Toddington 28-03-2012

Suitably encouraged by a thread on maggotdrowning.com, I decided today to have a go at Toddington fishery, just north of Luton. I'd made one previous visit which was less than successful, so this time, armed with better information, I focused on the top lake for what I hoped would be some easy fishing for small carp.

Arriving a little before 7am, I paid and settled up on the top lake, which was reassuringly empty of anglers at the time. The lake is fairly small, typical of most commercial venues, with a small island that looked just out of pole range. I positioned myself round on the southern end where the island was closest to the bank and set up my usual pole set-up for pellet. 

My peg for the day

Plumbing at 11m revealed about 4ft of water and the same depth at 12.5m, so this looked a good place to start – I could always push further over the island later if needed. Expecting great things, in went an 11mm expander over 4mm feed pellets to await some action. Two put-ins, two knocks, no fish. Then a proper bite, a brief fight and an immaculate 4lb mirror was in the landing net. Not bad, now I needed to keep them coming. Within 25 minutes I'd added two more carp, but these were smaller at 2lb each and then bites went a bit iffy. A skimmer and goldfish followed, which explained quite a lot. But where had the carp gone? 

Typical stamp of the carp (all of which were immaculate)

I fed again and set up a lighter rig with a 14 hook for soft 6mm pellets. This was a complete failure. Nothing, almost as if the swim was devoid of fish. Back to the heavy rig and some more small fish, so I pushed over to 12.5m to see if the fish had backed off. A few more carp, but in the 1-2lb bracket, then more tench, goldfish and a crucian carp. But it was slow, there would be a few bites, then a lull then the odd bite, and the fish were smaller than I would have liked. The light rig was tried again, and again it failed – why didn't they want the small pellets that looked like the feed? Puzzling.

At this point I was getting a little frustrated. Surely there was more to be caught than this, or at least more often? Then I started to see a large tail emerge from the water at the edge of the island. A decent carp none-the-less, not huge but an easy 6lb+. Time to go to 14 metres.

Duly set up at 14m I started to attack the island line, it was about 3ft deep, with the last metre to the island being full of dead reeds and miscellaneous stick ups, so this was the limit. I started to get a few bites on 11mm pellet – a few small carp, some tench and a crucian. Then is slowed down again. Try as I might I could not get it going properly. Small pellet and maggot both failed, for some reason they wanted the big expander, which is unusual. I tried on the bottom (tench), up in the water (foul hooked F1) and found that an inch off bottom seemed to do the best. But it was hard work, a few fish, a few bites then nothing. 

14.5m across to the island

Small tench

I was thinking it was just me, but the other anglers on the water were doing even worse. Two guys fishing feeder to the island were blanking completely (in fact they packed up after 4 hours having caught nothing and they were regulars) and another pair of anglers fishing two rods each seemed to be blanking as well. So maybe it was just one of those days.

About 10:30am is started to get really hard as almost everything switched off. I started to try some other lines, including the margin and the deepest line at 8m, but apart from a few rudd on the inside, this didn't help. After about an hour of trying different things, the island line started to produce the odd fish again. I wasn't ripping up any trees, but at least I was catching a fish or two. Over the next few hours I caught a few carp and tench and added a 5lb mirror (best fish of the day) but the typical carp was about a pound, while the tench were 6oz on a good day.

I carried on for a while, but it was clear something was not quite right, of the other 7 anglers (11 rods in total) I could see, I'd not seen a fish caught all day and a chat with a regular said this was unusual.

So I bit the bullet and packed up about 1:30pm. I thought a few brownie points for getting home early would be worth missing 90 minutes of hard fishing.

As I packed up I saw 2 small carp caught by some of the other anglers, but clearly it was hard going. I think I made the right call. 

View from top lake looking down on middle and bottom lake

So all in all, a tough day. I managed a little over 40lb on a lake that seemed to have switched off. On a good day I imagine the venue could throw up an easy ton, but not today.

Catch list:

Common Carp – 15

Mirror Carp – 15

F1 carp – 2

Goldfish - 3

Tench - 8

Crucian - 1

Rudd – 5

Skimmers – 1

Total weight - 41lb

Wood Lane 21st March 2012 (First proper session of 2012)

Having a few days off and some nice weather forecast, I decided that a quiet day's fishing was called for. One of my local commercial venues (Wood Lane) seemed to fit the bill.

Arriving a little before 7am I headed for the far lake which supposedly contains the better fish. I have my usual strong pole gear with me and a wide selection of pellets, so this was an easy choice for a few fish (or so I hoped). Rather than fish my usual peg, I headed round to the far side of the island, and rather then limit myself to the shallow side, I went further round to give myself a decent margin swim and open water to the left if needed.

I potted in some pellets at 11m on a line to the left (open water) and right (towards the island) and plumbed up. 2.5ft on the right and 5ft on the left – the island swim worried me, the lake is a pretty uniform 5ft elsewhere so it might be challenging to get the fish to feed properly in the shallows at this time of year.

In with a lightish rig to a 16 hook on the island line produced 3 quick roach of a few ounce each on double white maggot (these were left over from a previous trip, so I thought I'd give them a go). Switching to 4mm hookers produced a few skimmers, but of no particular size. After about 20 mins I was back on the open water (left) swim. 16 hook and 4mm pellet eventually produced a bite... and lots of elastic. After a minute or so the fish was still going strong and the hook pulled. Slightly annoyed but typical. I toyed between resting the left hand line, but went in again just in case there were fish present on the deep line. There were. In the course of 10 mins I landed a couple of carp (4lb and 2lb) and a couple more skimmers.

I rested the left line and tried the right again. A brief wait on pellet and another 2lb carp. I wasn't ripping up and trees, but this was good for March. Then it went quiet. So both lines were re-fed and a second rig was made up for the left with a larger hook for 8 and 12mm expander pellets. Out with the big rig and an immediate bite, another 3lb carp. Then a couple of missed bites (skimmers playing with the expander, I suspect) then another carp and then. Nothing. I cycled through the rigs and lines and nothing again. By this time the sun was just starting to break through and the pegs around the lake were starting to fill up – so these may have been factors.

I tried a few different things and picked up some small skimmers, and then went over to the island again, but pushed right out to 14.5m – they'd been signs of a large carp (probably a double) in the margin reeds, so this was worth a punt.

Three bites in three put-ins, produced three carp, but not the double, maybe going 8lb between the three of them. And then, nothing.

And that was the end of the regular bites. Try as I might, apart from a couple more small carp it was mostly skimmers on pellets and a range of small fish on maggots. Large pellet couldn't buy a bite, small pellet got ignored and the shallow water to the right limited me for more swims.

The only good news is that I was doing better than anyone else on the lake – which is hard reading given that 100lb pleasure weights are common on this venue all year round.

So after hours of trying and struggling and watching several anglers blank completely, I packed up at 2pm and headed home. Not bad for March, but I cant help thinking that I'd selected the wrong peg and/or caught the venue on the wrong day. Maybe one of the deeper corners or the pegs on the deep side of the island would have been more productive.

Catch list:

Common Carp – 9

Mirror Carp – 1

Rudd – 3

Skimmers – 30

Perch – 1

Roach – 10

Total weight - 40lb