Four Seasons In One Day - 31st March 2015 - The Oaks Sessay, Cedar Lake

First I feel the need to apologise in advance to anyone who's read any of my blogs. After re-reading previous entries i noticed just how much I mention the weather not being what I wanted/expected. Ive unwittingly picked up the British trait of  finding it too hot, too cold, too wet etc.  In the UK our weather is what it is and we all have to accept it and adapt. This blog was meant to be about fishing, not about meteorological observations. However in saying that today the weather really was the show stopper !

I'd earmarked today as my best chance to get back on the bank for another few weeks at least but the weather  Over the previous few days the weather forecast had warned of very strong winds (30mph+) with gusts of over 50mph but I was hopeful that with a bit of thought I'd be able to find somewhere sheltered for the day. After all as the saying goes "There's no such thing as bad weather, just unsuitable clothing" (although I'd be amazed if it was a coarse angler who coined the phrase !) I decided to head back to the Oaks at Sessay in North Yorkshire as a lot of the lakes are ringed by trees and vegetation offering some cover (theoretically !)

The day didn't start well with traffic jams caused by blown over HGVs and me realising I'd left all my reels at home. This pretty much guaranteed I'd be heading for one of the snake lakes at the complex as it would be pole only today. To be honest this was where I'd fancied anyway, as I hoped the F1s would feed despite the temperature dropping again from the weekend. I drove round the 3 snake lakes looking at potential spots and only saw 3 other hardy (crazy ?) Souls fishing. The trees didnt offer as much respite from the wind as I'd expected but peg 36 on Cedar was the calmest I could find, so although the conifers behind me were buffeted and dancing in the wind, the peg in front was virtually untouched.

Cedar Peg 36 - North West of complex

The Eye Of The Storm ?

I'd expected pellets or maggots to be the best options so my bait tray was relatively uncluttered (by my standards !)   on arrival I'd wetted some fishery feed pellets in both micros and 4mm, 2 pints of red/white maggots, some corn for bigger carp/F1s and a little groundbait (Sonubaits F1/Sensas Lake)

I set up my tackle and plumbed up around the peg. The far bank was just about 13m straight out, so I could fish 2 lines at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock at bang on 13m with the same depth each side, on a nice flat area down the far bank slope. As the gradient was quiet shallow I had the options of starting at 3' deep but my adding or removing a section I could search the different depths if required. I  planned to fish one line negatively with a few micros and a banded 4mm over the top, whilst the other long swim would get 4mm feed pellets with an expander on the hook. I'd fed another line with some corn and a little groundbait down the track in 5 feet of water about 8m out but at the same 13m distance from my position, to try and leave for a few hours to offer a safe area for the (bigger) fish to back off into. However as things transpired i didn't fish this line at all. Lastly I would throw a few maggots in by hand  every few minutes down the base of the near shelf at 3-4m  with the intention of not fishing for at least an hour to build up the fish's confidence and really just catch anything with fins.

After the late start it was nearly midday when I started actually fishing an almost inevitably the wind had changed direction. One minute it was directly behond me coming through the gap in the trees, then it would veer and come across and seemed to generally swirl around.  Even with a longer line and backshot the presentation on the long lines was awful. After persevering for far too long with only a small skimmer to show I had to admit defeat and abandon fishing past 5m otherwise my pride and joy pole would soon come in far more than its official 9 sections ! A brief hailstorm and rain didn't brighten my mood and I had really decided to quit but then I dropped on the short line for the first time and had a small roach. The sun came out and I could actually feel the warmth on my face. I started catching small roach and after gradually increasing the feed had a good F1. It wasnt fast or furious but I was getting bites. As id fed over a larger area I could try different depths as I'd intended on the far side. Most of the skimmers came directly at the base of the shelf but I had a few F1s right on top of the near shelf in about 2.5 feet of water but perhaps unsurprisingly they didn't settle.I got a bit ahead of myself and fed a small golf ball of groundbait but this seemed to put the fish right off. When they did come back after a bit more careful loose feeding it was skimmers and the biggest probably went a pound before I had a few more F1s every now and then. I could have tried a few things to make something happen such as a longer margin line but by now the heavens opened again, except this time it turned into a full-on blizzard of wet snow. There was no way a brolly could survive this wind so I just had to grit my teeth and bear it. I'll admit at one point when i could no longer feel my fingers,  I retreated to the car for 15 mins to defrost before fishing again.

The next rain storm made me decide that descretion was the better part of valour and after all this was a pleasure session not a match. I'd only fished for 2.5 hours but had had 4 F1s up to 2.5lbs , 20+ roach and a few good Skimmers, all from a top kit + 1 or 2 length. I decided to call it quits before I broke anything and had a blustery return up the A19.

