Monday, 28th.October

I got a call from an old friend - ’T’ who had been reading the Blog. “I see you’re fishing The Back Lake. How’re you getting on?”

I explained that I’d only just started fishing it but I could do with a little help. ’T’ offered the advice that the bottom contours were basically an ‘egg box’ and that he had done well by concentrating on the shallow areas in open water quoting eight feet as the sort of depth I should be looking for. Moreover, he gave me the location of a spot in the very swim I had fished. My baits had been no-where near it. Resolved to try and find it next time I fished it.

Wednesday, 31st.October

‘M’ called last night - he’d also seen the Blog and asked how I was getting on. As I said in my writings, my confidence is pretty low at the moment and I’d appreciate any tips on fishing the place.

‘M’ more or less confirmed what ’T’ had said, describing the undulating nature of the bottom and suggesting the ‘shelves’ were the best places to put baits as the carp came up onto them to feed.

“Some places are dead smooth and hard - you get a real donk when the lead goes down; you should try to find these spots and fish on them”.

So this morning I was down the lake with the marker rod in an effort to find what my two pals had been talking about. Unfortunately, the exercise only served to sap what little confidence I had; I completely failed to find any shallower areas out in open water, the depth varying very little between twelve and thirteen feet and going down to fifteen nearer the bank as I had found during my last session. All was not fruitless however. Although I had failed to find the ‘humps’ my thoughts regarding Location were beginning to focus on the lily beds at each end of the lake. These are known ‘hot spots’ and yield fish regularly. A glimmer of hope then. There were also the reed beds which are a marginal feature and along which the carp were known to patrol.

Got a text from 'T' who offered to help me find the 'spots'; agreed to meet him at the lake on Monday.

Monday, 5th.November

The Back Lake, The lifebelt

12.00
Firework Night. November the fifth. I sincerely hope there’s going to be fireworks tonight - of the carp variety!

As agreed, ’T’ came to the lake and showed me the spots.

It’s quite a ‘thing’ to have to admit to not being able to use a marker rod properly but I have to confess it is so. I also haven’t been using braid either, consequently I haven’t been able to ‘see’ the bottom as I draw the marker across it. Using ’T’s’ ‘proper’ setup, I at last was able to identify more accurately the small ‘lumps’ which rise up sharply from the bottom and give that familiar ‘jaggedy-jag’ on the rod when pulling back.

I located the two spots ’T’ had described previously. Dead in line with the swim opposite at seven wraps and dead in line with ‘Summer Bay’ down to the left, also at seven wraps. In each case I left the marker float out and catapulted 7-8 Cherry Carp KMT boilies as close to the float as I could. The third rod I lobbed down the bank to my left in front of the small patch of lilies which I described on the previous session.

Two baits were pop-ups on ‘Ronnie Rigs’ and the other a KMT bottom bait on a ‘D’ rig topped with half a pink pop-up.

For the first time, the session seems to be not about rigs or bait (indeed I haven’t bothered to illustrate them here as followers of the Blog will have seen them all before). It’s more about Location and the spots within the swim where you actually put your bait.

The spots I am fishing on are so small they will accommodate only one rod; this knowledge however gives such a boost to the confidence that it’s a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if’.

It's flat-calm at The Back Lake today; the sun is shining and it's unseasonably warm. If the fish aren't biting, at least it's very pleasant to be out fishing.

13.00
Crikey it’s turned warm! I’ve had to take my hoody off. The question is, do I still look sufficiently carpy? I mean, I’ve only got my ‘Navitas’ tee shirt on as opposed to the ‘Carpologist’ tee. Does ‘Navitas’ still qualify? Does it still cut it? There’s no point in actually catching a carp unless you look the part…

13.45
’T’ said something interesting this morning while I was having my marker ‘lesson’. He’d seen the rig I’d got on and commented on how short he thought it was. He uses longer rigs - 8-10 inches at least. “But don’t you want the fish to hit the lead to drive the hook in? Surely, the longer you have it, the more the fish can move around with the hook and bait in its mouth and ‘get away with it’?”

