Outgunned - Wed 8th July 2015, Peg 15 Lookout Lake, Angel Of The North

I was back at the Angel for my session today as I fancied having another crack at fishing the pellet waggler. Something that I'd only tried last year for the first time and was keen to try again. However (as ever) the weather gods had seen me coming and the high temperatures of the last 2 weeks were forecast to come crashing down to a maximum 15°C with plenty of rain and a stiff northerly breeze. On the positive side I wouldnt need suncream and there should be plenty of 'ripple' on the water 

At the fishery there was a match on Bowes Lake and  a coaching session on the 1st 15 pegs of the main bank on Lookout. That was fine with me as i fancied the island anyway. The trip across the footbridge to it being slightly unnerving, as 2 swans roosting on the bank approach took extreme offence at my approach and blocked my path, hissing and generally giving the impression that me wanting to cross THEIR bridge was seriously p!ssing them off. I rounded them carefully ensuring that this was not the time for my trolley to tip over again, depositing a Daiwa seatbox on top of an irate bird  (when I was a kid there was a famous family tale about my granda having his arm broken by a swan for trying to steal its eggs....fair enough really but id always treated them with a healthy respect. Any bird the size of a small pterodactyl fully deserves its own space in my opinion !)

On the island the low peg numbers were taken, so I followed up on my loose plan by setting up on peg 15. Right on the southern end of the island, possibly a bit sheltered from the wind but also at the 'right' end of the lake if the fish followed the wind.

Peg 15

As nice a fishery as it is I'd normally avoid this area as its probably only 50-60m from the main road and a nasty roundabout that seems to have a permanent traffic queue around it. I think I'd counted 5 emergency vehicle sirens before I even started fishing.

Road to nowhere ?

 Perhaps not the ideal peg if you want some peace and tranquility.But as the road noise became white noise I tried to plan a strategy. The peg has a load of options as per my photos. In a match you'd have to fish straight in front of you but in theory when pleasure fishing I could have also cast a feeder or waggler over to the pegs on the far bank about 25m away at 90° to my seatbox,  however somebody could easily arrive and fish here later in the day, so after a good plumb around I decided on the following in the water in front of my platform :-

With a 6g pellet waggler i could get quite close to the far bank reeds. I'd been advised to fish 10mm Angel feed pellets so I had a hair rig with a 16 hook and a band tied in a knotless knot and started pinging about 3 pellets across towards the reeds every other minute or so whilst I continued to set up.

I had planned to fish a long pole line with the '5m' line as my main focus but the wind was rattling across me from left to right. As well as this the 5m line turned out to be 6 sections which i hoped would be far enough away from the bank to do everything as the longer line was going to be hard going in the wind.  I did though set up 2 lines both left and right to give me some options. There was about 2" difference in depth so i would use 2 rigs and feed in different ways. 

The left hand line was more into the breeze so i started with 1 good pot of bait, a mixture of chopped worm and casters with some micros and groundbait (sonubaits Bloodorm and Sensas IM5 mixed 70/30) in a slop, gently squeezed into a ball. I would give this time to settle and planned to top up as needed with a kinder pot. The right hand line was easier to feed by hand more often, so although i began by cupping in a 3rd of a pot of hemp and maggot, I was going to feed every 5 mins with about 30 grubs and go from there.  I would leave the margins for a while but the carp always seem to come in tight to the bank in summer, so I new this would be a main part of my focus later.

I started on the pellet waggler,  Alternating between feeding every cast, twice per cast  or nothing. It didn't work. Either the fish weren't interested at all or with the cold start it was just too early in the day. I'd given the method a good 45 mins without any kind of touch so shelved it for now. Back to plan B.

I tried the heavier fed LH short line with hard pellet in a band but there was quite a tow on the water. I had a DT Open Water Tear on this line  which meant the rig was nice and stable but the fish didn't seem too fussed about a moving bait and i didnt fancy fishing overdepth with a banded pellet. So i abandoned the pellet and deepened the rig to have about 2" on the bottom and keep it still. I started alternating between a worm head and double caster as I'd been firing in a combo of casters and 4mm pellets about every 5 minutes. At least i was now getting bites and fish; nothing big but some roach and skimmers started liking the bait. I decided to refeed with a MAP pot of chopped worm and leave the line for 10 minutes while i tried my RH maggot line. I'd opted for a DT Pencil for this line as the wind and tow was much decreased in this swim. With a strung out bulk over the bottom half of the rig to search through the water column.(I also had a top kit with a shallow rig on to go over both swims but this didnt really produce anything when i tried it), however most bites came after the rig had fully settled.

