Whats been happening

Its been a long time since my last blog so I thought it was about time I let know what I have been up to. My last blog was in November and from November to March I have done very little fishing, mainly due to the horrendous weather and work commitments. Being a fisheries contractor much of the fish work is carried out over the winter period and with the long working days and even longer nights I find very little time to fish. However as we went into spring with the clocks going forward the the work load slowing up I decided to fish hard to the end of May when the lakes close for two months. Although only fishing overnighters I managed to get amongst the fish from the first trip and managed to keep catching right the way to the end of the season. I was still using Hinders crayberry to great effect but was also given a new bait to test from Shaun which was a much darker bait. This bait went on to be called snailz and is now on sale in the shop. I fished crayberry and snailz along side each other during he field testing and caught equally on both baits. The biggest fish to fall to the snailz was a 38lb 12oz mirror and with crayberry taking my target fish the "Long Common" at 42lb 4oz ot was a great spring.

Since my last blog

There has been a big gap between my last blog so I will try to get you back up to speed with whats been happening. After the capture of the parrot way back in August ( although I didn't blog about it until October) I continued to catch really well at Wasing and I only encountered one blank, not sure what happened there. The close range spots that had been producing slowed mainly due to pressure, so I had to go further out into the pond but managed to stay amongst the fish. By the end of September I had added two mid thirties 36lb 12oz and 36lb 4oz (see pictures) to my belt not to mention several other thirties and numerous twenties. The plan was to fished hard through October my favorite month and try and catch one of the 40lb commons but because of work commitments this didn't happen and instead I was contracted to do three weeks netting on the tidal Thames. This was great although sometimes it seemed surreal netting along the embankment or outside Battersea power station. November started the same with lots of work coming in but I did manage a short day session really just to see if I could track them down. It was just on dusk that I saw my first real show and that was shortly followed by another and another. Baits were dispatched but by the time I had to leave I had nothing to show for it, however areas were noted for further trips. Since that visit I have been back twice in November and caught both times, the first produced a cracking 30lb 4oz mirror and the second a rather round looking 27lb 8oz mirror. Both fish fell to the same tactics and bait from Hinders and I will go into them further at a later date after catching a few more this winter (I hope.) That's about it for now I hope to get out as soon as work and weather allows although this is a very busy time in the fisheries world with numerous jobs already in the diary we will have to wait and see.

36lb 4oz cracker

First English Fifty

After my successful morning on Lodge lakes it was time to think about Wasing, not that I hadn't been thinking about it for the past two months since its close. During the close season I had been applying bait to certain spots around the lake, one to allow them to feed confidently unpressurised and two to try and have some fishable spots come the start. The lake is clear and relatively shallow so becomes extremely weedy during the summer months and because of my limited time usually quick overnighters I needed to be able to turn up in a swim knowing spots would be clear and confident in my bait presentation. Because of the weed I tried to keep the spots to a minimum range this usually meant finding the slightly deeper water of one of the many gullies that run around Wasing. These gullies cross many of the swims at slight angles so you can apply bait at different ranges reducing lines spooking fish and I also tend to bait and fish the slope or bottom of the slope again to reduce spooking and improve line lay. With the pre baiting every bait item is kept small to encourage the fish to grub around and clean the spots, this usually consisted of hemp, mini combo pellets, little gems and crushed and crumbed crayberry boilies from Hinders. Nearer the start of the season I started introducing my 14mm dumb bell boilies to the mix these I would be using with home made 14mm cork wafters as hookbaits.

Wasing has a close season from June to July so the first of August is the big off and historically can be very busy. It was with this in mind that on Sunday the 1st of August being a bailiff I decided to have a walk around the lake. I was gob smacked to find only two anglers on the lake and these were both looking around and had not finalised where they were going to fish. I drove home as fast as I could and not expecting to be going fishing found my tackle in its usual state. Tackle sorted in record time and a quick stop at the local shop to pick up some food ( boil in the bag rice and what looked like dog food) I was back at the lake still to find only the two anglers.
Having a choice of swims on Wasing is a novelty at the best of times having a choice at the start of the season is unbelievable. With all three pre baited swims available I now had to make a decision, finally choosing the "woods"swim. The spots in the woods were about 30 yards out, trying to fish any further would have been suicide due to the large beds of weed that had formed all over the lake, behind and in certain ares in front of the swim. It is also the last swim before the nature reserve which is relatively shallow and holds a lot of fish during the summer months. It is from here that they often leave during early to mid morning heading into the main body of the lake where I hoped to intercept them on the baited spots.
Because of the holes in the weed that was fishing I opted to fish with flat pear inlines fished drop of style in conjunction with short lenghts of leadcore (12"). I like the flat pears because of their flat profile and when fished drop off style like to use at lease 3 1/2 oz or 4oz leads to enhance hooking and exaggerate drop off. For the 14mm dumb bell wafters that I was using I was still undecided on the best rig but had narrowed it down to two, one fished KD style incorporating a size 6 curve shank and the other using my go anywhere rig consisting of a size 6 wide gape, micro rig and small kicker. Both of these are fished using Atomic tackle 25lb Jel E Wyre hook links with a large loop formed at the swivel end to push the hook link away and a small shot to counter balance the wafter. These were fished relatively short about 6" because although I was fishing in the weed in small holes the actual spots were clear and because off the particles and small food items I was using by keeping them short it would result in more hooked fish.
I was in no rush to get the rods out, buy this time it was late afternoon and historically a quite period on the lake but by 7 o clock all three rods were fishing. Bait boats are allowed on the lake and although after many years of not using one on Wasing I had surrendered and it was with a boat that I placed my rigs with some hemp, pellets, broken, crushed and whole boilies. At about 9 o clock I saw two fish bosh out at around 80yds,half an hour later two different fish did the same on the same spot. The set up I was using enables me to change quickly to a solid bag and after trying a short korda supernatural hooklink of abou
t 3" a bag was sent to the area which I knew dropped away to about 7 foot but was unaware of the weed situation.I knew it would be touch and go whether I would be able to land a fish if I did get a pick up but I could not ignore them. During the night which was warm and overcast I lost two fish both on the long rod, both in weed even though the lead had ejected. I then made the decision not to fish the long spot anymore even though fish continued to show over that spot, the risks out weighed the rewards .
On first light I received a belting take, the lead dropped off and the fish came to the surface this fish behaved itself and I manged to steer it past all the weed beds on its way into the landing net. A 28 1/2 lb common sat in the folds of the net, not a bad start to the season. It was weighed and returned quickly and the rod repositioned as this really is bite time on here at this time of the year. As the sun came up and the visibility improved I could see bubbling and fizzing on two of the three spots so guested it would only be a matter of time. However by 10 o clock I still had not received a take, Simon one of the other anglers came round to see how I was getting on. Simon had nothing in the night and was contemplating a move I told him to get his rods back out as this really was bite time, he left with added enthusiasm. At 10 . 30 the bobbin on the left hand rod lifted to the butt, I was fishing with the clutch tight due to the weed so checked the line. It was very tight so I lifted the rod and pulled into one very angry carp, the lead ejected and the fish came to the surface just in front of a large weed bed. With the rod arched over I walked backward to stop the fish reaching the weed and managed to get the fish into open water it was then a matter of steering the fish through the last weed bed in front of me which I manged to do.
In the clear water I could see the large scales that run down the flanks of " the parrot" as it is known due to one side of its mouth bring slightly damaged and knowing this fish to be over fifty pounds ment the last few minuets of the fight were nervous ones. In the net the fish looked enormous and when I lifted it up it felt every bit a fifty pounder and this was confirmed when the scales went around to 54lb 2oz.