“No. Watch the underwater videos. More often than not, the act of of the hook and bait going in the fish’s mouth is enough for the hook point to catch hold somewhere. More often than not though it doesn’t and the fish spits it out. When the hook is moving around inside the fish’s mouth there’s always a chance the hook-point will catch somewhere. It’s a moving hook which catches, not a stationary one. Longer hook-lengths allow the bait to behave more naturally than a short one - and carp don’t learn to get rid of rigs! They are not intelligent, although they can be wary. The old chestnut that carp test baits just isn’t correct. They can be fearful of them yes but this is just an automatic response to identifying a potentially dangerous situation - possibly a memory of having been caught previously. They can’t sort out which bait is attached to a hook and which one isn’t.”

I don’t disagree with ’T’; he catches more than me!…I am going to put it to the test though. I’ve got ‘German Rigs’ tied up for the evening (in fact I think I’ll bung ‘em on now).

15.00
I know I said I wouldn’t bother or comment on rigs - but yes - I’ve changed all three rods to ‘German Rigs’. Not for any technical reason; I just feel happier about having a bottom bait on, tipped with half a pink pop-up. Now I feel even more confident. If they’re going to feed on my spots tonight then I’ll ‘ave ‘em!

The 'German Rig'. As simple as you like. Why use anything more complicated?

Introduced a few more boilies onto the margin spot as I think Coots were diving on them.

15.15
My normal practice for tying bottom bait rigs is to incorporate a ‘Carp R Us’ Mouth Snagger. These little plastic doo-dads look like little grubs and act as a line aligner in place of shrink tube. The ‘snaggers’ flatten out the acute angle of the hook shank with the hooklink thereby widening the hook gape. With the rigs I’ve tied up today I’ve deliberately omitted them in order to exploit this angle.

If ’T’ is right and hook points catch hold for no other reason than they are inside the carp’s mouth then increasing the angle creates a kind of ‘spring’ effect. The stiff hooklink must come into contact with the carp’s bottom lip and as it continues to suck the bait in, it would divert the travel of the hook-point downward into the bottom lip. I tried to test this by holding the rig in the crook of my thumb and first finger and could see that it could indeed happen under certain circumstances. However, what happens under water is completely different to simulations out of it; nothing works every time but on the whole I got the impression it would aid rather than hinder hooking. Just see how easily carp eject rigs on the Korda Underwater DVDs.

It’s a wonder carp get hooked at all!

Just out of interest, the air temperature is 14.7 degrees! In November for goodness sake! Get the deckchairs out!

19.00
The fireworks, although entertaining are making a most infernal racket and I can’t think they can be any good for the fishing. In a way though, I suppose it’s only as noisy as a very intense thunderstorm - but without the rain. Carp feed well in those conditions so why not now?

My front door is down, the bivvy light is on and I’m having an evening cup of ‘Yorkshire’. Ah! Yorkshire Tea! Nothing finer. When God made Tea he made it in Yorkshire! (We’ll conveniently ignore the fact that the actual tea comes from India, Africa, or some other far-flung distant land. It’s the only accompaniment to a ‘Nice’ biscuit, dunked for exactly two seconds. Three, and they’re too soggy. Two it’s got to be…

'Yorkshire Tea'. Manna from Heaven.
"...and on the Seventh Day God created Yorkshire Tea".

Tuesday, 6th.November

07.00
The snaps, crackles, and pops went on until about nine o’clock after which things quietened down considerably. By ten the only sounds were traffic noise from the nearby road.

For the second session in a row there was no apparent activity from the carp. I stayed up, listening and watching and apart from some ‘flipping’ from small fish there were no indications carp were active anywhere. This was in direct contrast to last Friday night when “they went absolutely mental” (according to the angler fishing next door in The Pads who has been resident since then).

