoyed eachother’s company and that’s more important.
As an afterthought I would like to ask all those who ‘guess’ theweight of their fish to guess again, a guy on the water came to takea look and proceeded to tell us he had caught a 3lb roach earlier inthe day. When we asked him how big the two roach we had were he said,”Oh, they are much bigger”. I think one was 1lb 12oz and the otherjust 2lb!
If you fancy a water that is a veritable aquarium then you coulddo far worse than a trip to Sway. But it can attract the odd idiot,so book up!
