Every Cloud Has A Silver(s) Lining - The Oaks, Oaks Lake - Feb 14th 2015

After a multitude of reasons conspiring to keep me off the bank I was at last able to make my first outing of the year. 

The ice that had affected a lot of northern lakes had melted and the mercury above freezing and a day at The Oaks in North Yorkshire was my choice.

Id planned to fish for a bit of everything and anything on one of the 3 snake lakes on site, probably F1s (if they would play ball) but also skimmers and possibly Ide. However on arrival at the tackle shop I was informed these lakes had been rock hard, with good weights possible if you hit lucky and were on fish. If not there was real chances of a blank. The recommended method was to dob bread around the swim without feeding - a method that wouldnt rank highly on my list of preferred methods.  I consider myself to be an active angler and really like to make something happen.  The other alternative was fishing for roach on Willows (the specimen lake). I'd always prefer to fish with bites so decided to go for the roach and leave carp and F1s for another time.

Willows lake is a few acres and has a few small islands centrally. There were about 3 carp boys bivvied up on the left side of the lake and one on my immediate left fishing 2 rods. He wasnt in a bivvy but was actually parked behind his rods sitting in his car (!).

My peg was at the rhs of an island about 30m away but the pole was my only choice out of the holdall. As I tend to fish "standard" commercials most of my pole rigs are for 4-6' deep, so I was surprised to see 7-8' at from the bottom of the near shelf in front of me; perhaps not a bad thing at this time of year. The bottom was relatively flat and the lake still had a good bit of colour so along with a bit of advice from the shop I picked 3 options.

At 6 sections to my left I would feed pinkies in case the fish would settle close in. This was just about as far as I could get to throwing by hand but was fortunate that the wind was pretty much none existent. My expected main line was straight out at 11m. Here I fed  2 tangerine-sized balls of Sensas Lake Black with a few micros and maggots. At 45° to the right on the same length of pole I cupped in some finely chopped worm and caster with the intention of leaving this for a few hours before looking for some bonus roach or perch, then threw in about 10 pinkies to the short pole line every 5 mins. I also toyed with the thought of a feeder next to the island. However if this was to be a roach day I'd much prefer to catch on a float rather than the tip so didnt even rig this up.

Rig wise I was a bit undergunned for the depth.  However the lack of wind and tow meant the .30/.40G Floats I used were fine for and stability wasn't a problem. I'm a great believer in fining down so had my 2 main rigs on .105 mainline to .08/.09 hooklengths with ES43 hooks.  I had an DT Winter Wire for the pinkie swim for extra sensitivity and a DT Pencil dotted down on the 11m swim. For the worm swim I opted for a DT Tear so I had the option of laying some line on the deck if I wanted and could read the bristle a bit more.

DT Winter Wire

I started with double pinkies short and had a few roach of about 1oz but quite slow. After 30 mins I went over the long line and had a few more slightly bigger fish on maggot before that line went quiet 2. By swapping  lines I could catch a few but the bites were very slight dips on the float. It was a nice change catching these lovely fish on light elastics and every now and then I'd pick up a slightly better dumpy roach but despite playing with the shotting pattern and trying shallower rigs, every bite came with the rig set at full depth and after at least 20 seconds after settling. Every now and then I'd have a quiet spell of 10-20 mins, on the first occasion I gambled by refeeding a golf ball size of groundbait but this didnt seem to bring the fish back until they were ready, as the pinkie swim had gone quiet as well.

I did try the chopped worm line varying between small pieces of worm and caster but it was very sporadic - although id did lead to my 2 biggest roach about 6oz each. 

Trying a larger piece of worm didnt get a touch and apart from 2 micro perch it just didn't work today for the bigger stripeys.

By now the carp boys had gone and after a longer quiet spell the fish seemed to switch on. It was never hectic but I made the most of the time coming back with a fish most drops. It seemed best to feed every 5 mins with about a dozen maggots by catapult, then using a kinder pot dropping half this amount again directly onto the float.

One thing about The Oaks is the resident bird life have the anglers' sussed out and after feeding my namesake (a Robin) for some time, a Wren joined me for about 1.5 hours and must have scoffed its own body weight in maggots and pinkies ! If I stopped feeding it for long it would jump around between my net bag and holdall until it caught my attention. ...very cheeky.

I finished the session with about 7-8lbs of roach, with the 2  6oz fish the biggest. All pristine fish that were fun to catch using the appropriate tackle and light elastics. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable day fishing for and catching something totally different from what I'd intended when I left home. 

The new DT Floats were superb, particularly the Winter Wires which were the right tool for the day.

It was good to finally give these floats a practical test and they were as good as I'd hoped for. I will review them further in detail after a few more sessions. 

