September haul
We arrived Saturday morning to a nice sunny day, the fish were moving around all over the lake and we took a good look round and decided to fish as 3 groups of pairs, Jason and Phil opted for the beach, Damon and Bill fancied the platforms and my Dad and I jumped in the tin hut swim.
After setting up the bivvies and getting everything sorted we got the rods out and started to bait some areas, I decided to fish the same areas I fished in my short May 2 nighter as they seemed a good place to start so with 2 baits along the margin to my left and one slightly further out to the right off the baited area, a mixture of boilies, partiblend and pellets were spooned out and my Dad got to work with spodding his open water area to my right, the weather was hot and we were soon ready for dinner and a sleep... the fish had other ideas!
My middle rod was the first to go and the first fish of the session was in the net, only 17lb but good to get the first one under the belt... back out with the baited rig, which was a short flourocarbon stiff link with a snowman presentation and another half a bucket of bait was deposited around the area. During the night I was rewarded with a 22lb common and a 23lb mirror.
Sunday was overcast and warm and the fish were in feeding mode and I started off with a double, then a 26lb 8oz then the first thirty at 30lb 2oz... well chuffed! Buzzers were starting to go off all round the lake and everyone was catching well including a nice 38lb for Jason. Throughout the day I accounted for another 8 carp including another thity at 31lb 6oz and a nice 34lb 8oz for my Dad amongst others.
Monday it started to rain a bit but the fish still kept coming and I took 7 more fish to mid twenties then Tuesday the action slowed a little for me but I still managed 4 carp to 29lb 12oz and the action started thick and fast for my Dad as the fish moved onto his heavily baited area and he quickly took 6 fish to 38lb.
Jason and Phil decided to move down to the middle swim between the islands and the dam wall swim opposite me and were catching fish from the off including a huge rake of 20s and a couple of 30s for Jason and Damon and Bill were now catching well too after a move to the shallows topped by a 36lb mirror. We all started to up the baiting and the fish were responding well coming from spots only heavily baited half an hour earlier, we were sure the fish were wiping us out by the amount of fizzing and bubbling going on in the swims even though we were topping up the swims with lots of bait on a regular basis. During the night I was awoken by the sound of a screaming clutch, Jason had hooked a big catfish which run to 100lb and I could hear his reel from the other side of the lake!... unfortunately the hook pulled after a hard battle but we did catch some smaller ones throughout the week to about 20lb.
Wednesday kicked off well again for me and I caught a further 10 fish including another thirty at 30lb on the dot and another thirty for my Dad at 32lb. Thursday and Friday slowed up a little for me with only four more fish coming to mid twenties and five more to my Dad.
The spots for the other boys were really kicking off now and they were catching consistently day and night. Phil caught a nice 35lb mirror and then another 30 on his birthday, smiles all round and a bottle of champagne kindly donated by Ian the owner was cracked.
In total we caught about 200 fish totalling 4,540lb of carp between the six of us... truly a red hot week to remember!
