STUART DENNIS
Stuart Dennis is a passionate carp angler who has to juggle a busy work schedule and a young family with his yearning to go carp fishing. With that in mind he’s joined a local carp syndicate and, more important, gained permission from his wife to fish the venue for an overnighter once each week, providing Holby City or some other riveting soap is on the box.
Stuart is one of those anglers who is not happy to just sit there and follow the herd; he likes to think laterally, out of the box, and come up with his own ideas. In this occasional series we’ll follow his adventures and his thoughts as he tackles the carp in his new syndicate water.
THE SYNDICATE – SESSION 1
I’ve spent the last few years of my seemingly nomadic fishing trips pretty much all over the place. I’ve been fishing here, there and everywhere and have finally decided it’s about time I settled down and spent some dedicated time getting to know a venue on a long term basis instead of chancing my luck on hearsay and hope.
In choosing a syndicate the most important thing is to find a venue that suits all your needs; take a long hard look at the rules and ask yourself whether or not you feel you can share the same passion towards those rules as those who set them. Some of us may love or hate barbless hooks (so check the rules), some of us may love or hate particles (so check the rules), some of us may love or hate leadcore (so again check the rules). At the end of the day you are about to part with a fair chunk of the green paper so make sure you are happy!
Anyway, I won’t spend time on what venue you should look for, or what size or what stocking levels, etc, because we all want something different, all I will say is be prepared to be polite at your interview process because when it comes to syndicates, being able to pay for it is a small part of getting in!
Speaking of which you might want to run the numbers in your head with regard to what you feel is acceptable or what you feel is just too rich for your blood when it comes to membership fees. My first port of call was to decide how much fishing I am likely to do across the space of a year at one particular venue, I then throw the average cost into the equation of how much I am prepared to pay to fish a good day ticket water for a 24 hour session. It seems an average cost for 24 hours these days works out at about £ 20 per session and for me I’ll probably do a minimum of 20 nights. This gives me a budget of around £ 400 to play with.
After taking the £ 400 I would have perhaps spent on my day ticket water, I then weigh up the pros and cons of looking to throw it all into one pot and join a syndicate. The benefits to me are the ability to fish in surroundings that aren’t overcrowded or overfished, being able to enjoy a comfortable and a litter free venue and, more important, knowing I’m not gonna have some tossa getting drunk and doing drugs next to my swim (especially if he won’t share them!).
Taking into consideration the above, followed by a successful interview, I joined!
Cutting a long story short, I’ve found home. I’ve joined a syndicate not a million miles away from my home and I am happy with both the venue and the rules. Unfortunately I cannot share the identity of this water due to publicity bans, however I can tell you that the venue is run by a superb fishery manager who spends every penny available on the stocking, the bankside and the maintenance in order to provide the ultimate carp venue for long-term members.
Tackling a new venue
So without giving too much away the venue is based in the south and sits between 10 and 20 acres. Has a depth of between 7 and 3 foot and lies up with slight silt. As I go through this series and display captures in photographic form (hopefully that is) I will focus on fish and not venue pics so in that way I’m doing everything I can to keep my part of the publicity ban deal. There are a couple of 30’s in the water and number of 20’s and upper doubles. No particles are allowed so I’ll be putting my plan together with boilies, taking into consideration the rules of barbless hooks only, two rods max and no use whatsoever of leadcore.
Green Field – Trip 1
My first fishing trip at the new venue and I’ve taken a stroll around the lake. There doesn’t seem to be many underwater features or varying depths and drop-offs to target so I’m going to keep my tactics quite straight forward and make use of margins and mid water in the hope to turning them onto my baits and on-site baiting campaigns. I’ve been granted one overnighter per week (mid-week) from the war office and as long as Holby City is playing on the box all will be well.
I’ve spent the last few months simplifying a rig that I’ve been playing with only to complicate the whole affair once more by modifying the weight versus the turning. I am still at the early stages with this rig re testing, etc, so I won’t share great detail with you at this stage but if all goes well I’ll develop further and attach a pic at the end of this series.
For reference the rig is designed for a snowman presentation and early stage results indicate the turning of the hook into the bottom lip look positive and the fish (so far) caught on this rig are hooked further back in the mouth (up to an inch back from the bottom lip). This could of course just be a direct result of fish feeding confidently, however I do hope it’s a strong indication of the rig doing what it was designed to do; turn fast, drop into play early and give a good hookhold. Hooking fish in the middle of the bottom lip further back than normal is a sign of confident feeding fish, but fingers crossed and a little more testing will either floor my thinking or confirm my design.
The swim I had in my mind from walking round was in fact taken at the time of my arrival, so I opted for a very quiet, carpy looking end of the lake that had lilies scattered here, there and everywhere. After inspection and watching carp cruising on the surface I baited up with 10 balls of the following mix adapted from a mix Big Rik has had some success on:
- Soak and boil hemp
- Add glug or flavouring of intended hook bait
- Place mixed pellet in a bucket and pour over boiling hot hemp water to mush them down and release oils
- Throw hemp into the mashed pellet
- Add 3 pints of dead frozen maggot
- Add shed load of vitalin to dry the mix
- Add new batch of mixed pellet to dryer mix as this won’t mush
- Add mixed array of broken boilies (same choice as intended hook bait)
- Mix together and make up tangerine size balls
- Freeze balls
- Throw out frozen balls into intended swim
Half an hour later I placed the first snowman rig on top of the free offerings and made the decision that it would stay there until action kicked in. The other, again a snowman rig, was hooked onto a PVA mesh bag filled with assorted pellets and broken boilies all glugged quickly in the flavour of the boilie I was using (Meaty Marine) and cast to the far margin some 15 feet back from the edge. My thinking around this was that based on a fairly level bottom I would hope to pick up any patrolling fish and by not having my bait tight to the margin, the patrolling fish would venture back to the bait from the margin instead of following my line into a tight margin spot.
Stuart and his first fish from the syndicate water. At 18.5 it’s a good start (click for bigger picture)
Two traps set and the waiting game starts.
Unfortunately the problem with a new venue is that there seems to be far too many options available and not having enough initial knowledge to go on, you’ve just got to fly with your gut feel.
A couple of guys walked past and we chatted for a little while. They’d advised me that the guys in the swim I originally wanted hadn’t caught for two days and had attributed this to the spawning. I was sure this spawning had already occurred as a few days earlier I’d walked the lake and was sure that signs of spawning were definitely coming to an end. Although slightly surprised about hearing the news that the fish were still spawning, I was also feeling settled in that the swim I was denied was not producing.
Within five minutes of placing the snowman rig with the mesh ball full of pellets and broken boilies into the far margin, it leapt into action. A series of erratic single beeps turned quickly into the one toner we all dream of. I lifted the rod and made instant contact with what I hoped would be my first fish from the syndicate lake. Confidence was surging through my head in that the rigs were hooking well (at first hit) and more importantly this could be my first fish on a syndicate I knew very little about and those around me were having very little action.
Ten minutes later and a wonderful high backed immaculate mirror was gracing my net. It weighed in at 18.5 after weigh sling deduction. A great start and again confirmation of the rig’s working mechanics in that once again the hook was middle bottom lip and back a quarter of an inch.
A quiet night gave me a good’s night sleep with no more runs. I was up before the alarm clock went off at 6.00am. I packed up and headed home for a shower before the day in the office commenced.
I’ll be back again next week for another short overnighter and with a few minor tweaks to the set-up and rigs. Who knows what I’ll have in store!?
