Not Puddledock Farm 31-12-15

So, the idea today was to fish Puddledock Farm near Upminster. However, on arrival it was rather open and windswept, and, more importantly, the café was not open (this was a major factor since I needed some breakfast before I got started). So, I made a rash decision to go to Entire Farm instead via the McDonalds on the A12. Not an ideal solution, but never the less a chance for a few fish.

So arriving at the second venue at about 8am, I had a good look round and settled into a peg on the grassy side of the lake, where there was a little shelter from the wind and the sun on my back if the cloud cleared at all.

0820 and I was ready to fish. Lesson learned from the previous visit – keep it simple, fish 2+2 shallow, feed 6mm, hook 11mm expander and hope the carp show up. First put in and a 3lb common seemed like a good idea, but it was hard work. For some reason and despite my best efforts the expanders were too spongy and would not sink. Back to 6mm expanders from the pot (shop-bought) and a smaller hook and bites started to flow. It took a while since the fish were quite small in the 2-4lb range, but fish started to come in (plus a few errant rudd) and an hour in I was on 70lb.

Second hour and the fish started to settle, 100lb by 0940 became 170lb to 1020 (two hours in) and there were signs of some good quality carp shallow. A bit of an experiment with critically balance expanders (using a no.4 shot by the hook to sink them) produced a few better fish, but this only lasted for a few fish.

Third hour and things were ok, but the three resident ducks were starting to be a pain. The 6mm pellets would float for a second before sinking, and this was all the invitation they needed. They would back off the pole, but not far and they were definitely slowing up the fishing. 1120 time to get serious. 270lb.

Hour four ran like a dream. I changed the feed pattern, so instead of feeding twice per put in, I fed more and just once but only when the rig was in the water. This kept the ducks away, the fish off the top and the bites flowing. 162lb added in this hour (1220), including a few better fish up to 9lb.

And from there a pattern built up. Fish hard, keep the ducks at bay, hook, land, feed. 1300 : 500lb. Time for a quick leg stretch and some energy drink. Then back to the fishing.

Not sure what else I can see here. I kept fishing, the fish kept coming. By 1440 I’d managed 750lb of carp, despite a few quiet patches and a few re-rigs due to trashing in the landing net. I was going to stop there (honest) but it was a case of just one more fish, just one more and at 1500 I did stop. 800lb of carp in just over six and a half hours fishing, in December. Unbelieveable (again). 

End of the day - swirling carp enjoying my useless expanders

 

Catch List:

Common Carp: 100

Mirror Carp:80

Rudd: 8

Total weight: 800lb

Arrans Lake, Entire Farm 23-12-15

It’s been a funny end to the year – lots of grey, cloudy skies leading to unseasonably warm weather,  think to date we’ve seen just two frosts so far this winter and the fish in my pond being far more active than usual. So, when the weather forecast for today said sun and warm(ish), I decided this was the day to go out and try and catch a fish or two.

Having had a fantastic session at Arran’s in August, I wanted to go back and see what it was like in the depths of winter. Maybe I could to ‘a ton’ in December, (that’s 100lb of fish to the uninitiated) something I’ve never done before. So with the omens looking good I decided to get up early and give it a go.

By 7am I was enjoying a hearty breakfast at the Rose Café on the A414 ready to be at the lake for first light. I set up round about peg 15, next to an overhanging tree and away from the worst of the breeze. That would give me options if things didn’t work out and avoid most of the cold wind. 

My peg for the day

I was ready to start at 0810. I potted in a few 6mm pellets at 10m and went out a full depth (about 4ft) with double maggot. This resulted in a few rudd only, so I went onto a small expander and bagged a few small carp in the 2-3lb range. It wasn’t hectic action, but there were fish coming. After this it went quiet, except for knocks and swirls when the loosefeed went in. I set up an almost summer-type shallow rig with a size 8 hook to try an 11mm expander – yes, I know that sounds crazy for December. 

But, it started to produce bites. Some were iffy, some knocked the pellet off, and some produced fish. Almost exclusively carp, and one or two were a little better. So I pressed on and after an hour I had 30lb to my name and a ‘ton’ seemed very doable.

At this point I had a chat with the owner. He said it had been fishing ok and I should be good for a couple of hundred pounds if I fished well. So that seemed like a good target at the time.

Hour two was split between the 10m line shallow (which was a little hit and miss) and feeding a line at 4m by the tree to the right. After about 30 mins and after seeing a few tail patterns I had a look at it with my deep rig, and landed a 6lb common and pulled out of a few, which felt foul-hooked and possibly hooked mid-water. Surely in December the fish couldn’t be feeding that well that close in?

