This month has been a bit of a rollercoaster regarding my angling, especially on the Carp front with a couple of sessions in particular standing out amongst the rest.
For starters, a highly anticipated first visit to Motorway pond in Newport turned out to be an absolute train wreck as I completely failed to get my head around not only the venue itself, but my actual angling on the day! Failing to get a satisfying drop, or line lay, or something else entirely meant I was casting far too much for my liking. Losing 2 spods and being less than confident with bait selection on top of this (pre – DT arrival I’d best add!) all meant that I was actually happiest loading the car and heading home for once. I was under no illusion that the place required effort but there just seemed to be a brick wall in front of me for that entire session. Needless to say…I blanked.
After a few successful days on the more familiar waters though, I decided to head for a change of scenery and a bit of a change in angling style too. The Carp I’d been targeting here there and everywhere had, for the most part, been playing ball and so, with spirits now nice and high I headed off for the first overnighter I’d managed for a while to see if I could keep the run of form going.
What came of the next 24 hours was nothing short of a miracle and far more than I could have bargained for. Arriving at around midday at Bakers Pond, an intimate venue with a good head of Carp coincidently just around the corner from Motorway, I set about doing the usual lake lapping and information gathering before deciding where to start. I’d barely walked 20 yards before spotting a few Carp sunning themselves in a secluded little corner away from the pressure of anglers lines. A few yards further and even more appeared. Then more. Then more!
It didn’t take long to realise that surface fishing was going to be ‘the one’ and with everybody else either packing up creating more space or slogging it out behind motionless bite alarms seemingly unaware of all the cruising shapes I returned to the car, unloaded the bare essentials and set off in pursuit. The secluded little corner where I initially saw fish actually proved to be a waste of time, Pike darting about chasing the big shoals of Roach putting the Carp far too on edge to be interested in feeding. A few timid shows on the opposite bank though, just under an overhanging tree caught my attention and within a few minutes a trimmed down DT Baits Fish Blood and Fresh Orange pop-up was flicked under the overhang along with half a dozen mixers, just enough to get a couple of mouths slurping around.
With a GoPro strapped to my head and another on the landing net I may have looked a little odd, but filming the take, fight and netting of the first fish, then the second, then the third, definitely made the strange looks worthwhile. POV footage can be a bit hit or miss, shakey and often a little all over the place, but when done right it can be just as good fun watching it as filming it so I’ll make sure to get a few clips posted as soon as possible!
Heading into the night on the back of 3 fish to upper doubles meant the pressure was off and hopes were high. I chose to pitch up just left of the tree from which I had the fish earlier on. The right hand rod was aimed at the tree itself with one down the left hand margin and the middle rod flicked out into open water. All bases covered. A generous helping of whole and halved 18mm Fish Blood and Fresh Orange baits were placed over each rod and the clean bottom allowed me to fish my favourite D-Rigs with drilled out bottom baits on all 3.
At almost bang on midnight the left hand rod went into meltdown sending me sprinting from the sleeping bag completely forgetting the need for a headtorch. Interesting to say the least! Luckily a street lamp on the road behind me lit the way (or some of it) and after playing tug of war with a 17lb+ common hell bent on wrapping itself around every lily-pad available, we eventually had number 4 sulking in the mesh.
At this point I’d come to realise that my initial hope for just a single fish over the 24 hours was a little too simple so decided that 6 by home time would suffice. With 4 already in the bag but nothing else throughout the night it all relied on the final few hours of daylight and hopefully a little more surface action.
To cut a long story short I did have some luck, but as is often the case this came with some disappointment too. You know, because it wouldn’t be fishing if everything went perfectly would it?
With camp packed up and kit scaled back down to the bare essentials I spent the morning getting a few groups of fish confident on mixers and whilst I unfortunately managed to lose 2, another 2 did end up in front of the camera! The first came from the secluded corner mentioned earlier which posed absolutely no problems whatsoever. The second however, took about an hour to land having hooked it in open water and persuaded it back to the net cord only for it to give me the proverbial middle finger, flat rod me with one last lunge and strip a tight clutch of 10 yards or so whilst powering through some marginal snags. After a while of a futile tension, no tension, tension, no tension approach I was left with only 2 options. Pull for a break…or go in and get it.
Now anybody reading this who has ever fished with me can probably vouch for how much I value fish safety and how much I actually do enjoy being in the water. So I’ll let you guess which way that decision swung. After a while of carefully making my way through the brambles, thistles and probably every other unpleasant plant you can picture on the bank side I ended up submerging everything below the crown jewels (and yes, those included) whilst prodding around with the landing net head in an attempt to get around the fish just enough to raise it, cut the line and bring it ashore for a check up. This took repeated attempts, mostly due to the fish believing that if it couldn’t see me then maybe I couldn’t see it and leaving me nothing to go on but the occasional boil and glimpse of a tail pattern. I did eventually get her netted and freed from the snag though, and that, I decided, was probably time to call it quits.
Full time score: Matt 6 – 2 Fish