A breeze has sprung up, blowing towards my end of the lake. This is a change in conditions; will it be enough to initiate a response?

A change in the conditions - a breeze sprang up and started blowing towards my end of the lake; but would it result in a fish?

The Pads seem to be occupied more or less the whole time; weekends, weekdays it doesn’t matter, someone’s in it constantly. (Doesn’t anyone have a job to go to these days - I’ve got an excuse, I’m retired!) I’m not surprised it has yielded no fish, it’s had little to no ‘rest’ for weeks - possibly months. I had been informed by those fishing it that The Back Lake was very little fished as soon as the weather turned cold. Not much sign of that at the moment…

I’m really chuffed ’T’ helped me out with the marker-ing yesterday; now I know what I’m looking for, and more importantly how to find it, I think I can fish with a higher level of confidence than previously. You’d have thought though that after all the years I’ve been fishing I’d have got the hang of what is a fundamental and basic skill of carp-fishing wouldn’t you? The truth is, the flaw in my marker technique was trying to use mono instead of braid. The following sounds like ‘excuses excuses’, but was how my fishing progressed (or rather didn’t)...

Some years ago I fished a water where finding depths and bottom features was an important part of the approach and towards this end I loaded up the marker gear with braided mainline on a brand new ‘Sonik’ Spod Reel, newly purchased. This was coupled with a ‘Korda’ marker kit so I was well equipped (or so I thought) to survey the swims I planned to fish.

First time out with the new gear and I made my first cast…Blast! A wind knot! Ten minutes spent unpicking the darn thing. Second cast it goes out clean as a whistle. Depth measured, bottom smooth. Nice. Third cast and this time it’s the biggest wind-knot you’ve ever seen that doesn’t even manage to make its way through the rod-rings! An hour later and I still haven’t managed to salvage (what is damned expensive) braid. In frustration I gave up, cut out the knot, and joined the two ends together, throwing away about forty yards of braid.

Fourth cast goes out at last - but the next one - another wind-knot!…The damn thing was slung along the bank and I haven’t used braid from that day to this.

There is a postscript to this little tale of woe however. I knew I had not over-filled the spool so I reasoned it must be something else associated with the new reel causing the knots so I had a close look at the spool oscillation mechanics.

When the handle of a reel is turned, the spool is advanced and retracted; line is lain on the spool as the bail-arm rotates around it. On this reel I noticed there was a catastrophic design fault… The spool did not retract backwards sufficiently for the roller of the bail-arm to reach the front lip of the spool, consequently, there was a slight gap between the lip of the spool and where the line was laid down and I noticed coils were going ‘over and under’ one another. A sure-fire guarantee of wind-knots! Needless to say, the reel went straight back to the shop where I explained the problem with it (although I’m not sure whether I was understood or believed in my assertions regarding the fault). What they did do however was replace it and I upgraded to a Shimano Aerlex Spod Reel.

This experience put me off braid for life and hence I haven’t used it since. What it did do was inform my knowledge about reel mechanics and I now never buy reels which exhibit the same characteristic as the ‘Sonik’. I hasten to add that I have not examined other Sonik reels so have no knowledge as to whether they are designed similarly; it may be that wind-knots do not occur with mono.

I am reluctant to even find out…

The Back Lake is deep - so Back Leads are the order of the day. Don't want the line cutting through the water out to the baits 'intercepting' any carp cruising through. Getting it down on the bottom is a must.

What is certain is that Braid is vital for marker work - you just can not feel the ‘knobbly bits’ with mono to the same degree and certainly on The Back Lake, they are a key feature which must be exploited.

09.00
Another session comes to an end and still no fish, but as Leon (Bartrup) says, “all it takes is one bite!” On here, if that bite is from The Mugga - a fish of around 34-35 pounds then that’ll do for me. Onward and upward…