I chopped and changed and tried a few things. If I fished at 5m (sort of 2+2) style at mid-depth I could get bites, and bag a few nice carp. If I fished deep I’d get just the odd fish and lots of knocks, if I fished line to hand with the deep rig set shallow I’d get bites, but the presentation suffered and if I fished shallow closer in I’d get bites but the fish were small. So I persevered with the 2+2 approach.  

Second hour down and another 40lb caught. So 70lb in two hours in December, with 200lb as the target, that’s something else (well for me, anyway).

In the third hour I felt I was started to suss things out of the 2+2. Not all the carp were massive, but plenty of 4-7lb fish were in the mix and the feed, play and land rhythm was starting to build (as was the swim as a whole). I sailed through the 100lb mark with ease and was up to 160lb with three hours gone.

Feed These

And from there is got better and better. Regular swirls on the top reinforced that there were fish present and more importantly feeding and chasing the bait. It wasn’t crazily hectic like my last visit, but the fish kept coming and in the fourth hour I added well over 100lb of fish to the total. Before I knew it, it was time for a short break (to fill up the baitbox with more 6mm pellets if nothing else) by which time I’d passed the 300lb mark. Every now and then I’d have a little run of good fish (say 2-3 fish adding over 10lb) and then it’d be 2lb fish and gaps, then it would get going again. But there was no real pattern.

Hook These

As my watch moved around to 1:30pm I had pushed the total up to 410lb. So I set myself a target – could I catch another 90lb of fish in 90 minutes? I didn’t want to stay much later than that, with the M25 to negotiate on the way home, could I keep it going?

Catch These

I started to catch nicely, and as the light levels eased a little so the slightly better stamp of fish started to come in more often. By 2:10pm (six hours after I'd started) I’d managed 500lb and ran out of 11mm expanders for the hook, so I thought I’d try something different for a little while. On went an 8mm pellet, set 1ft deep off the top three, and I fed. And the bites came and came, and came.

2:50pm and I stopped fishing having bagged 600lb of fish.

Unbelievable in December.

Catch List:

Rudd: 8

Tench: 1

Common Carp: 100

Mirror Carp: 70

The ones that got away

A few trips out that didn’t make the blog at the right time.

26/8/15 following on from Entire Farm I headed down to Finch Farm to try and bag a barbel (or a catfish) from the Snake Lake. Well… that sounded good in theory but didn’t work in practice. The Snake had been reconfigured, the barbel had gone and I was not really set up for catfish. So after a short while and a few small skimmers I moved down to the Match Lake and caught about 40lb of carp and small bits. Still no catfish. 

Finch Farm: the initial swim. Carp were patrolling in the reeds to the left, but only small skimmers showed on the pole line.

 

Finch Farm: One of the afternoon's captures. It's been a while since I caught a ghostie.

End of September, a visit to Pondwood Farm. This was a well-planned trip to try and bag a catfish. Two new bait alarms, a giant landing net and various bits of unfamiliar terminal tackle and I was ready to have a sit down session to try and succeed. I didn't. After a long day, I had three small carp to show for my trouble (best 10lb) and no cats.

Just waiting for a bite

I had fancied my chances just as the light levels were falling as I had a large fish in the margins that kept passing, but noisy neighbours put paid to that. Well, maybe next year. 

Pondwood - something big kept visiting this margin. I never did get a bite though.

Upper Colne. Tried out my new lightweight seatbox with a trip to the weirpool to fish the pole. I caught reasonably well but didn’t have the right gear to really nail it down for a big fish – but now I know what to do when I go back.

Lower Colne. Fished one of the spots I was told was home to many good chub. It wasn’t. In fact after talking to the bailiff it appears it’s been hard going all season due to otters, with barely a decent fish being caught. Thankfully I bagged up on some small stuff further downstream to lessen the pain. I can see the lightweight box getting an outing down there soon. 

This is supposed to be the best peg for chub on the river. Needless to say I didn't get a bite.

Arrans Lake (Entire Farm) 25-8-15

Every now and then I get the urge for an easy day’s fishing. It might just be for a bite a chuck or hopefully a nice bag of match carp, but with this year quickly disappearing and no big catches to report I bit the bullet and went for some easy fishing. By all reports Arrans Lake (Entire Farm) had been doing some amazing things in matches , so this seemed like a good time to give it a bash. I’d done my homework (methods, pegs and depth), phoned to check availability, cleaned my kit, packed extra bait and headed off before 6am for an early start.

