The Syndicate – Session 2

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.

I hate those last few hours at work, clockwatching, waiting to bolt out the door and get my fishing head on and into action. But 5:30 has been and gone and I’m now once more heading towards the syndicate. Two gates to get through and the car park’s in view with four motors parked up. Even though I know four cars won’t spill out loads and loads of anglers to compete with regarding who gets what swim, etc, it’s still a far cry from having the lake to yourself.

First 20 from the syndicate water

Yep, the popular swims have gone again, although last week they produced a blank for the two guys fishing them. For me, I’m in a nice position in that I’ve yet to fish the entire venue so can’t judge as to whether or not a swim is deemed ‘Hot’. I’ve made the decision to be on this water for a good couple of seasons and although the majority of advice given anywhere in our game is deemed reliable, I’m not prepared to let it all sink in. I’m going to hit each swim on different occasions and make my own mind up as I go along.

I walked along the bank on the narrow side of the lake where the north easterly wind was blowing into it. It seems to me that they do follow the wind as I immediately spotted carp. A few minutes later and more signs were visible with arrow point swirls moving along the top. A few minutes later I spotted fizzes then a mass of bubbles that clearly indicated to me that there was something ripping up the lake bed. The carp are here so that’ll do for me, I thought.

Back to the car to grab the kit. From opening up the back door on the 4X4, to packing the barrow, to walking the 300 odd yards to the swim and sitting back after casting, takes me no more than 45 minutes these days. At one time that would have cost me a good hour and a half. My weekly fishing stints are around 11 hours so these days every second counts and being able to prepare at home before each session is now a must for me.

I’d improved the rigs a tad more to accommodate my grumblings of the first session and boilies were positioned snowman style on the hair.

There were fish rolling about three quarters of the way across so spicy prawn boilies and a PVA mesh ball with mixed pellets and broken boilies were launched at the target.

I tightened the line to sink it by placing the tip underwater, I then loosened the clutch and slowly fed line back out into the lake. A couple of minutes later and the rod was placed on the buzzer and a light bobbin set in order to fish moderately slack lines.

Now for number two. Out came the marker rod and a quick flick to the right hand margin soon found me a featureless bottom at no depth variation whatsoever. I played for a while and came to the conclusion the deck was of standard layout.

On the first session I’d thrown out about ten balls of the mix listed and had no fish or takes over the top of it. Not wishing to abandon the method on first hit, I decided to do the same again and placed another snowman rig on top of this newly formed carpet but this time with meaty marine boilies.

An hour in and the margin rod was fizzing, but observations led me to believe this may have been tench or bream and at the very best I couldn’t confirm carp were in the vicinity. Again with slack lines the buzzers were beeping and mini drop backs and forward tugs were occurring for the next couple of hours. It got to the stage where I struck into a mini drop-back only to have pulled into fresh air. I have a great amount of confidence in the hooking ability of my rigs and I knew deep down I should have resisted the temptation to strike. Time now was 11pm and with work only 8 hours away. It was time to get my head down.

Just past midnight and the long distance rod sprang to life, giving a slow but steady rise on the bobbin. Out of bed and I struck into a fish that just kept swimming towards me. Try as I might I couldn’t reel in fast enough to catch up with the line that was hurtling back towards my camp. Eventually a soft contact was made with a 4lb red eye tench staring back at me. Okay, not exactly my target species, but once more I was thrilled in the hooking arrangement in that the hook was mid bottom lip and at least 2cm back.

Confirmation that the rigs were doing everything and more of which they were designed to do. This couldn’t be coincidence with regard to feeding confidently could it?

Back to bed and all quiet on the western front. A broken sleep here, there and everywhere by the margin rod but no activity. The alarm clock beeped on the mobile phone saying “get up fatty, you gotta go to work” or that’s certainly how it felt. Two snoozes later and a mild mood of disappointment and I swung my legs round to start tackling down.

It was hooked mid bottom lip and half an inch back – the rig is doing its job

No sooner had I put my boots on than wallop, I saw the distance rod tip swing round, immediately followed by a one toner. It seemed a heavier fish this time and kept low. It took me far right and then kited towards my right hand margin with strong, biting deep surges. A good scrappy fight and ten minutes later she was laying in the net. She topped the scales at 23lb dead and after taking 2.7 off for sling etc I settled on a happy 20lb 7 ounce and my first 20 from the venue. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind about these rigs, once more, mid bottom lip and half an inch back. Confirmation that they are turning very well and very quickly. A couple of pics later and looking and feeling absolutely knackered I packed up and went home for a shower.

For me (and although perhaps controversial) I am not convinced that barbless hooks are safer than barbed. The hook of course is easy to disengage, but does leave a trail of slicing in the mouth. But hey, rules are there for a reason and by parting with my cash I contracted myself to obeying them.

So what am I learning from this?
What did I learn from this and what changes will I be making before the next session? Firstly, there a couple of minor tweaks required to the rigs. Secondly what I found interesting was that all fish to date (mirrors 18lb 5oz and 20lb 7oz plus a tench) all came from distance, so I’ll be pushing both rods to range on my next visit. Also, when I reeled in this morning only the pop-up of the snowman was present on both rigs. To me this means that the soft bottom baits had been out for a while and have slowly disintegrated leaving only the single bait present.

If my baits are left to turn to mush, then this would certainly mean that the pellets and broken boilies in the PVA mesh would have been at best mush and the smaller fish may have gulped this up leaving just the single bait on offer and standing solitude for a few hours, again underlining my thoughts that single baits will be used on my next visit with perhaps stringers.

What else? The bait balls are only bringing in the smaller fish and are not producing carp at this stage so I’ll be dropping that for the next couple of sessions and focussing on a little more distance.