All the good stuff happened during the first week of the month, starting Wednesday afternoon and going through to the Sunday morning of the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.There were two target species during the four night session as Mallard Lake on the Bluebell complex has a handful of specimen bream as well as plenty of good looking, fast growing carp in the low ‘doubles’ to 30s bracket.
Arriving at lunchtime I was a little disappointed to discover that the two areas I’d had in mind as starting points were already occupied. However, there was a nearby swim I rather fancied as it featured a shallow plateau that rose up from the deeper water on either side. I’d discovered this while plumbing around with a marker rod on a pike fishing session the previous February.This would certainly do for the first night and I could consider a move the following day if the swim didn’t look too promising.
Casting the marker float a couple of times soon relocated the central area of the plateau, and a few casts with just a lead on one of the ‘proper’ rods soon told me the area was clean: perfect for concentrating the bulk of my hook-baits and loose feed. Fortunately this also revealed a low-lying snag at the back of the plateau so I changed my plan and decided to fish to the front; if a fish was hooked it would lift the end tackle and mainline clear of the trouble spot if it headed in that direction.
Three hook-baits were cast onto the front of the plateau, then half a bucket of loose feed was delivered by a ‘Spomb’ suitably clipped-up to drop in the right place every time. Hemp, small snails, mixed boilie chops, 10mm ‘Source’ and red ‘Amoboilies’ plus Scopex-flavoured sweetcorn and red krill pellets would, hopefully, do the job.
The hook-baits were kept relatively small to blend in with the loose-feed and to be easily sucked in by bream as well as carp. A different flavour was used on each rod as I’ve found some fish to have a preference so offering a choice can lead to more fish on the bank.
So the first hook-bait was a 10mm ‘Source’ boilie tipped with plastic corn; the second, a 10mm Sweet Tiger fluoro pop-up soaked in tiger-nut dip and the third, a 10mm Red-Amo bottom bait. The end-tackle was kept fairly simple but effective: size 8 Fang hooks fished blow-back style on 6” hook-links of 20lb Nash Combi Link and 3.5oz dumpy pear leads attached to safety bolt beads. Having plenty of space I fished a fourth rod to the right of the swim, much closer in at the base of the near shelf.
As light started to fade on the first evening a few carp started to show at range and it wasn’t too long before the first run of the session came. This resulted in a 12lb+ common which turned out to be the smallest of several carp caught that night, a further two “doubles” and a nicely scaled 20lb 8oz mirror caught by first light.
Dawn on the Thursday morning seemed to kick-start the carp into further action with a hard-fighting 29lb 2oz common and two other carp in the “upper doubles” bracket.
The middle of the day was quietest in terms of bites so this was when I opted to put the spod rod to work again, topping up the swim with a further generous helpings of loose feed.
I’d got a meeting of the Northampton Specimen Group (NSG) to attend on the Thursday evening so, as previously arranged with the fishery management, I left my gear under the watchful eyes of some nearby ‘minders’ and set off confident of its safety. I arrived back at the fishery just after midnight and the rods were soon cast back out to the hot-spots. With skyline reference points and the correct distances marked with thin pole elastic the job was made relatively easy.
The first carp of the night woke me after just a couple of hours sleep and this was followed by a further mid-double at around first light.
This session was to be something of a social occasion too; a chance to meet up with my old friend, Ian, who turned up on the Friday morning and promptly moved in to the freshly vacated swim to my right. We were in my swim enjoying a brew when one of the rods fishing a bait on the plateau area signalled a take, and after a spirited fight Ian slipped the net under a nicely-framed common that missed the ’30’ mark by a mere 8oz!
The rest of the session continued along similar lines, with all of the fish being carp and all coming off the big bed of bait on the plateau area. The rod fished just off the drop-off, closer in, didn’t produce a bite at all. The majority of the bites came either at night (from late evening until first light) or during the morning.
I kept re-baiting the swim on a regular basis, introducing at least half a bucket of loose-feed each 24hrs. The carp didn’t appear to be too choosy about the hook-baits so long as I kept them relatively small and matched with the loose feed.
At times it was quite hard work ensuring the swim was well-fed and that the plateau hook-baits were being presented correctly and in the right places – especially when the stiff breeze was pushing into our bank. By the time it came to packing up early on the Sunday morning my arthritic shoulders, arms and back were aching like mad but the session had been fun and very rewarding; such times keep you satisfied and motivated for later in the year when the fishing is slow and largely uneventful.
In total 22 carp were caught, consisting of fifteen doubles and seven 20s”, the best going 29.02 and 29.08. The banter between us was excellent and helped make a really good session positively memorable.
As I hinted at towards the start of this piece the rest of the month didn’t really get off the ground. However I had some exciting opportunities to look forward to so I’ll let you know how things turned out.
Until then… happy fishing!