I drew up to the venue (a new one to me) at about 0620, to be the first person there (no surprise there). I had a quick look at pegs and headed on to the far car park. After christening the portaloo, I loaded my kit on the trolley and stopped around about peg 13 – a fairly unremarkable peg with no snags but on a prominent arc into the lake.

Whilst setting up I fed the 3m line a few times with some 6mm pellets. This apparently can really produce. I got out my top sets, pole, roller etc. Set up the landing net, put on a specially tied rig on a top set (0.19 Reflo, 0.2g Drennan 6, size 8 B911X) added an 11mm expander and dropped it in at 3m where there were tail patterns appearing already. I had high hopes of a few bites since I bumped a fish while I was plumbing up.

10 seconds, bite, elastic, brief fight 3lb, mirror carp.

Feed (small amount only). 10 seconds, bite, elastic, brief fight, 4lb common carp.

Feed (small amount again). 15 seconds, bite, elastic, rig comes back (possible foul hooker or lost pellet).

And that became the pattern of the first hour. Sometimes I’d have to wait like a minute for a bite, other times it would be instantaneous. But the fish were there already in numbers. Typical fish was 2-4lb in weight with a few smaller and a few slightly better ones

By 0730 I’d caught 100lb of fish (all that is just under an hour – my previous best was 87lb of fish in 60 mins, but on that day I couldn’t keep the fish coming). Then it changed – the fish really turned up, despite being in 2ft of water they started churning on the top, almost as if spawning and completely oblivious to my actions and me catching the odd fish, and ravenous. If I fed they churned more and providing I pinged a few pellets in they stayed put from 3m out to right under my feet in 6 inches of water. In my many years fishing I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and what’s more they weren’t going anywhere.

This was the scrum of carp in my swim by 0730

I played around with the rig – up in the water produced smaller fish, down the edge slightly larger, in the scrum too many foulhookers. So I tried a short top 2 instead and at 2m out I was on the edge of the churn and fishing the bottom produced regular strong bites.

0830 and my count was up to 250lb. Another PB 150lb of carp in an hour! Hour three the same with a little freelined pellet in the scrum to pick out the bigger ones (up to 8lb) that had moved in, 400lb of fish in three hours – you get the idea.   

And on it went. By the time the owner came round and collected my £10, I was up to 450lb. Even he was amazed at the number of fish in front of me; there was easily 100lb of fish visible at any one time just swirling on the top.

This caused a few problems – the odd foulhooker, the odd smashed rig and gatecrashers in the landing net (on numerous occasions I’d net both the fish I was after and others in the way), I didn’t count the gatecrashers in my ongoing tally, but I wondered if they would count in a match?

By the 500lb mark I’d used just three pints of feed pellets, but was running out of 11mm expanders for the hook (I’d prepped a second batch earlier in the session), so a switch to a smaller hook and some 8mm expanders, then some 6mm expanders kept the bites ticking along. It didn’t take long to pass my previous best day’s tally of 554lb and it was still early.

And so for the rest of the day it was a case of feeding, changing the presentation (particularly the depth) and fishing in and out of the main scrum of fish. Trying to pick up the odd bonus fish and generally trying to keep things ticking over. I lost a bit of momentum on a few occasions, and sometimes I could wait a couple of minutes for a good bite (more 11mm expanders would have helped here I think), but the fish kept coming and the weight kept building.

After fishing for 6 hours I had caught over 800lb of carp (and one rudd) but still the fish sat there asking to be caught. At this point the rain started and everything started to get more difficult to fish quickly with the landing net and umbrella causing problems, but I now had a target in mind and was going for it.

At 1430 I caught my target fish. It might not look remarkable as a common carp, but it was a major milestone that I’m not sure I’ll ever do again. 1000lb of fish in a single sitting – under 8 hours. Amazing. And still the swim was alive with fish - even more than when I started.

The common carp took me through the 1000lb barrier

I may not rush back to Arrans any time soon and I suspect I may never catch that quantity of fish again, but if catching this kind of thing floats your boat then you really need to get down there – I suspect the world 6 hour match record will be going soon, and 800-1200lb could be quite possible to the right angler on the right peg on the right day. 

This was the scene when I packed up - amazing there must be 200lb of fish on the top alone

Catch List:

Commons: 100

Mirrors: 150

Rudd:1

Total weight: 1000lb