The fishing was definitely getting better and apart from some tiny perch, i was getting more roach with some better skimmers and a few spirited crucians but no carp. In fact it was now mid afternoon and I'd just started to notice fish moving and crashing about, something that had been totally absent so far today.  The temperature had lifted a few degrees and the sun had come out for a bit waking the fish up.

In spite of not fishing the pellet waggler I'd continued to feed regularly and with the wind dropping i decided to feed my margin lines and have some time on the waggler. Almost straight away I started  getting  indications before hooking an ide of about 1.5lbs. I could get plenty of bites but was only hitting a small percentage, so tried  shallowing up but the bites stopped. Fishing 2-3 feet deep seemed to be the best. I'd had another ide of around 2lbs but just had the feeling that the bait wasn't quite right. Ann in the fishery tackle shop had recommended fishing 10mm hard pellets on the pellet waggler but as there were no carp showing i couldnt help wonder if a 8mm or even 6mm would have been better on the day (unfortunately i didnt have any of these 2 try on this occasion). But the method of fishing the pellet waggler was really enjoyable. Feed, cast, strike or twitch the rig and feed again. Its an ultra positive and active way of fishing that would be brilliant on the right day.

By now I had hungry carp tails up in my swim. I'd fed groundbait and hemp in front of my platform and on my RH margin cupped in less groundbait but a pot of dead maggots. For both lines i was fishing a DT Margin Diamond on 0.165 mainline to 0.135 hooklength and a Maver CS23 size 14. I started on the right hand swim with 6 maggots on the hook.  The float settled and bobbed before burying. My strike was met by me netting a shocked looking 4oz roach, quickly followed by its twin....obviously these fish were not aware that they were supposed to be chubby carp !

I fed another 1/3 pot of maggots and went to the other margin line. In previous summers I'd caught well on paste so tried this again. I had fed 4 pots of groundbait earlier with the hemp so used a blob of groundbait on the hook. As usual the float danced around in front of me for a few minutes before burying. This time i lifted into a fish which took off towards the far bank,  a few seconds later the hook pulled. Despite how little i fish I'm still fairly used to losing fish here when fishing on a top kit, so undaunted, baited up and went out again. This time when i hooked another fish i felt better prepared but this time after a more determined fight the line went slack and i brought the rig back with a large scale attached to the hook ! Id hoped by fishing paste and not having the point visible that I'd be able to reduce foul hooking. I was getting a bit frustrated and this got worse as the next fish i hooked smashed the hooklength when the elastic bottomed out. I'd waited all day for the bigger fish to show up and now I'd lost 3 in a row. I refed the swim with more groundbait which brought the carp back in front of me within a minute. I decided to give them a few minutes to settle and went back to my RH line with maggots. This time a quick battle led to a lovely tench of about 1lb in the net.

I always tend to bring a small tin of corn with me on any commercials and fancied giving this a go as a hookbait. Corn is banned (along with meat) as a feed at The Angel but its just so visible. I put 2 grains on the hook and this time a thumping bite was followed up by a good 7 minute fight as i treated this fish with real kid gloves. At long last I had my carp and at about 7lbs was a welcome sight. 

Common Courtesy ?

I now was in a bit of a dilemma. I had planned to fish until 4pm, it was now 3.50pm and the fish were feeding in both my margin swims. Time to re-evaluate my finish time i think !  I started to slowly pick off more carp, not quite to the size of my last fish but between 2 and 6 lbs.

Tanned Leather (sorry !)

I swapped between paste and double corn and whilst bites were not instant it was fun. Until I got broken again. Stupidly the rig I was using was the heaviest i had and id ordered some heavier elastic too which hadn't arrived in time for me to use. I caught another 8 carp or so before i packed up but did get broken a third time. 

Not the best angling in the world because i just wasn't prepared correctly.

