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A Visit to Sycamore Lakes Well that's the monsoon weather over - but I can't remember good old Blighty having a rainy season... can you? The lawn's awash with worms trying to find some non-flooded soil and the robins and pied-wagtails are having a field day feeding on them! And now the sun is out and the reflection off me solar panel bonnet [head] has just caused a car crash on the nearby M1! What this has done to the fish, I don't know. One minute they are all on top gasping for air or just sun-bathing, the next it's hide from the thunder storms. Did you know - that in thunder storms most fish charge around like mad things trying to bury their heads in the mud and silt, or anything else, trying to hide? Last week I went to good old Skeg [Skegness to those from not around here] where we had two drops of rain all week. The rest of the time it was sun, sun and more sun. I got special permission from me boss [her in doors] and had two days fishing. The first day went like this... ...Getting to the lake at 6am [the opening time] I found at least half a dozen anglers already set up - and two of them were fast asleep on their bed chairs. Is it any wonder so many fisheries are fitting steel gates, etc. It's not to just to keep thieves out, but these early morning cheats as well. The Sycamore Lakes Fishery at Skegness has toilets and a cafe which on Sundays does a cracking Sunday lunch. If you fish the right peg you could even fish while your dinner is served! That's not for me though, as I like to eat me roast dinner in peace and quite. I was fishing with my new mate John Phillips and his wife Jane. Janes' first job after helping John set-up was to cook us both our breakfast. Bacon butties with mushrooms x4 each... phew wee. Over the next few hours I landed 3 fish mainly on maize, fished close to the lakes areator. John was sat there fishless - so when we were told our lunch was ready he reeled-in so fast that I got covered in spray! I was fishing three rods; two on the method with maize on short hook-links. These were re-cast every hour and baited up with sweetcorn from Tescos or Kwik-Save at 22p a tin. The other rod was on Red Devil - which as you regular readers know - comes from my friend Mark at www.custombaitservices.com This was re-cast every 2 hours with freebies added every 'take' or every hour which ever came sooner. Shortly after lunch John caught a fish weighing in at around 9lb, not big, but a start - at least he wouldn't blank, that was caught on his only rod fishing with the method and sweetcorn as bait, never-the-less he still left the other rods on boilies. At the end of the day John managed two other carp and a small tench, all on sweetcorn. I had 10 carp but only to 11lb, the bigger fish just didn't feed in front of us. The lads who were asleep on their bedchairs managed 3 fish each but had a 22lb mirror at 5am! They also went home at lunch time saying how boring it was. The sun was shinning all day and between 11am and 4pm you could count the times we had 'knocks' on one finger! My next trip was a few days later... I had two fish by 7am then not a thing till 5pm, when they went mad. I finished up with 11 carp, nearly all commons up to 15lb. They fed much the same, by that, I mean I caught on boilies but not as many as I caught on maize. Generally I find that in July/August and early September that smaller baits work better than bigger baits. This is also true for late November to February. Now why? That's a question for later in the year when I'm not trying to earn a crust or fishing. If you go to Sycamore tell them where you read this and mention my name - as it helps all concerned. Don't be afraid to try Mixers on the ponds, as the carp are very partial to the odd Chummie. Tench go to 7lb+,
roach to 2lb+, eels to 9lb, golden orf and koi can be seen darting
around and look above for birds of prey when the weather's right,
water voles are their food and they have plenty at Sycamore. Dave Williams |