Warm Weather, New Water, Fresh Challenge… Hayden Cook

This entry was posted on 26th April, 2013

Warm Weather, New Water, Fresh Challenge… Hayden Cook

With the warm weather system covering most of the British Isle’s, finally engulfing the cold which we’d become accustomed too, conditions looked good for a fish or two.

I’d recently joined a new water which I’d fished a few times this month but opportunities had been limited, with work and weather sometimes scuppering my best laid plans. I’d still managed a few small doubles, but a twenty was what I was after, to properly kick start my Carp fishing year.

With the weather looking settled for most of the week, I penciled in a short overnighter mid week. After finally getting away from my desk, I suppose I arrived at the lake around 5.30 and after a good hour or so looking round for signs I fish, I finally stumbled across a couple basking in the sunshine under a submerged snag.

The swim was at the far end of the lake and one I’d not seen many people fish, but with nothing else to go on I set up for the night.

The first rod, my left hand rod, was set up and flicked to the snag where I’d seen the fish, the other two were cast out into open water at the mouth of a bay where I had seen a few fish lingering in previous sessions.

One of these was rigged up with the ever faithful chod rig, which was positioned in a slightly deeper, silty area of the lake. The other was arrowed out just to the right of this with a standard bottom bait and was positioned on a raised bar, in around 4-5ft of water.

Once the traps were set, each rod received a scattering of the new Advanta Coconut and Pineapple boilies, along with a few good handfuls of the Cell Mainline Response pellets.

As I settled down for the evening, thoughts started to drift towards the fishing… were there fish in the area, were they feeding on my baits and what rod would rattle off first… if any! I came to the conclusion that my left hand rod would perhaps offer me most chance of success, but how wrong I was!

At around 3am in the morning my left hand rod burst into life, I’d had a take from one of the open water spots! After a brief tussle, the fish unfortunately managed to find one of the snags and everything was solid, it was a case of me nil, fish one!

Not to be too disheartened, I repositioned the rod on the same spot and after a few attempts I had it bang on the money! I topped up the swim with a few more baits and then returned to the comfort of my bivvy, just as I’d started to drift off the same rod was away again!

This time there was no mistake, as I managed to tease a lovely looking Common to the waiting landing net. On the scales she registered a very pleasing 24lb 13oz and after a couple of quick pictures she was soon returned to her watery home.

The last few hours of the session before work beckoned and passed without incident, but I left the lake full of confidence. It was a great start on the new water and was a relief to get that first twenty and possibly even one of the original fish under my belt.

Tackle Box: Advanta Coconut & Pineapple Boilies Trakker Sanctuary Retention Sling ESP Syncro XT 15lb Mono ESP Curve Shanx Hooks Daiwa Entoh 5000 Reels