Friday, 13th.July
When in desperate need, help often arrives un-looked for.I was in the fishing shop yesterday and ran into Ray Harris - an old mucker from the past. Ray has many contacts throughout the angling world, one of which is fishing - and catching, at Bough Beech.
“Can you find out what he’s using Ray! I’d dearly love to know!”
“Sure; I can tell you now. He’s using Webb Baits Squid and Octopus on a fishmeal base and he’s fishing in the car park (?) He bought a motorised barrow ‘specially for the purpose of dealing with the long walks at the res but hasn’t needed it because he’s fishing right near the car!”
This is just the news I have been waiting for. It all makes sense. A really smelly bait that gives off a powerful signal through the water column (unlike the ‘Pokernut’ I’ve been using) and fishing where I imagine to be the corner of the Dam. This is one of the places I have investigated and is last on my list of locations to try. Looks like I should promote it to the top of the list.
Looks like a ‘phone call to Nathan is in order today to sort some bait out.
Unfortunately, Nathan at Webb Baits wasn’t able to help with the bait, only doing 10kg. Mixes minimum. I have neither the money nor the space to store this amount and it won’t be ready in time for next week anyway so a trip to the local tackle shop was made to see what they had.
Very little was the answer. A kilo of CC Moore Pacific Tuna was the best they could offer and this will have to do. I’ve got some glug I can pour on it to pimp it up a bit but I’ve ordered some KMT from Cherry Carp which shouldn’t take too long to come. I really like their baits, in particular the neutralising agent you use to reverse the preservative and turn it into ‘fresh’ bait.
Saturday, 14th.July
In pursuit of alternative approaches to fishing Bough Beech, I decided to contact my good friend Philip and asked him for his help. Little did I realise just how helpful his reply was going to be. Because his reply was so unusually interesting I reproduce his responses in full:
Hi Andy, hope you are all well, sorry for delay responding. Been busy lots going on. Sure any help on bough is always a pleasure.
Weather not good at mo but next week more unsettled? This time of year fish will be deeper generally 15-25 ft. Common depths now. Will show shallow when on fry feeding. Dam wall first steps and 4th. Steps good but night areas really. Of side of crackle point left hand side back towards estate yard casting towards reserve. Single tree but fishing right round right side fishing towards 4th. Steps and water tower. Don’t cast left of tower as no good. Bays no good now Andy as carp will be fry feeding big time.
me:
wow! Thanks for all of this phil, really helpful.
Hope it helps.
On the wind in hot weather at bough is very important as well. That applies to any swim it seems. The fry get in the cloudy water to hide. Mr. carp follows!!
me:
How much bait do you put in?
Not much at all. Between 6-12 baits max. Until get a bite on shallower spots up to 15 feet. Deeper spots we put more in, 12-20 baits of 16mm. Size over a couple of rods. We use this method when confident of area and spot but on the caution side if not confident.
It’s a good approach andy. You will catch andy. I will take you one night at some stage. Haven’t been down for weeks as weather and short staffed at work.
Hope this helps.
Phil
Not only is this extremely helpful - and I am extremely grateful to Phil for this intel, but I am convinced it’s going to result in a fish. I’ve been putting too much bait in! Phil is advocating no more than a dozen or so baits at a time for carp that don’t really eat boilies as such at all; they’re fry-feeders, meaning that the little pin-fry I saw scattering last time are their main staple diet. They’re not interested in little round balls at all!
I’ve been putting in at least half a kilo and thought this was on the ‘light’ side! The fish must only be ‘picking’ at baits; putting more than these tiny amounts in just kills it I imagine.
It makes sense to fish just a few feet out if this is the case; this is where I saw the activity.
I had a line bite last time! This proves there was something moving in the margin. Can’t wait to get back down there!
