I decided to have a session at Thorpe Lea, as I had missed the last few days of the RIVER season due to Jake being poorly, I needed to get out and stretch my fishing legs!!
Its been so long since I have been out I almost forgot what I was doing, I had to stop and have a think about what I was setting up and how.
I decided to fish as I had successfully done in the past, with 15mm tiget nut boilies with small pva bags of 3mm green swim stim pellets.
Both rods were set up with 12lb mainline, small korda flying backleads, 3ft of 45lb ESP leadcore, one with a korda lead clip, esp strip tease hooklength, the other with a free running inline lead with korda supernatural hooklength and size 6 owner hooks.
I had a few new items that I wanted to test out also, my new delkim plus alarms, which I had only previously used once on the river for a few hours. I also had my new solar hanga-ball line clips on my solar bobbins that I had not used before.
I didnt arrive until just after 11am due to various reasons, one of which was being up through the night with Jake.
The lake has changed ownership since I last visited, as cemex didnt renew their lease in may 08, so it was taken up by a guy named Gary, who has certainly improved it quite a bit, carpark has been relayed, there are now toilets onsite, plus an office with tackle, food, tickets etc.
One thing I wasnt sure of was that you have to now pick your swim before you set off from the office. there was a guy in the peg I wanted (peg 6) so i opted to walk round and fish the other side of the island in peg 55. It was only a short 100yd walk from the car, but once I arrived in the swim, there was a guy carrying his gear round from the other side of the lake. I waited for him to get back and asked if he was using both pegs, turns out he was with his mate and would be!!!
So I walked back to the office told them the swim was taken and that I woudl set up in peg 4, which was a swim away from where I wanted to fish. After checking with the guy in peg 6 I found that I had quite alot of water to go at, basically from the point of the island which was slightly to my right, to as far left as I could cast as there was not a swim down to my left for quite along way.
One problem I encountered was the water levels were up about 8inchs so my peg was underwater, which meant I could only stand about 4foot from the waters ege, which didnt help casting to the left hand side! I got around this by jumping into peg 5 and cast out then passing the rod over the bush and onto tthe rod rests.
I should really have just set up in peg 5 which would have made it easier to cast, but as I was fishing down the left, I didnt want to risk someone setting up in peg 4, because that would then effectively give me not alot of water to go at, with guys to my left and right.
Both rods were positioned about 10 yards short of the island, any closer and the birds dive down and grab your bait!! Once rod was fishing on single tiger nut boilie with a pva bag of 5 other baits, the other rod was fished with a single tiger nut boilie tipped with flouro pop up corn. I had watched part 2 of the free korda dvd the day before and these guys really advocate the use of bright pop-ups to tip off your standard bottom feed bait. So I thought I would try it, as well as being visual, it also makes the boilie slightly lighter, so the carp would find it easier to hoover up.
Due to the difficulty in casting, I caught the tree on one of the casts causing the rig to get caught in the tree, snapping the hair rig in the process!!
So I retied another rig in the supernatural with size 6 owner hook, this was then recast to the spot. I then decided to recast the second rod, upon checking the rig I noticed the coating on the esp stripteaze wasnt sitting right, my own fault due to my crap rig making skills.
NOTE TO SELF - MAKE MORE CARP RIGS UP THE SAME SIZE - I have a rig wallet full of rigs, but not one of them is the same, so when im fishing If I need to change rigs I need to make one up from scratch!!!
I put out about 50 freebies via the catapult over the area covering both rods, my thoughts being that now the warmer weather was returning the fish might be on the hunt for some grub.
It didnt work, I fished until 4pm and packed up biteless!!!
I have blanked on there before, but to be honest to blank on a water with so many fish in it is kinda bad, but saying that, looking around the lake I only saw one fish caught and that was to the guy in peg 6!!
I suppose in hindsight, I should have tried harder, I was just content in being fishing, it had been quite a while since I was last out proper fishing, I think I was to content to sit there and wait for the fish to come to me.
I didnt see any fish movement at all through the day, but during the day before when I had popped in there I had seen fish surfacing in peg 6, which I why I wanted to fish there. In reality, as I only had my heavy barbel rods with me (2.2lb tc) I probably wouldnt have been able to reach the fish if they had shown anyway, the tip of the island was about the extent of my casting.
I think next time, I should take a walk around before I set up to try and find the fish, I suppose even though the lake is very heavily stocked it still takes finding the fish to catch them.
Im tempted to fish twynersh next time, a very nice setting of 8 lakes ranging from match and heavily stocked lakes to low stocked pits with 40lb+ fish in it.
I think that im a little apprehensive about fishing there, due to my previous sessions at thorpe lea, and the ease of fishing there, twynersh seems a lil more tricky. Plus its more expensive than thorpe lea, but then saying that twynersh is a much more pleasant surrounding.
Maybe ill take a wonder around there next week and get a feel for the place!