So packing up I'd had an enjoyable day really. I'd caught some really nice fish and the carp ahowing towards the end had made it. I know that a lot of people turn their noses up at carp for some reason but i love them and like something that gives the tackle and elastic a work out. The valuable lesson learned though was to have heavier rigs/hooklengths available. The fish that snapped me may well have all been foul hooked but i think i didn't give myself the best option of getting them out today. I will be back with a bit more fire power next time. If the carp are showing it'll be interesting to see who wins !

Also seeing the queues of traffic going to and from work and the emergency sirens sounding regularly during the day,  reminded me why this sport is a distraction from the stress and pace of our working lives. 

Thanks for reading. Tight Lines.

Robin

Fowl and Foul - Fri 18th July 2014. The Oaks Sessay, Cedar Lake

Today would be my last fishing trip for the next 4 weeks, so I wanted to cram in as much as possible. I was undecided as to where to go, but didn't feel this was the time to search out a new venue. I decided to head back to The Oaks and back to Cedar Lake.

To anyone not familiar or fresh to my blog - Cedar is a snake type `canalised` lake approx 13-15m wide. Due to the way the lake twists and with the lush vegetation on the banks and islands,  most pegs feel very secluded and can give you a real sense of peacefulness if not heavily fished. In fact I didnt see or hear another angler all day. So much for holes in the ground !

Chris and Rob in the shop had said anywhere was as good to fish on the lake so I chose peg 5 on a relative straight. Firstly this peg had won the last 2 opens IIRC and secondly I had my back to the easterly wind that was forecast to get stronger as the day progressed. The trees behind me gave some shelter but there was still a nice gentle ripple from left to right (not that it would stay gentle for long !). In fact the day was red hot at the moment and getting hotter.

I`d brought the following for the day :-

2 pints of red maggots with a few whites mixed in
Micro and 4mm fishery feed pellets
A pint of hemp
2 tins of cubed 4/6mm meat
2 tins of corn
I also pumped up some 4 and 6mm expanders for the hook on arrival at the peg.

Finally, the night before I`d mixed up some groundbait - Dynamite green Swim Stim and Bait-Tech Sweet Fishmeal mixed 50-50.

So as per usual I'd covered most options and had to decide which way to start.

The peg had 2 bushes over on the far side with 8 feet inbetween but the stand out feature was 5m to my left, the margin had a cut out about 2 feet square in the reeds with an overhanging bush on the far side of the 'hole' from me.  Getting a rig in if the wind increased could take some manouvering.

I spend a good 20 minutes plumbing about. The cutout was only 8-10" deep which worried me a bit but a visit from Chris to collect the ticket money confirmed this would be the spot to target. I also had around 18" tight across at 14.5m and found a nice little hole 2" deeper than the surrounding water at the base of the near shelf at 45 degrees.

I wont go into all the minutae of my rigs as they are similar to previous posts but I did set up the following.

I would start off at 14.5m on a 4 or 6mm expander over some loose groundbait  and a few micros using a ND 0.2G mini gimp.

I fed 4 cups of groundbait plus a pot of hemp and corn combined in the margin swim and leave for a few hours or until I noticed fish movement. For here I had a 0.2G NG mini-diamond with a fatter bristle for bigger baits.

On the '5m' line I threw in a handful of hemp and 6 cubes of meat. I wanted to give this line at least an hour to settle so would throw in a few cubes every 5 mins. This would be approached with a NG Decker to fish starting dead depth.

Lastly at about 8m to my left I'd rigged up another 0.2G mini-gimp to fish shallow and would ping in 4mm pellets every minute to fish over with a 6mm.

I started on the long line. Checking the response before deciding whether to refeed or not. I had the float dotted right down in true F1 style and was getting dips straight away on a 4mm expander. Annoyingly even trying to lift into the bite was usually dropping the expander off but I did catch a roach before refeeding via a kinder pot and catching an F1 of a pound. 

I decided to try a hard banded pellet to get over the soft pellet fun but this just led to unhittable bites. Trying a bought hooker pellet seemed less appealing to the fish and I knew I couldn't continue as before. I'll admit that I'm no expert with using soft pellets and need to really develop this side of my fishing.  Combined with fishing at 14.5m for virtually the first time was not good. I decided to keep on feeding micros and some 4mm but with corn added.
This did the trick and after a chunky ide I was getting some more F1s. By now the glorious heat wave was replaced by rain and the wind had swung 180° to be in my face before settling on blasting down from left to right.

