by Martyn Russ & John Rees
With all the rain and windy weather we had been getting for the last few weeks it was difficult to choose a day that would be just right but luck seemed on our side and a break in the weather meant we could go fishing at our local lake. John Rees one of the newest members to Team F.A.W. decided to join me to brush up on his skills and practice a few things including making rigs. We also had the chance to try out some new tackle and specially my new Bivvi that is extremely quick to put up and take down. The TF Gear Force 8 Speed Light Bivvi was designed so that it could be erected in under a minuet and easy to use. We were both very pleased and surprised to say the least when it actually too only 30 seconds to put up. The new D-Lock design made it very simple to use and very strong when put up but also allowed it to be taken down just as quick.
We were both surprised at just how much room was actually inside the 2 man Bivvi and just how strong it actually was. After initially putting it up it must have took a whole 5 minuets to peg out and secure all the guide ropes. We were ready for our days adventure. The sun was already blazing hot and it was still only 9am in the morning, this gave us some idea that the day would turn into a scorcher and very hot. We decided to start the day using bottom baits backed up with PVA bags full of pellets and ground bait. I placed one rod on a single bottom bait using “The Crave” boilies and the second on a chod rig wit a tuti-fruity pop up. The 3rd rod we decided to do something a little different and place a couple of 12mm Halibut drilled pellets toped off with a piece of yellow fake corn just to highlight it.
Our initial set-up was quite simple we were using 15lb Fluorocarbon fishing line, that i got from Total Outdoors, on our Grandslam Free spool Bait Runners on the CK Fusion Expert 3 lb t/c 12 foot carp Rods. These were placed on the CK Stalking Pod using Black Zero bite alarms and indicators. I have to admit the CK range fro Dragon Carp Direct is brilliant value and quality and anyone who fishes on a budget should take a look at the range as they will find the items they need at prices that just can’t be beaten and for someone like me who is getting back into fishing after taking a 10 year break and also deciding to take up specimen fishing it has saved me a lot of money.
The day continued to be sunny and with very little breeze we noticed that all the fishermen around the lake were very quiet and not getting any bites. I would have expected at least a couple of small fish coming out of the lake but nothing. After a couple of hours with not even a line bite we decided to re-set the rods in different areas and within 10 minuets of re-casting we had our first bite. unfortunately it was short lived as the hook link snapped just as i struck into the fish. This shocked us both as it was a 15 lb. braided hook length that normally would have no problem pulling in the largest of fish.
After loosing out first fish of the day we decided to put 2 rods out on Zig Rigs and left the other rod out on Halibut Pellets. We checked the depth of the lake and area we were fishing using a marker float and spodded up the area with a spod mix made up of barley, birdseed, hemp and corn with a mixture of 10mm and 16mm boilies whole and crushed added to the mix. We were also using some bloodworm glug added to the spod mix just to give it that little extra attraction. We fished one rod on a Yellow Zig set at 3 foot off the bottom and the other on a Zig Halo Float set at 1 foot under the surface.
Although we worked hard at trying to get our swim going unfortunately we didn’t hook into any carp for the rest of the day and to our surprise just as we were packing up one of the rods ripped off on a screaming run, we struck into it and played in what was to turn out to be my personal best Eel! It was a good size with a fat body and weighed in at 4 lb. 2oz and apart from a couple of small roach that we had whilst playing in the margins with my 6 meter Carp pole it was the only big fish of the day. That's just how it goes sometimes, you can’t always bag loads of fish and some days just turn out to be difficult for no apparent reason but even still we enjoyed our day out and can’t wait for out next adventure.
Wet Nets and Tight Lines.
