Fishing can be so so cruel........

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

You are never gonna believe this but I fished for a few hours tonight and didn't catch a single carp! Incredible!

 

Had a rather pimply 4lb bream though.

 

Gonna have a search through my old rod bag and see if I can find an old soft float rod and perhaps fish it with a small cage feeder tomorrow and see if I can at least keep myself busy as I was in danger of falling asleep tonight!

 

Thanks for looking in.

 

 

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

A mate came to see me tonight and had lots of gossip to catch up on so pretty much just lobbed the rods out and left em, rebaiting very rarely.

 

We did get one rod nodding and bobbing for 2 or 3 minutes, so much so that I reckoned a tiny skimmer or even a roach had kamikazed himself onto my ruddy great big hook. Amazingly enough it turned out to be a proper bream a bit bigger than previous days of probably 4.5lb. In fact I reckon there is only one bream in this pool and he puts on about half a pound a day scoffing all the grub I lob in!!!

 

Still no sign of the elusive big carp though!

[Newt]

Phil - just for a change you might want to try one rod with a surface bait or a mid-water bait and see if that produces for you.

 

Excellent and enjoyable thread and thank you for adding to it.

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Phil - just for a change you might want to try one rod with a surface bait or a mid-water bait and see if that produces for you.

 

Excellent and enjoyable thread and thank you for adding to it.

 

Thanks newt, you are more than welcome.

 

I have in the past sat night after night firing mixers out on this lake and have yet to see anything come up for them so reckon thats a non starter.

 

What I do intend doing tonight is dumping my 15lb line for 10lb line and using a 6lb hooklength to a smallish hook (12 I reckon should be ok) and setting it up on a float rod with a small cage feeder. Hopefully that way I may pickup more of the bream..........I was gobsmacked that a 4.5lb fish could only manage to make the rod tip quiver and knock a bit.

[Newt]

Phil - I can't remember if you were active on here when we had several video clips of a US lure angler with some underwater footage. The camera showed bass taking in and spitting out a moving lure with the angler not noticing a thing. Not once but at least a dozen times we saw this happen. The mouth would open, the gills would flare (sucking in water apparently) the lure would disappear into the open mouth and be blown back out very quickly.

 

Imagine how well fish can do it with a static bait. Suck in, sense a problem, blow out with never a bit or pressure on the rig.

 

I don't have nearly the experience with bait fishing that you do but at a guess, we only notice a small fraction of the times a fish examines our bait and maybe even gets a mouthfull. I think if I did more bait fishing I would spend lots of time trying various rigs that would tend to hook a fish when the bait was sucked in and blown back out.

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Well I tried the alternative technique tonight and to be fair it asked more questions than it answered!

 

Caught 2 skimmers and one small roach but all were foul hooked. The rod tip was pulling and banging allthe time but everytime I lifted the rod, there was nothing there. I'm pretty confident that nothing was sucking and blowing the bait as I was using sweetcorn lightly hooked to a number 14 and it was coming back undamaged each time.

 

In the end I considered the possibility of liners (where I fish on this lake, the rod tip is probably 6 feet above the lake bed even though I'm only fishing at 15 yds or so) so placed a nice hefty shot about 2 feet from the cage feeder. Well that sorted the problem alright, in fact the rod never even twitched again after that!!

 

Seems you might have been right Mr Newt, the buggers is up in the water!

 

I guess float fishing is the next try, but how deep should I fish? Got any suggestions?

 

P.S. the carp rods didnt twitch either.

Edited April 21, 2007 by Brumagem Phil

[Newt]

Phil - I guess often enough that I have to be correct on occasion.

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Took a night off tonight but fancied just trying a couple of places to see if they would take off the top. In the end I couldnt resist chucking one rod in the car too just in case they did!

 

It was a clumsy set-up, just 10lb line stright through to an enormous No6 long shank barbless hook but hey, it was only gonna be a bit of fun. Safe set-up though for the fish on this water as its not snaggy and no weedbeds so snap ups only occur due to 'operator error'.

 

First place I tried was Rowheath park. I'd heard the lake had been drained and the fish sold and then restocked with small fish so wanted to confirm this. Took a while to get the fish up to the surface but they came up and scoffed down mixers like they were half starving!!! Quite a few carp crashing around too so it seems maybe the stories were not quite correct.

 

Couldnt catch a sausage though althought he carp were most adept at pinching the bread off my hook!!! I usually use a controller and a MUCH smaller thin wire open gape hook (size 10 usually). I reckon the size and weight of tonights hook meant the mearest slurp was allowing it to fall out the bread and sink to the bottom.

 

Not too bothered though as I really enjoy just watching the carp feeding away on the top!

 

A local came by and told me off for night fishing.......as he came back around the pool I called him over and struck up a conversation with him. He knows the bailiff and was just being a bitover officious (his words) but said they had had some problems. I explained how I'd seen bivvied up groups with fires and copious amounts of beer tins and said I wasnt intending genuine night fishing but enjoyed fishing an evening from say 9pm to midnight ish (it was 11.30pm at this point). He said he was comfortable with that and if I wanted to stay a couple of hours I could. I declined but said I may pop up again one evening.......he said on such a lovely evening who could blame you for wanting to be here! So a result, the local unofficial pool policeman seems ok for me to do a couple of hours into dark surface fishing!

 

From there moved on to Arrow Valley country park. Its a big lake of sommat like 50 acres. Its mainly commons in here although a handful of BIG mirrors are int here but rarely come out. I didnt want to fish here but theres a purpose built area for people to feed the ducks.........but you can be sure they have to compete witht he fish, and on hot summer days, the water is a seething mass of common carp in just a foot of water! Believe me its worth seeing!! I just wanted to see if the fish were there and would feed. Yep, plenty of fish there, but they were a bit shy and as soon as I shone my light, they sank quietly until I couldnt see them. I chucked out half a loaf and loads of mixers over the next 20 mins but they would not come up and feed.

 

Amazing, two waters no more than a few miles away yet such differing results.

[Newt]

they were a bit shy and as soon as I shone my light, they sank quietly until I couldnt see them.

 

Try using a green or red light. Green is easier to see your line and rig but red will have the least effect on night vision. I use one that clips to the bill of a baseball cap so it shines where I look. LED bulbs and huge number of hours on a single pair of the flat batteries.

 

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Fished tonight. Had a good sesh.