I refed and tried the short meat line but this only produced 2 skimmers in the entire day, despite feeding it for the whole session and trying shallow as well which surprised me a bit.

I'd already noticed tails up in the margin and couldnt resist.  Corn brought me a roach before a little mirror was added. I added another carp then nothing. Dead. I tried a variety of baits but couldnt get a touch.
I was worried I'd blown the swim for good so decided to refeed a pot of groundbait every half hour and leave for a while. I would look over every now and then but it really seemed dead.

This is when the local ducks decided to try and clear out the swim. Every time I looked away they were in, 3 of them upside down gorging on corn and groundbait.  Now I'm a real animal lover, I'm happy to feed birds on the bank and take in nature around me. But these ducks were the most persistent I've ever known ! Usually if they see a pole nearby they'll  politely  swim off. These ones would retreat 10 feet and stare at me waiting for ne to look the other way. It was becoming a battle of wits. I needed to nurse this swim to catch some fish and I couldnt see even the most greediest carp out muscling Huey, Duey and Louey in 8" of water !

Whilst the duck stand off continued the wind was now ripping across me. Id gone back onto the long line but with corn and was catching some nice F1s and carp. The fish were pretty switched on though and would try and bolt into the LHS bush when hooked.  2 of them managed to snag me but the rest I generally landed once in open water. But by now the wind was getting dangerous to hold the pole in. I changed the feeding pattern to catapulted 4mm pellets and corn and when the wind dropped I'd try going back over.

I dropped onto the shallow swim when the afternoon fishing lull kicked in. I'd gone through the soft pellet frustration again so converted the swim a bit by starting to feed maggots instead. This brought plenty of roach and rudd plus a large ide which I lost. But generally very small. I tried on the deck on this line but with very happening.

Eventually, in late afternoon the carp were back vying with the feathered trio for my bait. It was tricky negotiating the bait into position with the gusting wind and I had to fish with a bit of line above the float as the pole would spook the carp if too short. Corn brought a tiny roach before I changed to paste and started getting some more fish. At one point I had 2 in 2 drops for a combined 10lb. But I was now inevitably getting foul hooked fish. Some leading to inevitable hook pulls whilst others I would land.   Trying the slighty deeper water away from the edge just wasnt productive. The fish were where they and I wanted them just catching them cleanly was difficult.

I ended the session with about 40lbs give or take 5 and had plenty to think about. Id had a frustrating but good day.  I managed to lose 2 floats in the foliage (though my own ham fistedness...not due to them breaking) and lost easily twice what I landed.

Perhaps a heavier float in the margins would have caused less far hookers and a method feeder on the far line im sure would have caught once the wind got up and I certainly need to learn more about the art of pellet fishing.

As I packed away a solitary white goose swam around the margins hissing at me for not clearing away quickly enough. The birds obviously knew this was when they and the carp still wallowing in the margins could finally get to that bait without interference !

Thanks for reading as ever.

Please leave any comments, thoughts or advice. Its very welcome.

Tight lines

Robin

4th July 2014 - Angel of The North..Lookout Lake

I'd decided to head back to The Angel for today. I wanted to get amongst some of their carp and also try a method I'd never fished before; the pellet waggler.

The forecast was for the day to be warm and overcast but with heavy rain moving in later. However the wind was strong and gusty which wouldn't be ideal. With this in mind I picked peg 1 on the island.

This peg is on the north-east end of the oblong-shaped island,   so would put the wind on my back and give some shelter hopefully as my last trip here had ended badly for my umbrella !

After setting up at my peg I had plenty of open water in front, although with the right side being out of the island's shelter it was pretty choppy and wind-battered. There was a very nice looking margin swim on the left under some bushes with 12-16" of water on top of the shelf.

After writing in this blog about needing to simplify my fishing I of course did the exact opposite and decided on a variety of approaches !

The pellet waggler was something I was determined to try so I set up a 4g middy float on 4.6lb mainline to a 0.14 hooklength and 16 B911  hook. I could comfortably feed 6mm fishery pellets at around 25-30m out and fish a banded 6 or 8mm hard pellet on the hook, fishing shallow in 5 feet of water.

