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Dave Coster's Fishing Diary June
I only set up a margin pole - armed with fairly strong hollow elastic. The rig comprised a short dibber float, finished off with a size 16 medium wire hook and tied to 0.14mm rig line. I reckoned this tackle should be strong enough to deal with any carp, but not too heavy for skimmers and bream. I began the session cupping in a mixture of micro pellets and casters down the margins to my left and right, just a few feet out from the bank. I always like to have two feed areas on the go when fishing close in, because it gives another option if something goes wrong with one of them.
It quickly became apparent the margins to my right were littered with sunken willow branches and twigs, so I concentrated on the left-hand side and was soon attached to a lively carp. These fish tear off like a train in such shallow water and give your tackle a proper work out. I just about managed to get the beast in my landing net, popping it back in the next peg along, before returning to my quest for quality skimmers. Another couple of hefty carp followed before my swim started to fizz with small bubbles. Suddenly the skimmers had arrived. I was fishing slightly over-depth and laying a soft hooker pellet hard on the bottom. The bites were different from the carp, which simply made the float tip disappear out of the blue. The new arrivals tended to make the float tip dither around a bit before sinking away more slowly.
For the rest of the session I caught a much better stamp of fish compared to my usual tactics of fishing the long pole out in open water. Because much of this lake is only a couple of feet deep, maybe the bigger and wiser fish can see the pole waving about over their heads? Or maybe the tree cover down the margins helps to mask out a shorter pole? Whatever it is, the margins produced better sized fish with many over the one-pound mark and quite a few nearing proper bronze bream size. I did get interrupted a couple more times by carp, but still managed to nearly fill the bottom section of my keepnet with a great bag of quality skimmers.
A local fishing pal suggested a trip to Portland Fishing Lakes at Sibthorpe, not far from Newark. I did have a look around this complex a couple of years ago, but had forgotten all about it. There are several snake-like waters to choose from, which were all very busy, so we opted for the newly opened and quieter Old Wood Lake. This is a lot wider than the canal-like snakes, so I decided to fish a waggler out towards an island in the middle, while my mate switched between a method feeder and pole tactics.
I fed 4mm pellets in front of me and also sprayed casters regularly down to my right, to try and find out what worked best and to see if any different species turned up. It was small stockie carp that responded first to pellets and it was a bite a chuck. As I built the swim up the fish got bigger, providing some great rod-bending action. I could see my mate Jim catching well too.
A switch to casters resulted in more carp and some slightly bigger ones. In-between catching these fish, I was missing a few bites and then suddenly discovered what the culprit was, a baby barbel. These fish are caught regularly in some of the other lakes on the complex and three-pounders are common, along with chub to a similar size. I was beginning to understand why this place is so popular; packed out midweek with more anglers than many fisheries manage on a weekend!
For the rest of the session I switched between my pellet and caster feed areas and bagged up, finding that upping the loose feed rate helped to increase the size of the fish. They were all in perfect condition too, including some beautiful semi scaled mirror carp; proper muscle packed bruisers that put a decent bend in my waggler rod. I must have ended up with around 60 lbs of fish, without really switching into match fishing mode, simply enjoying the pleasant countryside on such a well-run, top class fishery.
When the new season opened, several days of torrential rain had caused a lot of flooding and local rivers were in the fields. I decided to wait until everything settled down before embarking on my first running water trip of the new campaign.
So where to go on the glorious sixteenth of June? A mate from Nottingham suggested a trip to a club water he belongs to, where he could get me a day ticket pass to fish a lake where there’s some good tench. It took a good hour to get to Kingstanding Pools, near Burton on Trent, but once there the fishery looked great. Three picturesque lakes joined together by a small stream. Only trouble was, the stream had been pumping dirty rainwater through them for several days. The car park was full when we got there but virtually empty by midday. I caught a few small fish, one good tench come off and that was it. The coloured water had obviously turned everything off the feed.
I had plenty of bait left over, so a few days later decided on a feeder fishing session on the Specimen Lake at Woodland Waters. Pete the bailiff had told me there were good numbers of bream showing.
