Good Afternoon.

Well it has been a busy weekend at the lake and I have made a few changes. In my last post I mentioned that my baits seemed to be hardening. Well scrap that comment! The lack of small fish was my sudden confidence in the hardness of my baits and the sudden influx of ‘Gardon’ has now made me realise that they are not capable of withstanding their attentions. The flurry of activity the other night as I wrote or tried to write the post was down to these nuisance species and although the fish activity situation is promising it’s not good for my soft hookbaits.

They are getting mauled!

I did make the decision that I would change my baits every 24 hours to overcome this small issue but if I am honest I would like to leave my rods out for longer if possible and know that I still have a bait on my hair. I did mesh my baits up in the previous swim but I just don’t like meshing my baits. I just feel it messes around with the mechanics of your rig, especially if you have to use a stiff hair to prevent the hookpoint catching in the mesh. It is a catch 22 situation and I either keep changing my baits every 24 hours or I have to protect them in some shape or form. I have asked Dynamite Baits to make hardened hookbaits, identical to your boilies out of the bag, but with a tough and hard skin. I love rock hard hookbaits and have great confidence in them. I remember when I used some hookbaits at Cassien in 2008; I handrolled them in February and did not use them till May. I caught 42 carp in May and the hookbaits were responsible. They were as hard as bullets and I could use them several times before they needed changing. I will be on the phone tomorrow to the product development team at DB and see if I can convince them to get on the case. I think it will be a benefit to many anglers in Europe.

There are a small crew of cormorants that are constantly working the area in front of me. I put some pellet down yesterday to try to keep the gardon off my boilies and preoccupied with the tempting pellet. It has obviously drawn in plenty of fish as every so often a cormorant appears with a small fish in its mouth.

Rig tying time!

The finished rig.

Pic 2!

I have just redropped all of my rods. I tied up new rigs today using an Indyline product as a hooklink which is called Chinook. It is a 35lb brown plastic coated braid, it strips beautifully and I have left about an inch exposed after the eye of the hook to create a combi type hooklink. A korda tungsten weight is attached to the join to add a little weight and keep it pinned down, and a kwikloop is used, rather than a loop, and this is tied using a Palomar knot. I am on the size 2 Kurvs and I am now trying a snowman presentation using a 20mm Red Fish pop-up and a 26mm bottom bait.

A bizarre thing happened earlier when I was making my first drop at the back of the plateau in about 21ft of water. I threw in about ten 26mm boilies and a few seconds later a massive plume of bubbles hit the surface. I could make out some small yellow objects floating on the surface and they were in fact old tiger nuts covered in silt! I am not sure whether I disturbed something or there was in fact a carp or two on the bottom feeding in the silt that lies around the bottom edges of the plateau. The spread of bubbles did kind of travel in a moving direction and I have never witnessed anything like this before whilst out in the boat! Needless to say I made my drop quickly and returned to shore with my rod!

The sun seeker!

The weather today has been fairly mild with temperatures hitting about 10 degrees. Yesterday the rain was determined to stay for the day but it stopped in the early hours of this morning and has kept away. The rain in the end never got that heavy and it has made no difference to the water levels or the colour of the water.

I do still feel that I am within an inch of catching a carp soon. As opposed to Cassien last January when it felt rather desperate, this feels quite different; carp have been caught from this spot over Christmas and the weather if anything is now milder. It is a new swim for myself and I guess I just need to slot into that groove. I am almost there and it is just a case of making a few tweeks here and there and getting to know the topography of the lake bed in front of me. My camera tripod is set up ready, my unhooking mat is by my boat, and I am just waiting for that first screamer!

My morning toast waiting for...

a lovely squashed fried egg!

I will soon be making my dinner. Last night’s pasta dish comprised of half an onion, a small tin of tuna, and some passata (liquidised tomatoes). I added this sauce to some spaghetti and a generous pinch of black pepper finished it off – it was delicious. For tonight’s menu, and for a change, I think I will make some deep fried potatoes and have these with some corned beef fritters!! It does mean making some batter, but I have eggs, flour and milk, and it will make the evening enjoyable! I am not normally a corned beef fan but Steve Briggs’ Joan gave it to me at Gigantica and I need to put it to good use!

I hope you all had a great weekend.

Catch you tomorrow!

Jake and the dogs.