|
Dateline 06-08-2006
Since I'm not hearing from the
rest of you, here's a little article about:
A Perfect Sunday
 |
|
At
left:
7lb
7½oz Mirror
7lb
8½oz Common
4lb
14oz Common
9lb
9oz Common |
At right:
7lb 9½oz
Common
6lb 3½oz
Mirror
8lb 5oz
Common
6lb 3½oz
Mirror |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Last, and best fish of
the day, a beautiful Specimen Curl's Farm fully-scaled Mirror Carp at
13lb 10oz |
 |
After several days of indecisive and contradictory
weather forecasts, by Saturday evening they had settled for bright sunny and
humid in our area.
The alarm went off at 5:00, the worst bit being that I’d
set it myself! Crawling upright I
began to breakfast and finalise the packing at the same time. I successfully avoided maggot sandwiches, and worked towards
that final check to see what I’d forgotten.
On this occasion the answer was nothing. I was dressed for warm, with removable items for hot, and had
another layer for cool, and waterproofs ready for “They got it wrong again”.
I Headed for Curl’s Farm in the rising light and using
car headlights where a slight mistiness remained.
Not much about (no surprise there then).
The gate at Curl’s seems to clang to the echo in the
stillness of the morning and the bunnies run for cover.
Now for the Pickfords bit, the loading of the trolley, and set off
through the dew to the lakeside, I am the only one there it seems.
On my way to my favourite swim as the light gradually
rises, there is slight cloud cover, the population of the lake can be seen
cruising just below the surface, although there are no sucking noises of
feeding, there is the occasional swirl of activity.
As it turns out they have little choice but to swim just below the
surface, as this coincides with just above the bottom!
Curl’s is very low and there is very little water coming in to it.
Another angler and I inspect the dam later in the day, and find that it
is leaking its usual tiny trickle, but this is enough to lower the water
significantly, perhaps to only 18 inches at the edges.
Find my swim and tackle up at leisure.
Today I am planning to use the method (with Van Den Eynde method mix) and
14mm Halibut pellets on the hair. Start
with making up the method mix to a very satisfactory consistency (I don’t
always get it right) using lake water (it’s a long reach down!).
Once the first chuck is in, then get the catty going and fire in 20 or so
freebies. Grouping not brilliant,
but I want to bait an area rather than a spot so that’s OK.
Set up the second rod with a controller and a hook set 8
inches below it. I’ll see if
they’re feeding as well as cruising at that depth.
Bait this one up with corn for a first go.
Might as well cover this rod first as the corn was a flop,
putting maggots on the hook whilst leaving the corn on the hair produced some
interest, so swapped to just maggots. With
a huge bunch of maggots on a size 6 hook (big bait = big fish?)
I have one largish take, but never see it, as it’s off the hook halfway
in. This is encouraging so I
persist and am rewarded with 6 little silver fish one after another, and forceps
cases all, their mouths actually appearing to be smaller than the hook and
making extraction awkward as there was no room to turn the hook.
Spencer-Wells to the rescue and the excellent artery forceps solved a
tricky problem. Try a change then
to a humungous bunch of maggots on a hair rigged Korda Maggot Klip attached to a
close ended maggot feeder on the bottom. This
effectively deals with the bits who are up in the water, but doesn’t yield
results until late afternoon when, just after 5 p.m. a nice 8lb 5oz Common sucks
in the whole thing. As I net this
fish the line pops out, and examination of the Korda Klip reveals that it is
opened right out. I am strongly
suspicious that I actually caught on the Klip and not on the hook!
This rod is changed once again, as everything goes a bit
flat with the maggots, and this change turns out to be an excellent idea, but
that bit of the story comes later.
Meanwhile the pellet rod bore first fruit just before
10 o’clock. A 7lb 7½oz mirror
grabs and runs. This is the first
of several around this mark, and they all fight like demons. During the day I am dragged into the roots twice, each time
the fish carefully removing the hook and inserting it into a solid root before
making off. (one was a clump of
vegetation and I was able to crank it across the lake and recover the terminal
tackle, the other was not so lucky and I had to pull for a break).
I also lose fish during the day, two that throw the hook during play, and
one that spits it out at me just as it reaches the net, my right hand suddenly
moving backwards with no weight on it made me jerk the net and the fish was
away.
Now things start to happen and the schedule looks
like this:
| 10:20 am |
3lb 4 oz Common |
| 11:19 am |
7lb 9½oz Common |
| 1:48 pm |
7lb 8½oz Common |
| 3:00 pm |
6lb 3½oz Mirror |
| 3:33 pm |
4lb 9½oz Common |
| 4:21 pm |
4lb 14oz Common |
| 5:09 pm |
(This is the 8lb 5oz Common caught
on maggot on the second rod) |
| 5:50 pm |
9lb 9oz Common |
| 7:10 pm |
4lb 14oz Common |
The day had started both bright and hot with pleasant
sunbathing conditions, and judging by the traffic, excellent flying weather from
the nearby private airfield too, but clouded over during the afternoon (shirt
back on). The evening came good
again and the run up to sunset was pleasantly warm and with virtually no wind.