Tuesday, 17th.July
Bough Beech, Car Park Corner
I spoke to Phil yesterday, hoping he would agree to have a session with me so I could really get a feel for how he fishes the reservoir. Unfortunately he couldn’t make it, but I got the next best thing - a detailed run-down of all the tactical principles involved in fishing a place such as this and which I summarise here:
Air Pressure and Moon Phase
On deep lakes the fish have the opportunity to go deep or stay high in the water according to their need. On a reservoir such as this, it can be anywhere between zero (at the surface) to forty, fifty, or even sixty feet down if the lake is as deep as that.There are two factors that influence the pressure exerted on a carp’s Swim Bladder (apart from depth of water) - Air Pressure and Moon Phase. Air pressure on the surface of the lake exerts an additional force which is added to or subtracted from, the pressure due to the weight of water exerted above where a fish happens to be sitting in the water column. Shallow, and there is relatively little weight of water above it; deeper, and there is a relatively greater weight of water above it.
As air pressure goes up and down, so the water pressure goes up and down too so fish go higher or lower in the water to mitigate its effects. As air pressure goes up, fish go higher in the water to bring the pressure in their Swim Bladder down. As air pressure (and water pressure) go down, the fish go deeper to adjust the pressure on their Swim Bladders to a more ‘comfortable’ level.
What is a ‘comfortable’ level for a carp’s Swim Bladder? I don’t know. I don’t think anyone else does either. What I am prepared to accept however is that this is a plausible explanation for what carp anglers with a far greater level of skill and understanding than me have determined by force of their own experience.
Which came first, the theory or the experience? In this case, the experience, and although elements of the explanation may be absent it doesn’t invalidate the principle, one which I am prepared to accept because those who catch far more than me believe it and fish according to it.
It is well understood by everyone how the Moon has a gravitational pull on the Earth and this varies across the surface of the Earth according to the 28 day cycle of the Moon rotating around it. This pull on the Earth results in the seas bulging which we refer to as Tides. This pull is caused by Gravitational Force which in turn results in a change in pressure on the seas. It also results in a gravitational pull on lakes - particularly deep lakes for which the changes in pressure are more marked than in shallow ones.
Hence; fish when there is a Full Moon because this is when the pressure is at its greatest (or least) according to where you are in relation to it.
Bottom Type
Last time I fished, I put my baits on a stoney area because it was hard. This is no good at all. The things that carp like to eat live in the bottom where they can burrow and hide. Nothing that is worth eating is going to be perched on a rock inviting all and sundry to eat it! “Here I am! Come and eat me!”
Depth
Not to do with pressure of water, but where the location of the items carp like to eat are. These fish in Bough Beech are fry-feeders, the shoals of which may be higher or lower in the water. They may have been driven to within a couple of feet of the shoreline by the carp so may be in no more than a foot or so of water. Wherever the carp food is, is where you must put your bait.
Wind Direction
This is particularly important and Phil is adamant that on here you must follow it. Again, this is something he has found by experience, but it has its validation in sound principles.Forget all that stuff about food being blown to the windward end of the lake. The windward end is subject to heavy wave action and in a big wind this can be extremely dynamic. This causes oxygenation although dispersion happens before it strikes the shore. In the lee of the wind there is less oxygenation and little dispersion so it makes sense to fish (in hot conditions) where oxygenation is at its greatest.
Wave action causes staining of the marginal shoreline. This is mud washed into the water by waves hitting the bank. The fry hide in this because the carp cannot see them - but the carp know they are there and will not be far away!
Amount of Bait
This is a key one on here. Do not use anything other than the absolute minimum of bait - we are talking 6-12 boilies over two rods! This may be increased to 12-20 baits in water over 15 feet deep, but using more is the absolute kiss of death.This is such a radical idea that it goes against everything I ever believed about baiting for carp. I’ve never used such small amounts of bait and have rarely used less than half a kilo when fishing.
Once again, this advice is based on Phil’s experience. Only put more in if you are getting bites. All you want to do is get one bite and half a dozen to a dozen boilies is all it takes.
