As part of my ‘fish three new venues every
year’ plan I’ve had Magic Lakes near Waltham Abbey on list of places to try for
quite a while. And, for whatever reason I’ve never managed to get over there.
Today was my chance. Having watched the weather forecast diligently for the
past week, and avoided the match on Thursdays, as expected the weather forecast
changed at the last minute. But a day’s fishing is a day’s fishing, even if
it’s a bit damp around the edges.
One of the challenges of new places is
finding a bit out about them. Magic Lakes was tougher than most with no own
website and the same generic info on the same ubiquitous ‘where to fish’ type
websites. Anyhow, here is what I know – the postcode is EN9 3LE and the nearby
McDonalds is at EN9 1BY. There are two lakes, a small one with
a wide range of varieties of smaller fish and the second one with 33 pegs with
the main species being carp (to 20lb or so) and barbel (to 6lb) with skimmers,
roach and F1s also present. The best barbel pegs are 15, 16 and 17 and peg 12
is the flier in the matches. Day ticket is £8 and it has the cleanest toilets of any place I've ever fished. The owner is a passionate matchman who is mine of useful information.
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| The small lake - right next to the car park |
One thing that attracted me to the venue was
the stillwater barbel – it’s got to be a decade since I caught a stillwater
fish, so this seemed like something different to do.
After a quick chat with the owner, I located peg
17 which had the central island and a nice bunch of reeds at pole distance, with open
water and a nice margin to the left.
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| My peg for the day (number 17) |
I set up with strong pole gear at 11m, just in
front of the reeds. There was a fair bit of bubbling going on around the swim,
so the signs were good for a bite or two. Depth was about 3ft, a few inches
less than down the track but not that much. There was virtually no difference
in depth as you went right across, so this seemed like a good starting point.
An 11mm expander pellet was placed on the hook
and I started fishing over a patch of 6mm pellets that I’d potted in whilst
setting up. Almost immediately I started getting knocks and bites on the line,
but it was a good ten minutes before I made contact and, shortly after, pulled out
of my first fish. Frustration followed and I caught a pastie-sized mirror and
then followed with a 4lb common carp. The presence of the smaller fish (which
went 3 or 4 to the pound) might explain a lot of what was happening with the
float – half-hearted knocks that were not producing fish. I persevered and
pulled out of several larger fish, which I suspect were going through the swim
just off bottom. I tried a few tricks, but they didn’t pay off and an hour in I
had about 10lb of fish – 2 decent carp and a few smaller ones, but I had pulled
out of at least 5 good fish.
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| Typical stamp carp around the 5lb mark and in pretty good condition |
So plan B. Plan B was a kind of ‘match the
hatch’ process using a lighter rig with a 6mm expander fished over the same
line. Some days the big expanders can pick out the better fish, some days they
achieve nothing. Immediately the dips turned into bites, but mostly from
pasties with the odd better fish thrown in. Then, just when I was about to
think I’d sussed it out it all went quiet.
Plan C. It had barely turned 10 am and I was
potting in on my two other lines – 7m in the open water where the barbel could be caught (apparently) and 9m to the reeds in
the margin. Not long after the 7m line produced lots of bubbling (skimmers,
perhaps) but no bites. The margin nothing.
And so this became a pattern. Trying different
spots on the far bank with big and small pellets, having a quick look at the
other lines and trying to pick up the odd bites and fish.
Slowly, and I mean slowly, I picked up the odd
fish, but it was feeling very slow. I even considered switching to the other
pool behind me at one point for a few bites, but instead had a bit of a walk
and took a few pictures.
Then in started to rain. Not really bad, but
I’m glad I got my umbrella up at the early signs of the wet stuff.
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| Pole fishing in the rain - now lets play spot the float (you can see the 7m line fizzing on the left) |
Not wanting to go too crazy in the wet I added
another pole section to go out to 12.5m and played around just to the right of
the reeds. And, by carefully adjusting the depth to get some critical balance
on the rig, I started to get bites. They were not quick, but they did produce
fish. Sometimes pasties, sometimes a little bigger. And chopping and changing
between the rigs would often give a bit more impetus if it slowed down.
The weight was just starting to tick along –
not spectacular, but ok. A good match weigh on the venue is about 90lb at the
moment. I would not be getting anywhere close to this, but on this day given
the carp had been spawning previously, a nice little catch would not be a
bad achievement. Chatting to other
anglers and the owner on the day suggested it was not fishing well, so I’m not
beating myself up too hard about it.
The 7m line was still fizzing, but no bites. The
inside looked dead, so back to 12.5m it was.
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| The long straight at the back of the pond - the higher peg numbers I believe |
The odd bonus fish headed for the reeds when
hooked, but the strong pole gear soon prevented that. And then… a proper fight.
I hooked into a lump (something the peg is famous for) and had to play it out
for a little while.
A couple of minutes later and 14lb of mirror
carp was in the landing net. Very nice – first double of the year.
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| 14lb of Mirror Carp safely in the landing net |
It carried on in much the same vein for the
next few hours until I called it quits and packed up. I finished on 55lb of
fish, with lots of carp in the 3-6lb bracket, some F1s and lots of pasties. But
no barbel -still that gives me an excuse to go back some time. On the day I
think some maggots and corn might have helped the catch rate, but I’d had a
good first visit and a nice day’s fishing.
Catch list:
Commons: 12
Mirrors: 20
Ghost carp: 1
F1 Carp: 5
Total weight: 55lb
