ANGLERS DIARY:
SCHOOL HOLIDAYS AND NO CLOSED SEASON
WHAT COULD BE BETTER?

Hello again all,
Just a little report about the school holidays, the lake I regularly fish has not got a closed season so I took advantage of it.
The school holidays proved to be full of productive sessions, my first treck was to my local water, "The Glade" where I had a float rod and a
"bottom feeder" set up on my other rod with boilie as I’m trying for the carp finally now lol.

I was having a good day roach bashing - having about 10 roach out by midday, a few hours later, a member of the lake and his two sons who I regularly fish with came up to say hello, they said that they saw lots of activity in a couple swims next to me - like tench bubbles etc. We had a nice long chat and when he left I went to that swim with my float rod, some scopex flavoured sweetcorn and a net etc and after literally five minutes of putting out the float, I had a take, but pulled out. So out I went again, and the same thing happened! Third time lucky, I was in to this...a nice 3lb crucian carp


I thought that this would be a good place to stay, so I had another cast and scattered a bit more loose feed around my float, then under it went again, and I was in to another little crucian, this time at 2lbs 2oz. A nice lot of roach and two crucians, a good day. Nothing on the boilies unfortunately.

A few days then passed, and I went to my Nans in Essex for a couple of days, so I decided I would fish a lake in a public park called, "Raphaels Park", as it’s the only lake there I could find with no closed season. As I did at the Glade, I put a float rod out as well as one for carp. Now this lake has been thought of as one of the hardest lakes in Essex, so I didn’t expect to catch, but I was happy to get out anyway.

The first day, as I expected, I had nothing on both rods. So the day after I went again and this time I thought I'd try out scopex boilies on the carping and my homemade scopex flavoured sweetcorn on the float, I wasn't expecting to catch that day either as no-one really catches from that lake at all, but as I said before, I was happy to get out.

At around 2pm, I was checking my float...it wasn't there! So as usual I got concerned, it couldn’t have been a fish could it? This is one of the hardest lakes in Essex! So I checked my line and it was tight, facing the opposite direction I had cast out to! So I reeled in and felt this big weight on the end, and it revealed itself to be a mass of weeds. So I reeled in all this slack line and all of a sudden I felt loads of hard tugging, I was shocked! Could this really have been a fish? I played what was on the end for a matter of 5 or 6 minutes and when it finally surfaced it was a lovely 4lb 4oz tench...and yes, as you will see in the pic, it was absolutely CHUCKING it down!


Another few days later, I was back at my local water, the Glade for another bash at carp on one and float on the other . Had a nice day overall on the float in general, a nice bit of roach bashing always does a bit of good. Had a nice few roach out that day, the biggest being about 7 or 8 ounces.

I decided to choose a different make of scopex boilies this time. I chose to use Dynamite Baits Birdfood Scopex boilies in a Dynamite Baits Scopex glug and let the boilies soak in that for a few days and use them as bait and a few as loosefeed on a stringer or in a small pva bag. Then after all these sessions on blanking on boilies, my bite alarm went like mad, I struck into it and I was in to a new p.b tench -weighing in at a respectable 5lbs 4oz



By this time I was over the moon and if things couldn’t get any better, my uncle came for a fish for a couple of hours and whilst he was there about an hour in, the bite alarm was off again! I was into another nice male tench at a good 3lbs on the dot, and about an hour after that I was in again on those boilies - another tench at around 3lbs 4oz


My next and final session of the holidays was to Hartley Lands Farm Fishery. I went with another member of the Glade - Peter, two of his friends and their sons. We all decided to fish the reservoir on the complex as it was good all year round for all types of species and had carp to 28lbs, perch to 4lbs and roach and rudd to about 2lbs. I had a method feeder on the carp rod with hair rigged scopex sweetcorn. On my other rod, I was floatfishing maggots about two rod lengths out. It was starting slow, I had had one nice little roach so far. The float went under for a second time and to my surprise it was my first gudgeon of the season!

I was then a little happier as I was surprised to see a gudgeon come out where there was so much competition for food from the silvers. My bite alarm then went screaming off and after a nice few minutes playing the fish, I was surprised to see a nice 5 and a half pound mirror carp come out!



I was the only one to catch a carp out of the lot of us...but that wasn’t it, as the others left, it was just me and Pete. About 4:00pm, my bite alarm went screaming away again and I hooked in again to what seemed to be another nice fish, and it was! A nice 6lb 1oz mirror!

It was then getting a bit late and I decided to pack up the carp rod so when we packed up it would be a bit quicker to get away. I was having good fun on the float - roach bashing, then I decided to go on corn on the hook and throw in a handful or two of sweetcorn as we were leaving soon and to my surprise I hadn’t filled the fish up, I'd brought in a nice 3lb mirror carp.

So overall, the holidays were great, and I'll be keeping you updated with my fishing diary in the next update!

TIP OF THE MONTH:
Start to fish with sweet flavours such as scopex or brasm, this is seems to bring in the tench etc., as they're soon to be spawning and have a sweet tooth.
If legering, go on to hair rigged sweetcorn with a free running method feeder. If not, have a go at the maggot swimfeeder with double maggot on a size 16 hook and about a 6 inch mono hooklength, this should also bring in a variety of species and remember to re-bait every 20 minutes or so, then as you have a big bed of bait (if not having caught anything) switch to casting in about every 30 minutes and you should catch!

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED:
If you have any questions - I'll be happy to give out some advice and try to help you out!

Happy fishing all,

Tight lines!

Ash