So i managed some really nice fish and whilst I could have caught a lot more,  I felt quite satisfied with what I did have in the time I actually had a float in the water.

My final word about the weather.....I  wonder if people in other countries where the weather is warm all year round get bored ? Maybe they should experience some British Springtime !

Tight lines

Robin

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

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

13th June 2014 - Poplars Lake, The Oaks, Sessay

3 weeks on from my last fishing session and I was itching to get on the bank again. After my last, somewhat low-key (and cold) trip to the Angel, I wanted to try the Oaks again and was looking forward to trying my new pole for only the second time.

Leading up to today there were some fantastic weights coming out of the match lakes but also some reports of spawning carp,  so I didnt know where to head for - other than I fancied fishing a snake type lake which still left 3 options - Cedar, Maple or Poplars. Cedar would have to be vacated by 4pm for an evening match so I didnt fancy that. After asking Rob in the on-site tackle shop he recommended the high peg no.s on Poplars, so off I went.

Poplars is a long thin lake with a central island about 12-15m away accessible from nearly all swims. The lake has an access road all the way around so getting to your peg doesnt mean any long walks, yet you would hardly know the road is there or that you are on a complex with the line of trees shielding the lake from the road,  but importantly for pole fishing with access "cut through" for unshippping etc. In fact Maple lake must be about 30 feet away at one end but such is the matured vegatation here that you would never know.

At the end of the lake Rob had suggested, there was already an angler on the "point" of the island and a few round from him on the far side that I could hear but not see. Peg 54 would have put me in a lovely looking corner peg, but would have seriously encroached on the other guy. I settled on one to the right,  peg 53. On this peg there is a concrete platform that protrudes about 4 feet past the bank side. The island was slightly cut back about 14.5m away and I had the platform of 54 to use as a margin line 6m away on the left (I love these angling mags where someone states "I fished to the spare peg 16m away" !) and an overhanging bush just past the vacant platform on my right about 7m along.

Fish were certainly visible and audible crashing in the margin reeds near the island, but as I plumbed up I was a little taken a back at the depth (or lack of it) on my swim. The Oaks website had stated an average depth down the track of 5 feet (similar to Cedar) but I had a maximum of 2.5 feet in the centre shallowing to 12/14" at the margin/island with no distinct shelves or features to speak of. Rob had suggested finding 2 feet of water across and fishing pellet, but this was really anywhere from 3-13m !

I decided to have the pellet line at 13m with the option of going tight over if the fish did move into shallower water later. I'd originally planned to fish 4mm feed pellets with an expander on the hook, but followed Rob`s advice and fed micros instead.

My bait tray was full as usual with corn, 4mm cubes of meat, 2 pints of maggots, some groundbait and a variety of hook pellets as well as the wetted micros.

I`d also wanted to feed a meat/corn line at the base of the near shelf.  As I didnt have one as such I settled for a swim at 45° about 6m out. Here I would feed 4mm meat cubes and some corn every 5 mins. But quite sparingly. I`d hoped this would be my main line and as I was starting to  fish late morning just as bites had tailed off here in the past, I really wanted to nurse this swim carefully.

I fed the left hand margin with 2 pots of loose groundbait and a few pieces of corn and intended to leave it for a few hours, whilst I would not feed the RH tree margin for a few hours but with a lot more groundbait. Although the water is heavily coloured I was concerned about the margins as they were so shallow. More of that later.

Today I was going all out with a variety of Nick Gilbert floats. I set up a couple of .3 rigs for the deeper water a Gimp for pellet and a Decker for meat/corn and 0.2 Mini Gimp for shallow,  all on .14 line to 0.125 hooklengths as I really didnt know what to expect. My margin lines were on .2G mini diamonds with stronger 0.165 to .14.

I started with a cad pot and some micros and a plug of groundbait at 13m.  It didnt take long to get bites but they were generally finicky despite dotting the float down. The weather was now around 23/24° and overcast but with hardly a breath of wind on the water. A bit of a change from my last time on the bank !

The expander was getting ragged and it was no surprise that when I did hook fish it was roach in the 1-2 oz bracket. I plugged away on this line  and tried varying hookbaits. I didnt have any bigger expanders so used some banded hard pellets but through trial and error found 6mm soft hook pellets seemed the best balance between bites and durability.  Eventually I picked up some nice ide and F1s to 1lb but it was starting to slow down.

I rested the pellet line and tried the 6m meat/corn line. Again bites were slow and from small roach generally. I tried changing the feeding pattern but it just wasn`t happening. I looked in on the LH margin with corn but save another mini roach and a crazed mirror around 2lbs it was again quiet. I`d now fished for 2hrs and had about 6lbs of fish which I found very disappointing.