So now I’m running out of bait, having catapulted
in ten or so big pellets with every cast and every fish.
(I also spread some Carp pellets about to keep the area interesting).
The second rod has been drowning maggots for some time, so now its time
for a change. It actually took some
time because I was interrupted to play and land a fish on the first rod, but I
swapped to a flat pear ledger lead with a long rig tube and tail ended with a
short hooklength. This would take
what has become one of my Curl’s Farm favourites, a lump of hair-rigged
luncheon meat, with all the freebies in the area there are certainly fish about,
and some are bound to be meat addicts.
Cast out and wait.
We do that quite a lot don’t we? The
main rod goes off, once again a rocket propelled carp tries to bury itself in
the nearest snag, but with a low rod, and a healthy bend, it is persuaded out
into open water and after a protracted playing to tire it one of curl’s feisty
mirrors comes to net. It weighs 6lb
3 ½oz and the easiest way to handle it after netting and rapid unhooking is to
disconnect the net handle and carry the fish to a bank top carp mat on the level
for weighing and photo. Job done
smoothly and fish in carp sack for careful suspension in the water until it
recovers, I am sitting with my legs over the peg front board using my feet to
control the sack when the other rod takes off! Thankfully the mirror recovers at that moment and kicks off
back to the deeper (I won’t say deep) water.
I am now playing something that has taken my meat
offering, on the second rod with significantly lighter main line (0.23
fluorocarbon 7.9lb). It stays down
and I haven’t seen anything of it as I was looking down at the time of the
first large splash on the take. I
now realise that my landing net head is three large steps up behind me on top of
the bank, and the handle is down here with me, and there is a fish out there
pulling like a train. Calmness
descends and I calculate that if I get it played out first then I can make it up
the bank by releasing some line (whilst not losing tension of course, barbless
hooks are unforgiving if you allow slack).
And so I proceed to play the fish closer and closer and finally it rolls
and I see a lovely (large!) fully-scaled mirror.
By ensuring that it is just tired enough to keep pulling, but not keen on
haring off again, I am able to release the anti-reverse and wind backwards to
allow the rod top to rise, then I can step up to the next level, then repeat the
process twice more and I am on the bank top, still playing the fish.
Collect the landing net head and with some clever use of spare fingers
reverse the process to ‘wind’ myself back down to the lakeside carrying it.
Now try screwing a landing net handle to its head with one hand while
playing a fish with the other. Very
acrobatic I can tell you! Eventually
by holding the net between my knees I can thread on the handle with my left hand
steadying it with my chin and shoulder. This
rigmarole has taken the best part of half-an-hour (according to the clock in my
camera).
Fish has got fed up with waiting and heads for the
net when it’s suggested. Can’t
lift it with the net handle so now with the fish safe and the rod parked up
it’s now time to unscrew the handle again!
(I really must look at those quick connectors, and I’ve bought some
since). The fish is safely landed
and displays a slight punk tendency, with a swivel dangling on a length of nylon
from its gill cover, (not mine, which was a lip hook which came out at a touch).
I am pleased to say that a disgorger and some gently finger work was able
to remove the swivel, line and hook complete.
If you use shiny 12’s tied with a hair loop all in nylon and a 4 inch
hooklength to the swivel, and you’ve been smashed by something decent in
Curl’s recently then I can tell you that you lost a beautiful 13lb 10z fully
scaled mirror, really thick in the body, and a good fighter.
I prevailed upon Andrew and Daniel Royce who were
fishing further up to assist me by witnessing the mirror and taking the mugshot.
This was my cue to call it a day, with sincere thanks to the denizens of
Curl’s Farm lake, for a wonderful day’s fishing and carp to a total of 84lbs
4oz !
And so home, a well-earned shower and crash out
totally cream-crackered (work tomorrow too)….
Steve Sims
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dateline 29-10-2005
Paul writes: Hi. I joined the club this
year and I have just received the autumn 2005 newsletter. I found it a
good read. In the specimen and record fish section I see that bream of
5-8-0 has been entered. Interesting because on 3rd July 05 at 2:45pm from
the Sherman's Bridge section of the Cuckmere I caught a bream of 6lb 8oz, which
was my personal best, both river and still water. I was chuffed to bits
with it. I notice that to claim a good fish it has to be witnessed, which
I know is only right, my problem is that I fish mostly on my own. Now
I am not trying to claim an award or such like but I thought that it would be informative
to our members that bream of this size are in our waters. Also I have seen
a group of big chub in this section as well, but alas I haven't managed to catch
one as yet. I am still trying though! I am enjoying my fishing,
which is what its about anyway.
I notice on the website there are quite a few
parts that when you go into them they are empty, which is a shame, and reports
are not updated very well. I know that you can only work with the
information that you are given, but surely some members have access to
computers, who could send in information. This needs to be encouraged, and
the website would be so much better and informative. Perhaps we could have
a page of what's being caught and where. Anyway good luck with the fishing
bye for now. Paul Johnson.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WM: Anyone got a master plan for witness finding when fishing
alone? Thanks for the plug Paul. I'll take anything, and don't worry
about the english, as long as its close I'll correct the spelling and sentence
construction as necessary. Let's have more of you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 
