Tuesday, 15th.May

Bough Beech, Pete’s Bay

12.30
So I’m back at the res. For a 24 hr. session, continuing from where I left off after the last session.

Ten feet at 11 wraps, bottom smooth. Catapulted bed of 18mm. Pokernut boilies which have been given the H-DEC treatment. Three baits fished tight together - all ‘Snowmen’ presentations on ESP ‘Ghost’ fluorocarbon ‘D’ rigs.

The left-hand rod has a yellow ‘topper’, the centre rod a white ‘topper’, and the right-hand rod, a pink ‘topper’. My ‘Tarby Specials’ and Pokernut pop-ups didn’t arrive unfortunately so I am using ‘Northern Specials’ instead.

It’s sunny and warm again with a northerly wind blowing into the bivvy which is cooling things down a treat. If I put my hand on the skin of the bivvy facing the sun, it’s roasting hot!

I’m even more confident than last time if anything as days spent at the reservoir are adding to my knowledge and understanding of the place and this can only help to put a fish on the bank.

The water’s going down! I don’t think I quite believed them when they told me the water can drop two inches a day(!) - but they were right. It won’t be long before Pete’s Bay will be dry and we’ll be able to walk right across it. This might be useful as it will be an opportunity to mark and plot positions of the many tree stumps which were cut when the reservoir was created. For the moment, there’s plenty of water out there and if any carp are about at all - I’ll get ‘em!

15.00
Waiting, waiting, waiting… The traps are set and all I’m waiting for is for one of them to be sprung… But supposing they’re never sprung? Supposing I keep returning here, week after week - until all the water drains out of Pete’s Bay and I still haven’t caught one? What then? Perhaps the whole project here at Bough Beech is a complete waste of time and I’d have been better off fishing some other water somewhere, where I’d stand a much better chance of catching a fish?

Yes, undoubtedly I’d catch carp elsewhere - but they wouldn’t be Bough Beech carp. I could go to (say) Orchard Place Farm at Paddock Wood where there are fish every bit as big as in here?… But they wouldn’t be the same would they? The ‘puddle pigs’ of Orchard Place may be big but they don’t have the same value or meaning. Why is that? What makes a carp from one water of ‘greater value’ than that of another?

For one thing there’s the issue of how difficult they are to catch. Fish that are easier to catch don’t seem as special as those that are tricky or rarely caught although I wonder why that should be really? I guess ‘carp value’ is something that exists in our own heads. A quality, placed on a fish (or fishes) or a venue that we as individuals attach to them. It’s not something that is possessed of the fish or venue itself.

Carp are carp wherever they are from and whatever value we as individuals like to put on them is totally a matter for us solely. Their value and meaning is nothing to anyone else except us. Right now, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at a ten pounder. It’d have the same ‘value’ as a thirty to me at this moment.

At some point, a deep and intense longing becomes Desperation and whilst I have yet to reach the desperate stage - please, please Mr. Carp God, I would really like to catch a carp now if you don’t mind!

15.45
What do carp anglers do when they are sitting waiting for a bite? Some read, listen to the radio, watch the telly. Watch the telly! Now that’s something we weren’t able to do thirty years ago - but you can now (with the right equipment - well DVDs anyway).

I like to write. I also like to sleep. Not because it’s a way of making the waiting disappear but some of the most memorable captures I’ve had have been when I’ve been asleep in the bivvy and suddenly the bite alarm has gone off and the reel has screamed… The panic to get the slippers on is like no other! In that moment when the bite alarm is screaming its head off and line is ripping from the reel it seems that there is nothing more important in the world than getting to that rod and pulling into the fish!

I could do with some of that right now.

16.30
Taking regular walks along the shoreline to the left and right to see if I can see anything. Nothing. Although there are both Bream and Roach (and Pike) in Bough Beech I haven’t seen either which I’m quite surprised about. Perhaps it’s the Pike they shy away from? There’s a Pike syndicate on here in the winter months so there’s a lot of them in here, some, of Jurassic proportions!

With the wind blowing into this bank the margins are very discoloured. A reddish-brown haze emanates from the bank, several yards out into the water. This is all good stuff from a location point of view and is ideal you would have thought - there must be loads of foodstuff contained within it that you would have thought the fish would come in close to feed on.

I wonder if the presence of Pike makes fish nocturnal? In such very clear water, predators can see their prey from a long way off.

17.30
Had to re-cast all three rods and set the rod-tips as high as possible to overcome all the algae and crap drifting in on the wind. There were festoons of the stuff and although it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to a taking fish, I much prefer to fish my lines ‘clean’ out into the lake.

Sh-h-h-h-h!…Don’t say anything to anyone but I haven’t seen any Tufties this afternoon! (That’s probably put the ‘mockers’ on it!) Water temperature in six inches is 20.2 degrees.

20.30
Evening is drawing in. The sun has gone behind the trees and the surface of the lake is calm. I watch intently for the slightest sign of a carp - a roll, leap, or splash. There is nothing save the cavortings of Coots, every swirl the graceful dive of a Great Crested Grebe; every splash the irritations of squabbling ducks. Will it be tonight?… Is tonight the night?

Wednesday, 16th.May

05.00
The buzzer screams momentarily and stirs me from my slumbers - but it’s only Coots getting caught in the lines. Suddenly, I feel a Depression descend. Dark thoughts of hopelessness and failure.

I put the kettle on - tea can sort this. There is nothing like a good cup of ‘Yorkshire’ to cure the blues. And yet even the tea fails to hold back my feeling this morning that I am on something of a lost cause. Try as I might, I cannot shake off the sense that I am doomed to failure. Perhaps it’s ‘early morning syndrome’ - that part of the day when the mind and body are at their lowest ebb, both physically and mentally.

I try to concentrate and focus… all it takes is one bite - just one. This is just a pre-cursor to catching a Bough Beech carp. What is failure but a forerunner to success? Failure is only failure when you finally decide to walk away.

Small fish are topping in the area. I noticed them at this hour on my last visit. What a pity they are not carp. They are beyond the range of my baited spot; I wonder what attracts them to that particular area? I resolve to investigate with the marker rod at the end of the session in a few hours time.

And still. All feels dark and hopeless… No wonder Churchill referred to his Depression as ‘The Black Dog’. Symbolically, the sun comes up from behind the trees sending me a message - no matter how bad things may appear, the sun will always rise - even though you may not quite see it clearly at the time. As Leon is saying frequently at the moment in his Vlogs, “we’ve got to keep on, keeping on”. Yep. Agree with that.

I’ve just had a pull on the left-hand rod! About a foot of line was taken The line is tight so the lead has been moved - no ‘liner’ this, that was a pick-up!

And suddenly I am back on it. I will catch a carp from this bloody place. I will! I just don’t know when.

[Postcript
As I was packing up, I thought a lot about what I might do for next time and decided a change of scenery was just what was required. I don't think I can tolerate blanking, session after session, restricting myself to Pete's Bay in the hope that sooner or later something will come along and hang itself. Undoubtedly, the fish come into the Bays on the reservoir but I've thought from the word go that fishing the main body of the lake - in the edge, is as good a strategy as any. All fish, in all lakes, migrate and circulate around, up and down on specific routes. I can not think of a single carp water I have fished where the movements of the fish have not been consistent - at least to some degree. You just have to find out what their habits are.

To this end I decided to explore the south-east corner of the reservoir before going home, taking a marker rod with me. In finding an area of the lake with good depth and a clean bottom my enthusiasm was right back - the Depression of the previous few hours gone with the wind.

With this new knowledge, I can't wait to get back there for another go!]