On Bough Beech there are no massive numbers of carp so the scenario where a kilo gets eaten by a group of fish in twenty minutes is simply never going to happen. You are going to be lucky if one fish comes through your swim; you don’t really want it picking up anything other than than the bait with the hook attached to it!
If I am ever to catch a carp at Bough Beech I am acutely aware of having to ‘raise my game’. I must fish better (and differently to what I have been doing) and I think the principles outlined here will contribute to that. That is why today I am fishing on a soft bottom in shallow water of 6-7 feet with one bait a yard out in the brown, stained water, caused by the wind, into which I am fishing.
14.00
Once again I’m seeing fry scattering in the margins. I’ve got a bait in no more than eighteen inches of water, right in the ‘brown stain’ line. Bit of a act of faith leaving it there I feel, considering the vastness of the reservoir, but I’ve heard more than one account of folks fishing ultra-close and picking up fish on here.
I have no doubt carp are responsible, for fry are part of their staple diet, but on this occasion, I think little three-four inch Pikelets are the more likely cause.
16.30
Tactical change. Changed the bait on the rh rod and heaved it out with a four-bait stringer as far as I could. My thinking is to get into the deeper water where hopefully it is cooler. When you dip your hand in the edge it feels like tap water!
Middle rod is now a double bait to try and combat the Bream from which I am receiving loads of little knocks. Feels smooth out there; the kind of bottom likely to provide the carp with lots to eat.
18.00
Getting hammered by the Bream; little knocks and bleeps on the buzzers. When I reel in, the baits are either whittled down or missing completely. All three rods are now on the double boilies cast at maximum range, the aim being to avoid the ‘snotty’ perishers.
19.00
This business about the use of minimal amounts of bait has really got me thinking. I was speaking to another friend of mine this afternoon - also fishing Bough Beech (and whose opinions I respect) and he also said he never uses a lot of bait - at least for overnighters. Extended stays are different. There, bait may at first attract fish - then hold them in the area, but I get the impression that bait is used on an ad hoc basis - you only put it in if you are certain it is being eaten.
I know some eminent authorities advocate the use of several kilos of feed, whether it be boilies, hemp, pellets, corn, or whatever. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is impossible generalise about it because it varies from water to water. I suggest that only the heavily stocked, competitive-feeding type scenarios respond to it - and only then when there are large numbers of fish eating it and are confidently feeding.
Is it the cynic in me that suggests it’s more to do with the commercial aspects of carp-fishing, rather than an honest recommendation about the best way to catch carp? Do the ‘names’ advocate the use of lots of bait because they are sponsored by bait companies or are able to buy it very cheaply, and by recommending its excessive introduction it secures their supply? No, surely not? They wouldn’t be dishonest like that would they?
On a big water like Bough Beech, you are either in the right area or you are not. Sounds simplistic I know, but if you are on fish (or rather, they are on you) does giving them more food than they want really help your chances? I don’t think a large amount of bait is going to bring carp running across the reservoir from a mile away and if they are not wanting it anyway there’s little chance your hookbait will be picked up amongst (say) a hundred others. This is why a single hookbait works. It’s a one-to-one chance it’ll get taken in preference to any other because put simply, there are no others. Put ten baits and it only wants one, it’s a ten-to-one chance.
In certain circumstances, very little bait increases the odds enormously. What would you rather take, one-to-one, or one hundred-to-one?
20.15
All baits re-cast for the evening. Bream action a lot less, now that I am fishing at about 80 yrds into the deeper water. Given all the basic principles outlined previously, it makes no sense to endure the Bream and continually having to re-bait because you have no bait on. Avoiding Bream at least means you are ‘fishing’ rather than having a bare hook out there.
I take a lesson from this: it is nice when all the ‘principles’ come together to enable a capture, but there are times when for practical reasons, one or more of those principles have to be violated. According to what I have outlined, I should be fishing ‘shallow’, given that the pressure is high - so this implies shallow water. Unfortunately, the Bream have their own agenda and will not permit this, so I have to go deeper to avoid them.