I also decided to rig a bomb rod up with slightly heavier end tackle . I was going to catapult pellets regularly for a few hours before trying the waggler (unless I saw fish activity and I could try earlier) and felt the bomb could be useful on this line if they wanted it on the bottom, however this didn't give me any fish on the day for the little i tried it so I wont mention it anymore.

Bait wise I had 4mm pellets to supplement the 6mms and some micros that I would soak to make paste, something which worked well last summer. I also had dead and live maggots, some hemp and a variety of pastes and hooker pellets as alternatives.
For some reason I seem unable to use 1 groundbait and always combine a few; so I'd mixed a batch the night before from green swim stim, dynamite 50-50 and F1 black. This could be cupped in loose in the shallow margins, made into soft balls or even compressed into paste.

My main plan of attack would still be the pole. I set up 2 initial lines 1 at 6m at the base of the near shelf where I could feed by hand regularly after potting in a small amount of hemp and dead maggots.

I also wanted a long line but the wind was gusting strongly and swirling so I didnt want to take any chances with any breakages by fishing longer than necessary. As the depth was  pretty consistant from the base of the shelf I settled on 10m slightly to my left.

With this being open water I fed a bit heavier putting in a full pot of groundbait and a half a pot of hemp, 4mm pellets and dead maggots again.

I set up a few different rigs all on Nick Gilbert's excellent floats (my review to follow)  and Middy Lo-Viz /Matrix Power Micron lines. A 0.3g Gimp for 6m on .125 main to .105 hooklength with an 18 B911 F1 hook, a 0.4g decker  on .14 to .125 and the same hook in a 16 for 10m. On the same setup as the decker I had a .2g mini gimp in case the fish came shallow and finally a 0.2g mini-diamond on .165 Aspire to 0.14 hooklength and the very strong and sharp Maver CS23 for fishing bigger baits in the margins.

My plan had been to rotate the 6 and 10m swims before feeding the margin line later in the day. However after feeding there were already carp at my feed tails up. I quickly set up another rig and tried to mug an early carp but without any success.

So back to plan A. I started on the short line, and started catching small roach and ide and maggots. After 30 mins I rested this line and went onto the 10m swim, fishing a 4mm expander. With the wind playing havoc with presentation I fished a longer line to the float with a backshot but bar a nice 2lb mirror the fishing wasn't really any better than close in so I returned to 6m 

I'd fed the pellet waggler line over the last few hours so gave it a go. Soon I was into the pattern of feed, cast, feed again and getting some bites around 2 feet deep. These turned out to be, not from carp, but ide up to 1lb. It waa certainly a.nice experience getting back to a float rod (albeit quite a chunky one !) and obviously I'd just scratched the surface of this method. But it was enjoyable and a very active method of fishing, that I'll try again soon.

But now I was itching to get close in and catch some carp hopefully !

I'd dropped groundbait regularly in front of my platform and within a minute the fish were straight in. I wanted another option so as well as this swim I also fed 4 big pots of groundbait in the margin to my left. 

Leaving this line to settle I went back in front and I threw in some dead maggots and tried fishing a big bunch on the hook. I started catching a few  fish, carp between 3-6lbs. The fish always fight like mad here and today was no exception.  Some of the fish plodded around the swim whilst others took off and tried to get around the back of the island. Inevitably I lost a few and had a few foul hookers before catching  some perch. This prompted me to try paste,  which meant longer between fish and a host of liners but alternating between the 2 margin swims kept the fish coming.

Getting a bit carried away towards the end of the session I piled more bait in, trying to entice the bigger sized carp. Whilst this had the desired effect to a degree, it also pulled a load more fish into the swims and by the time I sussed it out I was getting more hook pulls, probably from foul hooked fish. I caught on all the paste I tried but the one made from the groundbait I was feeding seemed to bring the most positive response.

In the end I'd had a really enjoyable day. All my gear and myself were soaked but I'd had 25 carp between 2-7lbs and ide, roach, rudd, skimmers and perch. So a good 10lb of silvers and at least 70 lbs of carp. A great day's fishing and another real try out for the Maver Enigma which continues to impress me more and more.

Tight lines all

Robin

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