New Beginnings

There’s nothing like the feeling of making your way down to the lake for your first session on a new water. The anticipation had been building for months now. The night before my first trip it was hard to sleep. The images of this beautiful venue and its equally beautiful stock filling my mind.

As I pulled through the gates of this historic and incredibly atmospheric lake, I could see it was covered in an eerie thick mist. Looking for signs of fish and likely areas was almost impossible.

Having spoken with the bailiff, and going off previous good form, I opted for a swim in the centre of the lake where two islands caused a pinch point. I thought this would surely funnel the fish through a narrow corridor of water just in front of me. As I settled into the swim and tied some rigs, the mist burnt away, quickly giving way to a bright sunny morning. I had a cast around the swim looking for some likely spots. After a few chucks I located a lovely silty channel not far from the opening between the islands. It seemed a good place to start. I deployed two hinge rigs to the area, opting for dark pop ups to avoid the abundant bird life that thrived on the lake.

 As the morning progressed and the temperature started to sore into the mid 20s, I noticed some fish breaching the surface at range, maybe 30 yards beyond my rigs. Not wanting to spook them. I left them with a safe area to sit. I spread boilies with the throwing stick between the fish and where my rigs were positioned. Hours past and the fish only seemed to gain in numbers, but yet no bites materialised.

I decided to creep my rods further across to where they were sitting which after only half an hour proved to make all the difference. My left hand rod pulled up tight signalling a take! I lifted into an incredibly powerful fish which tried to cut me off on the shallow bar between the islands, thankfully my hook held firm and after a lengthy battle my first fish was laying in the bottom of the net. As I gently lifted the fish in the water it’s beauty become instantly apparent, a jet black common with a golden belly looked back at me, a few pictures were taken and I quickly had it back on its way.

With spawning being imminent I don’t like to keep them any longer than absolutely necessary. I quickly repositioned my rod and repeated the process.

Using the throwing stick offered a different baiting scenario than these fish were used to. This venue is predominantly dominated by bait boats. It wasn’t long before I was in again with my right hand rod now pulling tight, another epic battle ensued and a short while later I had secured my second stunning fish from this incredible venue. It was a beautiful dark leather, my hinge rig still firmly in place bedded in its bottom lip. A few pictures and I quickly had the rod back in the zone.

The rest of the afternoon passed and I continued to feed little and often with just a few liners to show for my efforts, that was, until the light began to fade. I noticed a few patches of fizz lifting up around where my rods were positioned.

 As I sat watching the patches appear, a flurry of beeps went off on my right hand rod that had me tripping over my stove only to lift into yet another fish! This one being a small gnarly old character that I quickly unhooked in the net and slipped back. I repeated the same process as before and then got my head down for the night. That was until the early hours… to my disbelief my left hand rod was away again this time coming in much easier than the previous fish. It was another stunning sparsely scaled mirror, one which perhaps hadn’t been stocked long before;  it was fresh like a new penny.

As dawn broke it gave way to a beautiful bright morning and I decided to wind in for a few hours. Being a bank holiday I knew there would be plenty of new arrivals turning up first thing creating some disturbance. I thought the best thing to do would be to give the spot some more bait and leave my lines out for a while again creating a safe place for the fish to have a free feed. After a short break from the fishing I quickly repositioned both rods and it didn’t take long for my left hand rod to burst into life once again with my fifth fish of the trip! A battle ensued which can on be described as nerve wracking to say the least. The fish was making many powerful runs and seemed to know every snag in the swim, but luckily, after a while, I manged to get the net under it. A truly beautiful fully scaled mirror and to top it off, my largest of the trip!

This fish proved to be my last of the session and it was impossible to not feel over the moon, I was already full of confidence. But what happened on the my next session…well that’s for another day.