My fishing opportunities up to mid June were spent back over on the big Cambridgeshire gravel pit chasing my monster bream obsession but whenever I ventured back onto the bank the weather continued to be unseasonably horrid and I have to admit that some of the time spent on the pit felt more like some sort of endurance test than a relaxing fishing session.
I guess the first couple of trips weren’t helped by the fact that I’d forgotten to load the car with the full front to my bivvy and just had the anti-mosquito mesh front tucked in alongside my sleeping bag. Unfortunately, as is pretty typical when I’m bream fishing, I was facing into the weather and receiving the full force of a strong wind and any wet stuff that came along with it. Of course it was just my luck that we didn’t just have some impressive rain showers but some extended periods of quite heavy hail thrown into the mix as well… just great!
I was very grateful that I nearly always have a Nash sleeping bag cover stashed away under the seats in the motor for just such an emergency and on a couple of occasions, just to keep myself and the essential fishing gear dry, I resorted to tucking the gear either behind or underneath the bedchair then, with me in the sleeping bag, I pulled the cover over the bedchair and my head when the worst of the weather brought rain and hail whipping into the bivvy.
When I have to tough out a few sessions in less than ideal conditions I always try to tell myself that all the effort and hardship will eventually be rewarded with a good fish. Well this wasn’t really the case this time around as the big bream never did make an appearance, although I did eventually have a bite!
Following some of the worst weather in the period we had a forecast for some improving conditions and the promise of the temperature creeping up a few degrees. With this in mind I decided to change tactics for a session and to fish one of the shallower bay areas for a two-night session, rather than the more open water. I reasoned that despite the previous poor weather and associated low temperatures for the time of year, with a rise in temperature the pit’s carp population (and possibly the remaining bream population) might be tempted into having a scout around in one of the traditional spawning areas as they would have normally have had their annual orgy over and done with by now.
My chosen swim meant that I had to bivvy up at the top of quite a steep bank with a gap in the reeds at the bottom of the slope giving me somewhere to place two of my rods and an even smaller gap in the reeds a little further along the bank allowing just enough space to squeeze in the other two. With most of my bream fishing on this particular pit usually conducted at very long-range, it was a nice change to be fishing at comparatively short range during this session. The right-hand and left-hand baits were positioned out to the sides of the swim, just at the bottom of the marginal shelf, with the two middle rods fishing baits no more than about 30 yards out.
Unfortunately the weather forecast altered as my session in the bay approached and the change to warmer and dryer weather was delayed by a day or two. Undeterred, I stuck to my plan, but my confidence was definitely dented as my anticipation of any fish visiting the bay decreased as the conditions remained cold and wet.
However, in the early hours of the second night, the remote suddenly alerted me to a stuttery type of take on one of the rods! Within a couple of seconds I was out of the bivvy and making my way to the rods but the overnight drizzle had made the slope down to the margins as slippery as ice and I lost my footing half way down. Fortunately the brambles and nettles helped to break my fall so I didn’t smash the two rods at the base of the slope as I crash-landed into the rear rests.
There was no time to worry about that though as the bite indication was still coming from one of the rods a little further along the bank. Getting back to my feet, and with a few careful steps, I eventually had the rod in my hand and could feel that something was definitely hooked, but there wasn’t a massive amount of resistance and within a few minutes with the very first signs of the forthcoming dawn showing on the horizon, a fish swirled close to the net.
That initial sighting and the quick glance into the net a few moments later confirmed what I already suspected as a tench of about 6lb, rather than the hoped for huge bream, was enveloped in the mesh. With the adrenaline rush from the initial bite now quickly subsiding I was really starting to feel the stinging from the bramble scratches and nettle rash covering my arms and the side of my face. I was also very aware of being totally smeared in mud all down one side, so rather than making an extra journey up and down the treacherous slippery slope to weigh and photograph the tench she was slipped back without any further fuss or bother.
Later on that morning as I was packing everything away the sun finally came out and the temperatures started to rise…typical!
With some better weather finally showing up I decided to squeeze in one more bream session before turning my attentions elsewhere. It was by then mid-June and it was great to finally have a session during some nice weather and with loads of vibrant green growth everywhere, but there were no further bites to be had and I was really feeling the need to be fishing on some different venues for a while.
I didn’t have too long to wait until I had the chance to try something very different from the big pit bream fishing; in fact the next session was almost a complete contrast. I really fancied going somewhere where a few bites were likely and a trip over to Marsh Farm near Godalming in Surrey would fit the bill perfectly. I’ve fished for the crucian carp on Harris Lake at Marsh Farm on several occasions in the past but hadn’t managed to schedule a return trip for a few years, so I was really looking forward to reacquainting myself with this delightful venue.
Marsh Farm is a long way for me to go for just a day session and as I’m not a member of the club it meant that I wasn’t allowed to fish through the night on the day ticket system. Therefore I planned to simply stay on the bank but bring in my rods and get some sleep during the official night period, then get the rods back out after buying a ticket the following morning; this would maximize the fishing hours for a two day period without increasing the travelling.
As it happened, it was pointed out to me that as a non-member I could only be on the water during the night period as a guest (whether fishing or not). Fortunately the helpful bailiffs organized a guest session for me for the night, which meant that I could stay on the bank without compromising any rules… thanks guys!
