Before describing the actual fishing that I’ve been doing over the past month or so I have to mention the very sad news that towards the end of August I received an early morning text to tell me that my friend and very talented angler, Simon King, had finally lost his short but courageous battle with cancer and had passed away the previous afternoon.
It was Bob Hornegold who had sent the text, as I had met both him and Simon several years beforehand on the River Lea while I was after my first 7lb chub. They were also getting to know each other and developing their friendship during the same period and it was always a joy to keep in touch with them both afterwards and to hear of their many successes, often as part of a team effort.
Both Simon and Bob have been regular contributors to Fishing Magic and the write up of Simon’s biggest River Lea chub can be found HERE alongside some links to his other insightful articles and the write ups on some of his stunning catches. There’s also a lovely tribute to Simon, his amazing catches and their great friendship in a piece by Bob HERE
The last month has been a busy one for me for various reasons, which has also meant that some of my fishing-related plans have had to swap and change, often at quite short notice, as outside influences have dictated. One of the venues I’d really wanted to visit before the weather turned too cold was Godalming Angling Society’s Johnsons Lake down in Surrey, which has really hit the headlines in the last couple of years due to some stunning catches of very large crucian carp.
Some of the Godalming AS waters are available on a day ticket, with their famous waters at Marsh Farm being the most well known. However Johnsons Lake is strictly members only. I’d been a member of the club a few years ago, but I’d just been too busy to enable me to travel down there on anything like a regular basis and had therefore let my membership lapse. However with my membership renewed for the 2013/2014 season and a sudden window of opportunity opening up that gave me the chance of going down there for a two day session, I wasted no time in quickly organizing the necessary tackle and bait.
On arrival at the lake I decided that a good walk around to thoroughly explore the place and maybe chat to one of two of the anglers already present, would be the appropriate thing to do before choosing a swim. However 15 minutes after starting my walk the heavens opened and a really heavy rainstorm had me completely soaked to the skin in no time. Fortunately I’d noticed an area that appeared to have evidence of some fish feeding activity in the shape of several patches of bubbling and fizzing, so after taking shelter back in the car until the worst of the weather had passed over, I wasted no time in getting some gear into a swim that gave the best coverage of the area.
With the threat of more rain a distinct possibility I put the Titan up first before getting the marker rod out and having a good investigation of the swim. After a while I decided to feed and fish two separate spots, one very close in by some overhanging tree branches to my right and the other almost straight out in front at a distance of about 30 yards. This was in an area where some of the previously noted bubbling had been going on.
An initial baiting up of around 10 spods of a mixture of hemp, scopex flavored sweetcorn, 3 and 4mm Swim Stim Pellets and halved and crushed 10mm Source boilies went in both spots, closely followed by the hook baits. Crucians can be rather choosey about hook baits and show some quite definite preferences at times. With that in mind I thought it best to try different hook baits at first and then to narrow things down if I started catching and they were showing a particular preference. Having had good results on 10mm Source boilies with the larger crucians on the Marsh Farm complex in the past, these were my initial choice on one rod, while sweetcorn went on the other.
I’d given some thought to rigs, as crucian carp can be notoriously finicky when it comes to bite detection and successfully hitting the bites that are recognized as such. Although the traditional approach has dictated fine float tackle fished at close range, my own approach ,and one shared by plenty of others nowadays, is to go for scaled down bolt tactics in an effort to convert hook bait pick-ups to obvious bites.
Most of my bolt style fishing for crucians in the past had involved the use of inline leads or method feeders, but with so much soft silt on the bottom in the areas that I was fishing I feared that the short hook lengths would be a danger of being pulled down by the weight of the lead or feeder, resulting in the hook bait disappearing out of sight. Therefore I decided on a slight change of tactics and to employ mini helicopter bolt rigs instead, naked chod style, with the lead on the end of the main line and the short hook lengths allowed to travel some way up the main line to prevent being towed into the murk. Presenting the baits on a short hair, keeping the hook point fully exposed, would also help with the self-hooking aspect of the rig.
To help focus attention to the specific areas close to the hook baits I squeezed a generous handful of method mix around the leads on each cast. To add to the attractive qualities of the method I used the juice from the flavored sweetcorn and the oily liquid from the jars of prepared hemp as part of the overall liquid required to make up the groundbait.
It was perhaps an hour or so after getting the initial baiting done and the two rods out before the first signs of interest in the were being signalled by the odd beep from the alarms. Before too long the first proper bite of the session was registered as a small tench made off with the sweetcorn on the margin rod.