Wednesday, 18th.July
05.30Woke to the sound of a hundred honking Canada Geese, who having roused me from my slumbers, then cleared off up the other end of the reservoir!
Saw more skittering from fry in the margins so put out some Chum Mixer to see if I could coax something up to take them but all this seemed to do was attract a flock of gulls which cleared the lot out in about five seconds flat! There is a big question here. How far do you go in matching your own level of ability - to the difficulty of the water you are fishing?
The harder the water, the more proficient you need to be to overcome its difficulties. For instance, a newcomer to carp fishing would find Bough Beech impossibly hard - they would have neither the experience nor the technical skills necessary; does this mean fishing the place is wholly inappropriate?
I am fishing a water, the degree of difficulty of which is harder than anywhere I have ever fished. If I do not possess the skills necessary to catch from it, would my limited skills be better applied on a water where they are easier to catch?
Whatever you think of Danny Fairbrass and his Korda videos (adverts) his recommendation, oft repeated, is that when going to France (say), pick a water you stand a good chance of catching from rather than one on which you will struggle. Sound advice which applies to waters in the UK as well.
Is thinking that Bough Beech is too difficult for me just self-doubt - or a realistic appraisal of my own angling abilities?
06.00
Yorkshire Tea. Is there some magic property in Yorkshire Tea? A cuppa has the most reviving properties first thing in the morning after a night outdoors. It is an elixir, a boost to the system, a medicine for the soul. Wouldn’t be without it!
Checked the (double) bait and it was still on, so it had been fishing for me all night (which is good news). I rather feared I’d reel up in the morning and find the baits sucked off by the Bream. There were a few lumps out of the boilies so something’s had a go at it but basically it was intact. Recast a bit shorter so I’m fishing in shallower water. Instead of crashing it out 80 yards a more conservative effort of 50 yards puts it into less than 10 feet I estimate. The slope of the bottom is a lot shallower than in other parts of the reservoir, indeed, landing a fish might be problematic. (Although on reflection, not an issue at all - I’d just wade in after the bugger!)
06.15
Just managed to get a close look at the scattering fry in the margins. Tiny little tadpole-sized infants, literally in their hundreds (if not thousands). But what is chasing them?
It’s not carp. Sorry Phil, I’m sure you are right in that carp do eat them and they are certainly a staple item in the carp’s diet but what I am witnessing is not carp related. I have seen no surface disturbance to indicate the presence of large fish striking into them. The water is so shallow it would be impossible for a carp not to betray its presence; we’re talking less than a foot deep here. You may have actually seen carp predating fry in the past and I believe you, it’s just that it’s not what I am seeing here. What I do think is going on is that it’s small Pikelets. Bough Beech is known for its Pike and I think it is three to four inch versions of Pike chasing the half-inch fry which are responsible.
Every time I see a swirl or surface disturbance and think I’ve just had my first carp sighting, a Great Crested Grebe surfaces. Bloody things doin’ my ‘ead in!
07.30
Is there such a thing as truly inexhaustible patience? Surely, there must come a time when even the most patient of individuals can wait no more? And if one goes beyond the point at which another blank - is just another blank, when does inexhaustible patience become Obsession?
Not surprisingly, the recent hot weather and levels of sunlight have caused an explosion of the stuff on some lakes. Fishing on the windward shore involves huge mats of the stuff accumulating which clags up the line in knotted mats.
07.50
A little mini-take to the rod I recast this morning resulted in a Bream. Got me all excited though!
08.15
The mobile went… It was my friend Mark, enquiring how I’d got on. I was explaining about how the nature of the bottom changes as you go further out when one of the long range rods went!… A take! I’ve got a take!…
I dropped the phone and reached for the rod; line was being drawn steadily from the spool… and it stopped just as I got my hand on the corks of the rod.
I struck anyway but there was nothing there.
But it’s a success of sorts. I know I didn’t connect with the fish but it’s a step nearer getting a fish on the bank.
It’s only a matter of time now. I am going to do it…
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