Still on my previous trips to the Oaks i`d had quiet spells around this time of day. So after trying the margin line under the bush without a touch, I tried a new swim about 8m out with maggot but quickly abandoned it as I was back to mini roach and rudd. Lovely fish, just not my intended quarry. I decided to convert this line back to pellets but to try and get the fish shallow.  I hadn't had many swirls on top when feeding but felt by increasing the frequency with a cattie that this might kick the fish on to feed with a bit of luck.

Gradually this started to work, by catapulting micros every 45 seconds or so then feeding from the pot above the float to tighten the fish up,  I was starting to get bites again. Sometimes they would hook themselves against the pole tip  but by varying the depth between 6" and 2 ' I was starting to get some fish at last, although I still had a lot of missed bites and little dinks.

I'd planned to go back onto the margins late in the day but 3 families of geese were using platform 54 for a diving competion so I left them to it. Graceful on the water,  not exactly Tom Daley diving in !

The fish still came and went in bursts. At the end  I'd had about 25 F1s, 5-6 carp to 2lbs, a few nice ide and plenty of roach and rudd for about 35lbs (keepnets are banned at the moment - so its a guesstimate). One of the small mirrors was either the fattest fish I've ever seen or full of spawn - a possible reason to why the carp weren't really showing today.

All in all a difficult day in some respects when you consider that I blew out on the margins and meat swims. Luckily over-complicating things and forcing myself to try different things probably worked in my favour for once today with fishing shallow and trying to make the fish switch on.

The Maver Enigma 1 pole was a total joy to use and being able to fish long is now a genuine option for me - if not always a neccesity.

One thing I must say is how much I love this fishery. I'm a great believer in letting people enjoy their type of fishing, even if its not for me personally - but I'd read a lot of negative comments about commercial fisheries in the last few weeks on some forums,  normally of the won't fish commercials as they are  'holes in the ground' variety.

Now perhaps these people can just turn up and catch a ton on demand. I know i can't and had to really work hard today for what I caught. Maybe that's just me, I've never claimed to be any more than an average angler at best.  But when people look down their noses at ALL commercial fisheries I'll just say this... I  don't think I've ever fished anywhere that's felt as 'natural' as it did here.

Being on Poplars today was a fantastic experience. Apart from a signal crayfish (which I didnt want to see !) There was a huge variety of animal life to see and hear (the birds were singing so loudly my wife could hardly hear me on the phone !) From squirrels to chiff-chaffs and 30 geese it really was idyllic. With well-conditioned, hard  fighting fish but above and beyond that It was a pleasure just being alive and outside on a day like today. Its not often I think like that. And surely you cant get much better than that.

Thanks for reading

Tight lines

Robin.

Posted via Blogaway

30th April - The Oaks, Cedar Lake

The Venue..

This was to be my first outing in over a month and Id decided  to head back to The Oaks in Sessay and go back to Cedar.The Oaks is around an hour and 20 mins drive from my home in sunderland, so I needed to be there in good time to get a decent session in before heading home to family duties. I’d fished there about 5 weeks ago in an area with little form (as I later found out) and hadnt done brilliantly, so looking at match

results I wanted to be around peg 56 if possible but  on arrival a club match was scheduled for pegs 50-80 when I arrived so i went for peg 32 which had also shown some form recently.

For anyone not familiar with The Oaks, the fishery has a number of lakes,  some for matches only and others pleasure or mixed. Cedar is a commercial snake lake that holds about 80 pegs, so the match had little impact on where I would fish.. The peg  was at the north end of the lake which is very picturesque. There is a bank of pine trees at your back which have been cut for pole access. The margins are grass lined with a good depth close in and the island again has trees making the peg very sheltered. In fact there was hardly a breath of wind on the lake at all, whether this would be good or bad for me I’d have to find out. I’d left Tyne & Wear under a thick veil of fog and a paltry 9° C, Sessay was cloudy but a barmy 16°C and fish were showing everywhere. I wasn’t expecting to blank !

I set up taking my usual age to get ready (how do I fix that ?) mixing groundbait, etc  and plumbed up.

Id been advised to look for 2′ of water across, but at the full 13m of my Grim Reaper I was still nowhere near the far bank and in 3.5′ to 4′ of water. So I decided to fish straight out as far as possible with meat and corn over  some hemp.An 8m swim at 45 ° with pellet over groundbait and straight out at 2+1 with meat over meat/corn/hemp (in hindsight putting this directly in front as well wasnt the best idea)

The Baits..

I had 2 tins of cubed meat (1 supermarket, one dynamite baits which was just too soft to stay on the hook.

