For many coarse anglers June means the start of season on the rivers, along with all the excitement that entails but I have to confess that although I’ve had my fair share of new season starts on the rivers, most have been a disappointment in terms of results and it’s much more likely nowadays that June will see me concentrating on stillwaters, saving the river fishing for later in the year.
This year, early June saw me making a return 48 hour visit to the lake where I’d had my PB crucian on a trip the previous month. While the fishing was good, it certainly wasn’t quite as hectic as the previous session, but fishing similar tactics to those described in last month’s piece, I was pleased to catch a good few tench and some more quality crucians, including a lovely fish weighing 3lb 5oz.
The following week I had the opportunity to do a couple of midweek nights, but I couldn’t decide where to go. With my first ever fishing trip to France coming up later in the month it was difficult to concentrate on anything else, but I eventually chose to dust off my carp gear and head over to Swan Lake on the Bluebell Complex near Oundle. Even if the fishing was on the slow side, it would give me a good chance to check over my carp gear in preparation for the French trip.
Arriving at the lake, it was soon apparent that the weed had got going early this year, with plenty of it growing up to the surface in several spots around the lake. After a quick look around I decided to check out a swim that gave me access to the middle section of the lake, with nobody directly opposite and a couple of empty swims to both the left and right. It seemed like a reasonable area to start off in, as the lake can get busy and sometimes the fish can respond to the pressure by starting to shy away from the busier areas.
It needed a bit of a ‘thrashing’ with the marker float, but eventually I was happy that I’d identified an area that was clear enough to provide reasonable presentation for two rods with boilies fished on chod rigs. A much smaller, but even clearer, area closer in looked to be suitable for baiting with some hemp, sweetcorn and a few handfuls of pellet and could be fished with a standard bottom bait rig, which I intended to fish with a single grain of artificial sweetcorn presented on the hair.
Nothing much was happening on the lake for the two nights of my stay, but with the occasional carp showing in or near my swim on both nights and during the early morning period I was still reasonably confident of some sort of action.
Eventually, with only a couple of hours to go before I had to be packed and gone, the right-hand rod with the artificial corn fished over the particle bed was away. With all the weed about it wasn’t surprising that the fish got bogged down a couple of times, but a bit of patience together with some gentle persuasion soon had the carp moving again and a pretty mid-double mirror ended up having its photo taken.
Towards the end of the month it was time to head over to the Abbey Lakes Complex in France, for my first ever French fishing trip.
It all came about after a generous invite from my neighbor Mike, who was going over to fish Kingfisher Lake on the complex with a group of guys he’d got to know. There was a late cancellation and therefore a spare place going on the cheap. So after a bit of ‘arm-twisting’ I was persuaded that it was an opportunity too good to miss. Kingfisher Lake is the only lake on the Abbey complex with big catfish as well as big carp, with the record cat for the lake weighing 168lb and the possibility of even larger fish present. It wasn’t difficult to decide to concentrate efforts on the catfish, but with plenty of appropriate bait and tackle to be taken for the carp, should the chances look good for them either instead of, or alongside, the catfish.
We made a draw for the order in which we would pick swims when we all met up in the early hours prior to boarding the ferry at Dover; then once at the venue and after having a look around the final swim choices were made. I was mid-way down the draw, but reasonably confident with my final swim choice.
I’d gone for Swim 1, which is something of a corner swim on Kingfisher, but with nobody in the swim to my left and with varied features and water depth and a carpy looking margin stretching away to the right, it looked to provide opportunities to fish for both carp and catfish.
