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The 8-Ball Mirror - Michael Stewart
The weekend after the capture of my first A-Team member, ‘Black Spot’, I was back in Cambs again.
On arrival at the lake there were already four others fishing, all of which were bivvied up on the far side, my swim from last week was free however, so I quickly dropped the barrow off and had a scout about for surface fishing opportunities. Unfortunately none presented themselves. With a rather wet weekend forecast and with some rather ominous black clouds on the horizon I decided to get the shelter up and get myself sorted.
The rods were soon fishing, the first was cast off the island to the spot where I’d previously landed ‘Black Spot’, the second was positioned in the same area, but further down to my left, tucked under the canopy and the third was flicked down my right hand margin.
I primed each rod with a mixture of crumb, particle and pellet; with the fish seemingly preferring small baits a good helping of 10mm Dynamite Baits Crave Boilies was also added.
The first two rods were fished on short Chods with a small white pop up added to each hair, the third and margin rod was rigged up with a semi-stiff blowback rig and baited with a balanced Crave hookbait.
Luckily all this was achieved before the storms and downpours arrived, some of which were biblical in proportion!
The rain continued for most of the night and into the early morning, I’d had no indications or seen any signs of activity, but I was still confident, I was happy with where I was and how I was fishing.
However as Saturday passed and Sunday dawned and as the weather got worse my confidence slowly began to ebb. It rained and rained and rained and with the tail end of hurricane Bertha on the way I decided to do the sensible thing and head for home.
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I returned this weekend and was a little surprised to find only three other anglers on the lake, especially given the somewhat, more favourable drier conditions.After a quick chat with them I trundled off with my barrow for a look around, I didn’t have to wait long before I found some fish, as there was a few milling around in the surface layers.
I dropped the barrow and grabbed my bucket of floating expanders, introducing a few oil soaked freebies into the area.
I sat there for probably half an hour introducing a dozen or so pellets every few minutes, letting them drift out gently on the breeze to an area where the fish would feel confident feeding.
They seemed to be just off the back of the wind line, so I catapulted a large pouchfull on the money and went back to grab the rod.
By the time I returned there was several more fish in the area, they weren’t exactly feeding heavily but they were definitely picking up the odd pellet, doing a circuit of the weed bed each time they came round.
I carried on being patient; I didn’t want to ruin my chance by introducing a hookbait too early.
Another half hour passed before the time seemed right, I flicked my bait into the area and introduced another good pouchfull of freebies, slowly a group of fish moved in and began to graze… this was my chance….
Finally after a couple of heart stopping moments I hooked one!
I carefully played it, doing my best to keep it up in the water and away from the weed; gingerly I applied more and more pressure and eventually eased it into the folds of my waiting landing net.
One of the other members (‘Clippo’) was soon on hand to help secure the fish, whilst I sorted the camera and unhooking mat.
On the scales first time, she registered 29lb 15oz, before Clippo kindly notified me that the sling wasn’t completely off the mat! A slight re-adjust saw the needle on my Reuben’s nudge to the 30lb mark! After a couple of quick snaps I released her back to her watery home and she soon glided back to the depths.
As I re-sorted the rod I noticed the odd fish still taking a freebie or to, but I’d been feeding for nearly two hours and was more than happy with what I’d already caught, so I decided to set up camp and to get the bottom baits out.
The first rod was fished to the point of the island on a short Chod rig baited with a 12mm White Crave ‘Corked’ pop-up. This was then healthy baited with a mixture of my particle crumb mix.
Weed beds around the surface of the island meant my second rod couldn’t be fished under the canopy, so I opted instead to fish it around 30 yards out on a nice drop off between two less dense weed beds. This was rigged up with my usual hinged stiff link, a Crave Corkball Pop-up was added to the hair and the spot was primed with half a kilo of mixed Crave boilies.
The last rod was cast all of ten yards into around 12 feet of water along my right hand margin, rigged up with a 12/15mm Crave Snow-man, blow-back style, it landed with a real ‘thud’. It was lightly baited with a few pouchfulls of Halibut Pellets and a mixture of Crave boilies.
With camp set up I sorted some dinner and enjoyed the evening, which passed without incident.
I was awake at first light and quickly got the first brew of the day on, as I watched the water. A couple of fish showed in the area but no take occurred.
A couple of fish were cruising on the surface and I wasted most of the morning trying to tempt them, but to no avail, the extra cloud cover and brisk breeze made things difficult and by midday I’d given up.
After a quick trip back to the car and a chat with the other members the afternoon passed and it was soon time to refresh the rods and baits.
Early evening and I was having a brew with ‘Camo’ Dave, when I had a few bleeps on the island point rod, I thought it was a liner, but on closer inspection the indicator pulled up tight and the line pinged out of the line clip. I was quickly on the rod and soon into a fish.
I applied some pressure and desperately tried to keep her out of the weed, eventually after a little bit of persuasion I guided her clear and she was soon in the net, ‘Camo’ Dave doing the honours.
She wasn’t a small fish and on closer inspection a distinctive 8 shaped scale pattern gave her away as another A-Team member known as 8-Ball. On the scales she registered a very pleasing 37lb 1oz. After a few pictures I returned her to the water, none the worse for her experience.
I soon had the rod back out on the spot and topped it up with another 3kg of the crumb mix, but unfortunately the night passed without anymore action.
Once again I was up at first light and once again a few fish were beginning to show, with the wind picking up I was confident of another bite and I wasn’t disappointed.
10am and the margin rod was away, the fish keeping down deep and swimming around in circles, I thought I had it under control when all of a sudden it ripped off, powering away under the middle rod and into a weed bed. At this point I happened to glance over my shoulder and noticed Dave going past with his I gear, I gave him a quick shout and he kindly wound in my middle rod, but it was too late… The hooklink parted either from the pressure, or by being cut on one of the numerous Mussel beds what inhabit the lake, either was my hatrick wasn’t to be.
I put the middle rod back out and slowly began to pack away, the loss of that fish slightly tarnished the two earlier captures, but I reality I thought I couldn’t grumble too much with thirty pound fish off the top and bottom!
