I’ve been fishing this Dutch lake for quite some time now. The lake is about 12 acres in size and the population of carp will be around the 50 fish mark. Most of them are low 30’s, with the biggest of the bunch going over 40 lb. It’s fairly weedy and the bird life can be a real pain sometimes. Two years ago I fished this lake intensively and caught 15 fish, and lost two. Catching so many fish was phenomenal, most anglers needed to be happy with just two or three fish a season on that place. These fish seemed to know that they were being fished for, and easily avoided being captured. What made the difference for me was a fairly small detail in presenting my bait, something that seemed to be overlooked by all the other anglers on there. They all fished to the main plateau, that was about 60-70 yards out. Everybody used the same tactics, a few boilies around the rigs and then waiting for things to happen. From watching and observing these fish I decided to try something different; to put my baits just a few feet out from my own margin in the deepest part of the lake. That area was totally overlooked by all the others, because they all concentrated on the main plateau. The depth was 16 ft just a few yards out from the bank, which was perfect for keeping the carp from making contact with the lines. The plan was to fish without any indicators and see how they would respond to it. After baiting the area for a few days and watching them patrol over my baited area I could see fish moving around and going down, without any apparent sign of wariness. The moment had arrived to try and get one. The next morning I was very excited…Would it happen…Would they feed? Well, they certainly did. I landed two fish that morning within an hour – a brace of 30’s.
I continued pre-baiting and fishing the spot, and ended that season with 15 commons up to 37 lb. After catching my target fish from another venue this year I did not have an alternative straight away and I decided to go back and try to catch some fish from that lake again. Just until the end of the season, without any pressure or expectations. And a good moment to try Quest Baits on this lake.I was asked to join the consultant team of Quest Baits by Shaun Harrison , and was using his bait for the first year. Expectations were high, quality bait could make a big difference on here were my thoughts. A friend of mine fished it at that time and he told me things were slow and not a lot of anglers had fished the lake for a quite a while. That’s what I wanted to hear. I started fishing the lake in the same way as two years ago. I started off with five blanks in a row, I had expected this to happen because of the pressure the fish had seen during the start of the season.
But things changed on the 6th session. After introducing the smoky fish 10mm’s for a few days I tempted one of the biggest commons: 41.3 lb! Over the moon with this great result I decided to go back two days later, to see if my luck had ended.
At 10.15 that morning one of the rods was away, and after a 25 minute fight I landed the biggest mirror in the lake: 42.1 lb. The fish had avoided capture for almost two years and looked stunning. Even now, when I am writing this article and thinking about that moment, I can’t stop smiling. This was my moment, the highlight of the season.
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