Lodge Lakes

I have been a member at "the lodge" for a couple of seasons now, last year fishing the front lake of the two which has a much larger be it smaller stock to the back lake. Both of the lakes are quite small about 4 acres a piece so last year with this in mind I asked CT Custom Built to build me a set of rods to suit these small water conditions. Carl produced three lovely playing rods with the build finish being of the highest quality. If you are looking for a set of custom build rods then I can fully recommend Carl.

The plan this season was to fish the back lake during the Wasing close season ( June, July ) however due to my work load this did not happen. With the Wasing season just around the corner I decided to give the lodge a visit and because it would be a one off I decided it was the front lake that would receive my attention. The front lake has no weed and the lake bed is rather uniform with deep margins leading itself to a great stalking water with the fish fighting hard right under the rod tips. Best results come from finding the slightly harder spots usually resulting in a small difference in depth due to the fish activity exposing the hard clay bottom. It was with this in mind that I set about finding some harder spots to spod too, baiting in the evenings with no further disturbance usually meant a busy morning. Spots were baited with chilli hemp, carp crunch and chopped and crumbed crayberry boilies, I had great success last year while field testing crayberry on the lodge and Wasing and it is now available from Hinders.
When the fish are really having it at the lodge it look like a jacuzzi as they are constantly looking for bloodworm and other naturals, when it is like this I have had great success using small items in the spod mix as well as small hookbaits. After spodding, small whittled down 14 mm hookbaits were positioned for the night on rigs incorporating size 8 wide gapes, cortex hooklinks and 2oz leads and fished with small mesh bags of crayberry multi mix and little gem pellets.

The nights can be quite with early morning being bite time so I set the alarm for 4.30 as I usually like to re bait because of any crayfish attention during the night. One interested thing I have found while using crayberry is that the cray fish seem to leave them alone more so than other bollies. The first fish came at 4 o clock and was the first of seven caught that morning with five being over 20lb, no more spod is added during this time because it has killed the fishing in the past. By 11 o clock the sport had finished for another day so it was time to pack up and go to work, work that day was netting a lake to remove carp, I just can't get enough of them! I have included some photo's from last years successful season catching over 50 fish up to 31lb. It was good to get the rods out and catch a few but it was now time to think about Wasing and the big fish in there.

Phil the fish

My mum says that when I was three I fell into a pond and I haven't been out of one since. My wife calls me a mer- man and says that I have web feet and that I am a double water sign (Chinese horoscope) what ever that means. So it should come as no surprise to hear that my life evolves around water. I work for myself as a Fisheries Contractor having attended Sparsholt collage this involves netting lakes, electro fishing, fish propagation and habitat enhancement and generally playing around in water which sounds great until you hear that most of the fish work is done in the middle of winter Brrrrrrr. I enjoy scuba diving and have dived all over the World as well as the English coast but it is my great passion for fishing and to be more precised in recent years carp fishing that has persuaded me to write this blog.
People that fish for carp will know what an unhealthy obsession it can be, it can take over your life leaving you thinking about it day and night, sending the wife half crazy and screaming divorce. But at the end of the day catching carp is what we love and we are never happier than when sat on the side of our favorite pond, rods out awaiting the sound of the alarms to start the battle.
My carp fishing career has seen me fish a number of lakes, some you will know like Dinton Pastures, Burghfield,Pingewood (before it became known) and some not so well known. I have also fished in France and have had some really great weeks, catching nearly forty fish for the week including ten 40's to 55lbs. My English PB is 44lb 8oz and at the moment I am fishing a water which holds a mid 50 as well as some enormous 40lb commons which could go 48lb this summer. In this blog I hope to keep you informed as how well I am doing, including the highs (hopefully) as well as the lows.