DT Tears & Pencils

I also found my Maver Enigma "Carp" pole also excellent for lifting into roach bites so IMO the carp moniker does it a disservice,  possibly why its been left off the 2015 Enigmas.

To anyone who's taken time to read my ramblings, thank you. Hopefully we can meet on the bank someday.

Tight Lines

Robin

Maver Enigma 1 Carp Pole 16m

After returning to angling 12 months ago I always new that an upgrade to my existing pole would be difficult to resist.

I'd had my Shimano Technium since 2006 and it had never let me down. However it had of course been superceded by newer technology and was "only" 12.5m long. Factoring in top section cut backs and the fact that you couldnt really fish it at full length meant I had a usable pole of around 10m in reality.

This in itself isnt a problem. How often do I, someone who doesnt fish matches,  really need to fish longer ? Well I was starting to fish some snake type lakes and was only able to reach 2/3rds of the way over, meaning a lot of options were blocked off to me.

So, I wanted - if not needed a new pole, as I could now justify a reason to upgrade to myself !. At first I bought a Maver Grim Reaper. A great budget pole but in reality not giving me the length advantage over the Technium, as I found back on the Oaks I was still 6 feet away from fishing near the far shelf.

So i sold the virtually new Grim Reaper,  reset my budget and after reading reviews, holding one in the shop and finding a price far cheaper than anywhere else I bought the Maver Enigma 1 Carp Pole 16m.

Wanting a 16m pole wasnt even  in the equation, If it was good at 13-14.5m Id be happy. After 4 trips I'm blown away by this pole. Now any opinions I form have to be tempered by the fact I've never fished with any other 13m + poles for comparison. I did compare the Enigma in the shop with both cheaper and more expensive poles and to me, it was the best balanced of all I tried.

So with that statement I can say I love using this pole and it has made my fishing more enjoyable and probably successful compared to its venerable predecessor. 

Its stiff and light. Virtually unoticeable at 13m and fishable all day at 14.5m (particularly if not in a gale as per my last trip !)

Its crisp on the strike and on carp to 7-8lbs has responded flawlessly.  I was slightly concerned coming from the Technium, which is built like a Land Rover of the pole world, that any new pole would shatter in use as im obviously used to being heavy handed.  However up to now the only issue has been a small crack at the top of the No.4 section, caused by my clumsiness - trying to stop a running carp on a top 2 by adding sections and not getting the pole together properly.

The pole finish is lovely and whilst it doesnt have some of the features of the more expensive Mavers it ships beautifully in my opinion.

The Enigma comes with 1 match kit and 3 power kits. The power kits all have side puller slots and are re-inforced at this point and work very well on the bank. Added to this is a very good quality holdall, mini extension for 13/14.5 and 16m sections and cupping kit with cups.

One huge benefit on purchasing this pole is having the top kits pre bushed. All my kits and cup kit are now the same length. No need to try and adjust where I drop bait when cupping in anymore.

I've added another match kit to the collection and have fitted a variety of elastics from blue hydro to 14-16 Drennan. Originally I was going to keep the Technium for margin work but sold it to help purchase the Enigma and I have no qualms about using it for this task, or indeed as a silver fish pole either.

I havent needed to fish longer than 14.5m but it seems manageable if not desirable for too long a session. 

As I said im not able to review the Enigma as a comparison to other poles in its price range but as an upgrade from my old pole the difference is amazing.

Im very satisfied with my purchase

Thanks .

Robin.

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Best Laid Plans - Friday 23rd May 2014 Angel Of The North Lakes

3 weeks on from my trip to The Oaks and I was champing at the bit to get on the bank, spurred on in part by a (nother) new pole to play with as the Grim Reaper had been superceded by a Maver Enigma Series 1 16m.

Due to family commitments time would be at a premium today something that despite being aware of, I never put into practice.

The weather had been glorious leading up to my session and Lookout Lake had actually had 2 matches on the same pegs on the Wednesday,  during the day and evening. Weights for both matches were very good but then the bubble burst.  20C plus on Wed had dropped to 10C on the thurs. The forecast for Friday was for more of the same, plus a blustery NE wind. Not a great portent for my trip ! In fact the temperature never got into double figures at all during the day.

Ann, the fishery owner confirmed the venue had fished hard the previous day. This meant I couldnt be sure if the carp would still feed, so I made a snap decision to buy some worm and casters to supplement my already bulging bait bag.

As usual I headed for Lookout, the slightly smaller of the 2 main lakes and a bit more exposed than Bowes lake. Because of this, and as there are no real west facing pegs on this lake to fish, I picked an area that had been quite fruitful a few days earlier and would hopefully have a bit of respite from the cold wind as it was slightly sheltered by the central island.