I picked a swim on the Specimen Lake I had fished a few times in the winter, mainly for the big roach. Knowing it had good depth, I fancied a groundbait feeder chucked a fair way out, would be the way to go. It was. I caught a good-sized skimmer first cast, followed by a string of similar sized fish. I was packing micro pellets and casters into my groundbait, along with a few chopped worms, finding three maggots on a size 14 hook brought the best response. I did try pellets a few times, but it took much longer to get bites on them, and the fish didn’t increase in size.
For the rest of the session I put a nice net of quality skimmers together, along with three proper slabs up to the 4lb mark. Enjoyable fishing, considering back in the winter you wouldn’t have thought there were any skimmers in this lake.
Suddenly June was nearly over. I thought I would give it a bit longer before venturing out on my local rivers. I didn’t fancy chucking a 50-60g feeder to try hold bottom just yet. I always associate summer on running water with the gentle art of trotting a stick float, so decided to wait for levels to fine down. Instead, I opted to try another venue on my “to do” list, Homeclose Fishery at Whissendine. I first fished this off-the-beaten-track place in Rutland a couple of years ago. On that occasion there was a fierce gale blowing and I had to retreat onto one of the smaller lakes. However, I had noted that the first one, three-acre Hornbeam, looked very interesting.
It was a Sunday when I turned up and the Hornbeam car park had just one vehicle in it - strange. I looked around and there were no signs to say the place was booked for a match. There was a lone angler and he was catching plenty, so I lugged my gear round to the far side. I found a great looking swim close to an overgrown island, surrounded with thick reed beds. It certainly looked the part.
I didn’t have a clue what to expect or what to do, so after studying the water for a while I decided to start off with a cage feeder, cast out into the open to the right of the island. It turned out it was only around 4 to 5 feet deep out there, but that didn’t matter because my quivertip was instantly busy with indications. I missed a couple and then latched into a lively tench. After that I got blitzed by small rudd using maggots on the hook, so I switched to pellets. I had to wait longer for bites with this bait, but there was much less small fish activity and quite a few half-decent skimmers turned up, followed by the bailiff arriving.
I had a pleasant chat with the bailiff and paid for my day ticket. I was informed I had been fishing over a gravel bar and that it was deeper closer in, where there was a better chance of finding bigger fish. The bailiff suggested the big bream and tench in the lake often show up in the margins. As my cage feeder rig was drying up, I quickly assembled a margin pole and similar to my tactics at the beginning of the month at Willows, fed areas to my left and right. I don’t know why it is, but whenever I try this, one area works and the other doesn’t. It was exactly the same on this occasion, with bites galore down the edge to my right and not a touch to my left.
I started to catch decent skimmers again and then another good sized tench turned up. Every time I cupped more feed in, the rudd went crazy, but by using a bigger 6mm pellet on the hook, at least they were bigger. When I did get through them, something even better would result at full depth.
With all this activity, I had my landing net poking out over the water, ready for action. I suddenly noticed a huge tail upending right underneath it. There was a big fish down there, rooting about for bits of bait that had fallen in the water earlier, when I was loading up my feeder. I quickly shallowed my margin rig up, dropping it in alongside my net, throwing in a few pellets. The float buried almost instantly.
I was only holding a short top two kit from my margin pole and luckily this was fully kitted out with black Hydrolastic, along with a puller bung kit. Whatever I had hooked took off towards the island and the pole elastic shot out like a bullet. It was lucky for me that I had tackled up a 0.16mm rig and strong hook, expecting tench. But this was no tench. Once its initial run had stopped, the fish was
too sluggish and heavy for that. To my amazement a huge slab of a bream was soon wallowing on the surface. The bailiff certainly knew what he was talking about when he told me these bigger fish turn up close in! This lovely deep bronze specimen rounded off a great day’s fishing. I will certainly be going back to learn a bit more about Hornbeam Lake, especially now I know where there are some deeper areas and that it holds some surprisingly big fish.
June turned out to be a month for catching bigger bream and skimmers, in a couple of cases, at ridiculously close range!