Clattercote Recce

Kevin Perkins enjoys some ‘normal’ fishing before settling in for some alternative tenching that involves casting from a collapsed chair

There was me, Jeff Woodhouse, Kevin Perkins and Stu Dexter at Clattercote Reservoir, not far from Banbury, Oxfordshire yesterday, all raring to see how the place was fishing, and not really expecting too much considering the water was still cold. Still, all we wanted was an idea if the carp were still there following the deaths of a number of the carp stock on the water last year.

On that score we needn’t have worried, for as we walked across the dam (more like hobbled, following the usual big fry-up in Tesco’s store in Banbury where we met) we saw the dark shapes of several groups of carp lying just below the surface as well as signs of other carp further out as they touched the surface.

Graham with one of the two small carp he caught, the only two our group caught on the day

Fishing for these groups of carp was an elderly chap who sells the bagging wagglers that are so popular on there. These wagglers won’t win any prizes for their cosmetic value, but they were ideal for their practical purpose, which is much more important. Incidentally, he’ll be selling his wagglers on the day of our match on 14th May. They’re £ 3.50 each and they’re better than any shop-bought bagging waggler I’ve yet seen, at least for 25yds-plus distance fishing when you need a bit of weight.

Anyhow, he’d already caught 11 carp on one of his wagglers and as we chatted to him he advised that we go further down the lake rather than fish the pegs below him. We decided that local knowledge would win the day and did as he suggested, but I think we all agreed that we should have stuck to our plan, for as it turned out we had only two carp between the four of us.

Stu had about a dozen tench on either maggot or sweetcorn

To be fair though, he had only three more carp during the rest of the day and remained biteless for much of the latter half. The wind swung right round from blowing into the dam (said to be the best conditions) to blowing into our bank. I don’t know if it went colder, but it certainly felt that way.

Three of us started with the bagging waggler method, with only Stu opting to fish on the bottom with either maggot or sweetcorn. He stuck at that and ended the day with a dozen or so tench. Jeff and Kevin turned to bottom fishing next, following two or three hours of seeing no action on the bagging waggler and both caught a few tench, while I caught my two carp (on a 10mm Active 8 boilie at a depth of 21/2 ft) after an hour or so of continual feeding and also missed a couple, before I too decided to fish on the bottom with maggot and a groundbait feeder and ended up with five tench and half a dozen bream (four skimmers and two of about 3lb each).

In spite of not catching a lot it was good fun and we thoroughly enjoyed the day, Kevin providing the entertainment with a backward flip, followed by jack-knife, off his chair.

Jeff nets another tench

Apparently my bream catch was quite unusual according to one of the regulars we spoke to as we walked off, the species not making many appearances. So from then I walked off to choruses of jammy bastard, golden bollocks, etc, ringing in my ears. I was really upset.

Me and Jeff rounded off a good day with a nice meal in an Indian restaurant in Banbury, with me having to stick my tongue in a glass of iced water after I bit into something so hot it brought tears to my eyes and made my tongue feel like it had been dipped in acid. Luckily I’d almost finished my meal by then so it didn’t really matter once I’d retrieved my tongue from the glass and regained my powers of speech.

Graham returns a ‘rare’ bream

Clattercote? In spite of the weather never seeming to be kind to us on the days we decide to fish it, I still really like the place. Unlike many commercial carp fisheries, this one is more than just a water where it’s a race for who can catch the most carp in a set time. Clattercote has some bigger carp in the double figure bracket, other species, particularly tench, and you have to make decisions on the day about which species to go for and which method to use to get the best weight from it.

Jeff is pleased with another hard-fighting tench of about 3lb

This year the match is about a month later than it’s usual April timing, on Saturday, 14th May, which should give us our best chance ever for more of us to knock out some better weights.

If you want to come along and enjoy a fantastic day, meet the people behind the names and faces on the forum, and with the chance of winning a lovely trophy in memory of an old friend (a day that usually begins with a good breakfast and ends with an even better evening meal).