After purchasing the requisite ticket on the first morning I headed down to the far end of the lake and selected a swim in an attractive little corner, close to where I’d spent a couple of late summer nights on my last visit when I was a member a couple of years ago. Back then I’d had stacks of nice fish throughout the session; an approximate 50/50 mixture of nice crucian carp and tench, with the best crucian just over 3lb and the best tench over 6lb. This time around things started fairly slowly, but eventually I started to catch a few small tench before the first crucian put in an appearance.
I was using scaled down method/bolt tactics; my eyes and concentration levels just can’t cope with the really delicate float fishing style that traditionalist crucian anglers would probably prefer to adopt. Each to their own I say, so long as the tactics are safe and I prefer my chosen method when the bites can be really finicky as it means that I’m able to convert bites to fish in the net and still relax and enjoy my surroundings. It’s possible that I might catch almost as many crucians on float gear, but it’s also possible that I might end up rather frustrated and with a cracking headache, so the mini method/bolt tactics are my usual first choice on these occasions.
With no fixed or semi-fixed leads allowed by the rules I was turning my little free running method feeders into a type of bolt arrangement by simply ensuring that the line was good and tight from the feeder to the rod. As the distances fished were only relatively short this was very easy to arrange and the tension in the tight line would ensure that the two rod tips both had a bit of a bend in them when everything was set up correctly. Sometimes, when there were fish attacking the actual method mix on the feeders, the feeder would become dislodged and some of the tension would come out of the mainline. However a quick few flicks on the appropriate spool to tighten everything back up would soon see the set up back to its original effectiveness.
The mix for the method feeder was my favorite Halibut Method Mix from Dynamite Baits, with the juice from my scopex flavored sweetcorn and a good squirt of liquid molasses making up some of the liquid used for binding the mix. The sweetcorn juice and molasses liquid really help to boost the attraction levels and the molasses also has the added bonus of helping to darken the mix slightly, so it’s less likely to spook wary fish.
Hemp straight from the jar and 4mm halibut pellets were either thrown in by hand or catapulted out to the spots to get the fish rooting around, with the method fished in the middle of the baited areas with a little PVA mesh bag of pellets nicked over the hook on each cast to help focus the fish onto the hookbait.
In the past I’ve found that crucians can be pretty fussy in terms of hook baits and tend to have a definite favorite on any given day. Therefore it’s usually best to take a fair selection and to keep ringing the changes until a preference starts to emerge. On this occasion I’d come armed with sweetcorn (real and artificial), 10mm Source boilies, luncheon meat and various pellets. Gradually a preference for sweetcorn on the hook (actually I was fishing the baits attached to short little hair rigs) began to emerge, with the artificial version soaked in Source liquid attractant appearing to bring a quicker response than the real stuff.
Bites were usually straight forward runs; the tench tending to speed off and the crucians usually indicating they were hooked with a more stuttery-type run. It wasn’t always completely clear which species it was before they showed themselves however, and with the odd tench going over 4lb I found myself muttering “please be a crucian” before the smooth green flanks of yet another tench swirled at the surface to shatter my hopes.
It was all good fun though, and with a late evening surge in bites, which meant that for a spell it was difficult to keep even one rod in the water for any length of time, I ended the first day with around 30 fish in total. The majority were tench, with about one in every three or four fish turning out to be a crucian. The best tench was nudging the 5lb mark and the largest crucian weighed in at 2lb 5oz. All in all a very pleasing result and all I could really hope for the following day would be a one or two larger crucians just to put the ‘icing on the cake’.
Once I had a couple of baits back in the water the next morning it didn’t take too long before the first bite materialized; another modest tench. The next hour or so added a couple more tench and a crucian, but the bites started to tail off once the sun started to make its presence felt.
I was happy with the 35 or so fish that I’d already caught on the session though and reckoned my best chance of a larger crucian might be to make a move to the other end of the lake, where there might be fewer fish, but the chances of a bigger one could be better.
So it was that not too long later I was setting up again, but almost at the opposite end of the lake to where I’d started fishing. Plumbing around with the marker rod soon identified a couple of spots worth having a go at; one close to the reeds in the margins down to my right and another out in open water slightly to the left. Methods and baits were the same as I had been using in the original swim.
It seemed like a good idea at the time but the move was clearly not one of my greatest ever decisions as I failed to get another bite for the rest of the session! With the lack of action I kept checking out the shallower margin areas around my swim to see if I could spot signs of fish, but lots of looking only revealed a total of one solitary crucian and a couple of small tench.
Eventually I had to make a decision on whether to move once more, or to cut my losses and make a start on the journey back home a couple of hours earlier than originally planned. The thought of a nice shower and some hot food won the day and it wasn’t long before the gear was stashed away in the back of the motor and I was off to face the delights of an evening spent on the M25 and M1.
I love the challenge of my bream fishing on big gravel pits but the change of venue and target species had been a really refreshing tonic. On the way home from Marsh Farm I was already thinking about the possibility of fishing on a couple of gravel pits that I hadn’t fished for a few years and with big catfish a potential target on one of the pits, the next couple of sessions looked as though they might provide some very interesting angling if things went to plan.
Whatever happens I’ll let you know next time. Until then…happy fishing!