I picked peg 25/26.There was A closeish chuck to a cutback on the island for the feeder (which I didnt even set up in the end !) And a  floating bridge on the left of the peg to the island, easily in pole range. I also had decent looking margin swims on both sides, although depth tight to the reeds was about 18" on top of the shelf. I would have certainly preferred 2 feet plus here, especially with the sudden temerature drop. Undeterred I would ignore the margins until after 1pm.

Plumbing up gave about 6 feet off water after the shelf levelled out. So I decided on 3 areas to target. 

The first line was 10m at the 2 o'clock position. This would be my pellet line. I fed a couple of balls of groundbait with some 4mm feed pellets mixed in. I had a Nick Gilbert 0.4G gimp on 0.14 Middy Low-Viz to 0.125 Matrix Power Micron hooklength. The hook was my favourite B911 F1 18. I had a (huge) range of pellets to use and could fish with banded hard pellets or expanders. But started on some VDE 6mm Jellets.

At 10 o'clock I could use the same length of pole and reach the bridge, but decided to fish about 6 feet away and try and prise any fish out from under the bridge, rather than chasing them in. As I was unsure if any carp would feed I tried to cover my options here and cupped in a slop made from chopped worms and casters mixed with soaked micro pellets. I would fish here with a worm head, the line was the same as my pellet rig on a 0.4G DJK power pencil fished an inch over depth. The hook on this rig was a 16 Maver MT2 which is a heavier gauge than the B911.

I set up a NG XT mini-diamond .2G for the margins on the same line and hook as above.

Lastly and the rig I would start on was at 6m for an out and out silver rig. This would be casters loose fed by hand. Another NG Gimp but 0.3G this time. On 0.12 Lo-vis to 0.10 Preston Precision hooklength, with an 18 B911 F1.

After feeding the long lines I decided to let them settle and started on the short line. Sport was far from hectic but I started picking up some small roach and skimmers whilst feeding casters every few minutes. I tried the pellet line and had a better couple of skimmers  before moving onto the worm line. For some reason I felt this would be the banker line but after 10 mins I hadn't had a sniff of a bite. I decided to refeed using a toss-pot and within a minute the float buried and a spirited short fight led to an 8oz tench in the net. A beautiful little fish and my first tench of the year. Again the fishing was slow and I was getting some tiny fish, not a good sign for carp moving in. The next fish shattered that theory as 8 feet of yellow Drennan bungee shot off under the bridge.  A minute or so later and a nice 3lb common was in the net but turned out to be a one-off as the next fish was a mini-roach, and I didn't have any more carp on the long lines but the best fish was another tench around the pound mark. 

During this time the squally wind changed direction and blew my brolly inside out. Stupidly id left the seatbox bracket at home and had to stake it out with guy ropes. So when the wind changed I was effectively battling with a 6 foot kite and quickly ended up with a brolly spike shaped like a hockey stick. This lead to a great deal of swearing and attempting to rectify the problem was proving impossible. In the end the umbrella kept most of my gear dry but I was soaked through !

Trying to regain some rhythm meant I had 90mins left. I prepped the margins with loose groundbait and big handfuls of maggots and left for 30 mins before going over with 5 maggots on the hook. The float moved and bobbed before going undet and...I had another 1 oz roach ! It wasnt even hooked but just holding onto a maggot in its gob ! 10 mins later and I eventually hooked what turned out to be another carp that steamed off under the bridge.  But by burying the pole tip the middy 12-16 did its job and I had a 5lb common banked. Another scale perfect fish and a gorgeous bronze colour. Because of this fish I stuck on the margin swims until I packed up at 2.30 with only small skimmers and a crucian to add but painfully knowing that I was probably approaching the best time of the day as i was leaving.  but needs must.

I ended up with around 10lbs of silvers plus 8lbs for the 2 carp and felt that id spread myself far too thin today. I left feeling very despondent at my own fishing ability and certainly didnt want to write about it. However 24 hrs on and I have tried to think objectively about where I went wrong and writing about the day is almost carthritic.

As I was fishing with a new pole I hadnt even bothered with the feeder  despite seeing fish activity during the day near the far reeds, sometimes its best to fish methods to catch fish, not methods i want to use regardless. Id also gone with far too many ideas and baits to stick to a plan. The pellet line didnt work but id only fed it intermittently when not on it, so it was only used half-heartedly in truth. I could have certainly made life more comfortable by fishing the lower lake with a bit more shelter. I was the only angler all day on Lookout, so that tells its own story but also means I dont know how anyone else would have got on. On the up side despite a poor day I`d had carp,tench,roach,crucian,perch, ide and skimmers - so plenty of variety.

My final thought is this; if you look forward to something enough. If the weather is glorious for weeks before the day. Be assured that when the day comes round the British weather will have returned with a vengeance ! And never leave home without an umbrella bracket !

P.S. The new pole and Nick Gilbert floats were both spot on. I will probably review at a later date after a bit longer on the bank.

Thanks for reading.

Robin.

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