After the first bite, action came in distinct spells for the rest of the evening and the following night, as more tench, some nice rudd to just over a pound and a couple of carp, both double figure commons, came to the net. A couple of fish had been lost either with the fine mono hook length snapping on the take, or with the hook semi-straightening, so the hook size and strength and the breaking strain of the hook length were stepped up a little to try and ensure everything ended up in the landing net.
By late morning several more tench and more nice rudd had come to the net, but I was a little concerned that I’d not caught any crucians, as these were most definitely my main target species. I’d received some indications that hadn’t resulted in a proper bite/run and therefore decided to change the weight of the lead from 1.5 to 2oz to try and increase the self-hooking bolt effect.
Whether it was coincidence, or perhaps a shoal of crucians had finally found the feed, but very shortly after making the change in lead size I caught my first crucian of the session. I weighed it at 1lb 11oz, as it turned out it was not only the smallest crucian of the session, but also the only one to weigh less than 2lb!
That first crucian appeared to break the spell and I’d soon accounted for several more nice ones to 2lb 11oz and some more modest tench, with a best of around 5lb or so. I’d set myself a mini target of a 3lb crucian to mark the trip as a success and it was beginning to look as though this was a distinct possibility.
Finally, following a short while after a quick spodding session over the target areas, a larger crucian found itself in the landing net and the digital scales awarded me a weight of 3lb exactly. Sorted! Shortly after another bite was forthcoming and (like buses) another big crucian resulted, this one weighed in at 3lb 1oz and turned out to be the heaviest of the session.
Regularly topping up the spots with a few spods of bait helped to keep the bites coming and it was quite noticeable that a fresh introduction of feed would often spark the swim back into life if things had been quiet for a while. I even had bites on a couple of occasions when I was actually spodding over the baits, which was quite surprising considering how shallow the water is. It was a sure sign that the fish had come to regard the distinctive sound/vibration of the spod hitting the surface as a signal for a sudden influx of tasty grub.
Some experimenting with hook baits showed that the fish visiting the swim were pretty much willing to have a go at most of the baits on offer, but sweetcorn appeared to be afavorite, with little to choose between the scopex flavored real stuff and the plastic version that I’d been soaking in pineapple flavored dip. Eventually I settled for using the plastic sweetcorn on both rods as it didn’t get destroyed whenever a fish was hooked and therefore made it a little quicker to get the rod cast back out following each fish.
The action certainly came in spells with different species also noticeably coming along in separate spells at times, with the two rods going off almost simultaneously on a couple of occasions; including a nice brace of tench scaling 6lb 7oz and 6lb 13oz. The second night was the period when four out of the seven carp I caught put in an appearance – the best at 22lb 5oz – I really didn’t get much sleep that night!
The final morning was a good one for the crucians, with fair numbers of 2lb fish, plenty of tench and even a couple of nice roach to round off a cracking mixed bag and a thoroughly enjoyable session.
The rules allowed me to stay on for a full 48 hours, so I could have stayed on for a little longer, but I was sufficiently tired and satisfied and, faced with a long return trip, I made a start on the packing up and it was probably just as well as I met with delays on both the M25 and M1, so it was several hours before I eventually got back home. However the memories of the session kept me smiling all the way.
I’d kept some rough notes of what I caught during the session, so the following day I was able to tally up and perform a rough calculation of the overall weight.
In total I’d caught 86 fish comprising:
34 tench to 6lb 13oz
24 rudd to 1lb 8oz
19 crucians to 3lb 1oz
7 carp to 22lb 5oz
2 roach to 1lb 5oz
My rough calculation of the total weight, bearing in mind that most of the fish were estimated rather than being put on the scales, was 270lb.
Just out of interest, I also had a quick tally up on the amount of bait that I’d managed to get through during the session, as I’d gone through a fair quantity to keep the fish interested:
2kg of Dynamite halibut pellet method mix
4k of 3/4mm Dynamite Swim Stim pellets
1k of 6mm Dynamite soft halibut hook and feed pellets
1k of 10mm Dynamite Source boilies
2 jars of Dynamite frenzied hemp
4 tins of Dynamite scopex flavored sweetcorn
Unfortunately I haven’t caught a fish since…
Two trips to the big Cambridgeshire gravel pit to resume my quest for a monster bream have failed to put a fish in the landing net but the last trip did produce a bite, which is a pretty major event in itself on this very hard venue. If there’s space in next month’s piece I’ll tell you all about it.
Until then… happy fishing!