2 pints of maggots

A pint of wetted fishery micros with a variety of expanders and hook pellets.

A tin of corn.

Some old ghost F1 match groundbait (which smells totally vile when i opened it in my opinion) plus a little special g green

The Rigs…

Im in the process of replacing some old diameters of pole line, so the rigs were tied on a real mixture.

The 13m line had a NG gimp .3g on 0.14 middy low viz to .0125 matrix micro and B911 F1 16.

A DJK Pencil 0.3g with the same line/hook was for the short line

And finally for the pellet line I had a .4g matrix pencil on .12 gline to .10 preston precision.

I would look at the margins after a few hours as there was a cutway in the near reeds about 6m down the edge into 2 feet of water but would not feed until 30 mins before fishing.

I fed the meat lines sparingly with a pinch of hemp plus about 5-6 grains of corn and 3-4 cubes of meat.

The pellet line was just fed with micros plus a tennis ball size of groundbait which I topped up every 5 mins a dozen or so micros via a catty whilst throwing in 3-5 cubes of meat short.

The Fishing..

Eventually I started at 10.30 on the long line with a cube of meat and found my current obsession with going for float tips designed for sensitivity (still in winter mode I guess !) was going to cause me trouble all day. The floats were just too fine to support meat and corn. After 10 mins I had a bite and landed a 4oz perch; not quite what I expected. This was followed by a dumpy 6oz roach both on a 4mm cube of meat. So I decided to cup in some more bait and try 8m. In all honesty I pretty much abandoned the long line as it wasn’t fun fishing full length tbh and having to re-ship every time the bait came off after a missed bite.

Moving onto the pellet line and it was slow going with lots of missed bites on a 4mm expander. I switched to a 6mm jellet which was a lot more durable and had a few F1s and a couple of roach.

I refed this line and tried meat short. Again I was faced with the sinking float syndrome and lots of missed bites  but had a few more nice F1s and some dumpy roach, then everything went quiet for an hour. I was still getting occassional bites but not connecting which was really frustrating, maybe I should have stepped up the hook size or drastically alter the feeding. I plugged away but really should have tried a new maggot line for silvers as I could have caught small fish all day long this way but I was focussed on bigger baits for bigger fish I think and it would have put fish in the net whilst waiting for the carp/F1s to switch back on. Eventually I tried upping the feed on the short line and after getting swirls on the top I decided to try shallow, lifting and dropping the bait or flicking out and holding it tight. This got me back amongst the fish, some lovely F1s and ide before a ‘proper’ carp took the meat hookbait. The fish made an initial run before plodding about for 10 mins, before it took off again. It was a long lean fish that I was a bit disappointed was 6.5lbs. The fight on grey hydro had made me think it had to be a double so I was a little disappointed to find it was nearer half that, I was sure it was going to be my P.B pole fish. Never mind it was a lovely looking mirror that fought really well but I was probably extra careful on the .125 bottom as I really wanted to land it !

The fish came and went in bursts and on trying the margin swim for the last 90 mins I picked up another half dozen fish, a couple more F1s and carp to 3lbs or so. I did lose a couple of better fish from this swim at least one of which was foul hooked from the scale that came back on the hook ! Alternating the margins with the now heavier fed 3m line and I also picked up some big ide to 2.5lbs and what I was sure was a chub of around the same weight.

I packed up after 5 hours to fight back through the traffic and on lifting the net out  Id guess about 60lb maybe a bit more (im rubbish at estimating weights !) Not a huge weight but still a good day for me. On the day perhaps but id gotten too sidetracked. 2 lines plus the margins would have sufficed with deep and shallow rigs set up rather than starting 3 from the off. I need to stop over complicating things !

The oaks certainly is a very well ran fishery offering different types of lakes for different types of anglers In a beautiful, clean setting.The tackle shop offers pretty much everything you’d need once you’re on the bank as well. The fish are in great condition and I will be back soon. I just wish the entire place could be moved 40 miles north !

Thanks if you’ve taken the time to read my ramblings. Tight elastics !

Robin

p.s.

A few weeks ago my mate Tony from Fishing Republic Sunderland dropped something sharp and pointy onto his Daiwa Air at Whiteacres resulting in a nice bullet hole type shape in one of the big sections. Of course I didnt mock or take the p***. So at the end of the session I was taking care packing up (despite my best intenions my peg usually looks like a hurricane has hit after 5 hours) I stepped over the no.4 section on my brand new Grim Reaper only I didnt…A 3″ crack down the top. So this weekend it’s off to see Tony at the shop. Where did I put my humble pie again ?

UPDATE.... total over reaction. The crack was less than an inch and easily repaired. Panic over !

Posted via Blogaway

Posted via Blogaway