Tom Oliver reflects on a month to remember.
The first trip of May was at my syndicate lake and after recent success I was keen to get back for another go. I arrived at the lake to the normal silly season scenario of all of the main swims being taken bar a couple the furthest walk from the car park. As it was all that was left me and a friend Dave quickly filled the gaps and set up home for the weekend. The swim I was in was a corner of the lake with a snaggy margin to the right and some open water in front. I fished one rod to the snaggy margin on a solid pva bag and the other two on a spot at around 50 yards range I fancied. I baited with my normal mix of scalded mixed sized pellets, Cell boilies and chops from Kent Particles. I also added some maggots to the mix as they had helped bring bites on previous trips.

My first bite occurred that evening on the solid pva bag and unfortunately I was cut off shortly after hooking the fish. I was gutted to say the least but a bite so early on in the session was a good sign. We watched the fish showing over a hatch on the opposite side of the lake for most of Saturday. Out of the blue, my middle rod on the baited spot in open water roared off and I was once again doing battle with an angry carp. Everything went to plan and a 23.10lb common was soon being held aloft for a photograph. I re-positioned the rod and everything was quiet again. At around 10am the following morning my left hand rod went in to absolute melt down.  Upon lifting in to the fish it proceeded to strip line off of me at a rate of knots and was around 100 yards away from me at one point. After a lengthy battle of toing and throwing a large pale mirror slid over the cord, and one of the lake’s A-Team lay beaten in the folds of the net. The fish was identified as “Pablo” and weighed 34lb 6oz.

We managed to get some great shots and I was left to pack away a happy man with a smug grin on my face. The following weekend I hoped to return and try and get amongst the fish once again but upon arrival I discovered the lake was already at capacity and with my girlfriend due down for Saturday night I decided to fish on the big lake for a few runs. We had planned a big social with a bbq and the works and getting plenty of action would allow Jen to try and up her p.b. We had a great time and caught more than our share of carp and small catfish over large spodded areas of the mixed combo pellets from Kent Particles. Jen even caught a new p.b all by herself at 17.14lb and I managed one of the better ones at 24lb on the nose. I had a great weekend and couldn’t wait to get back to the ‘proper’ fishing!

My last trip in May coincided with the bank holiday weekend and I really wanted to get down to my syndicate despite having a gut feeling getting a swim would be a slim chance. My boss let me leave work early at 2.30pm and I was at the lake by 3pm and thought I would have my choice of a few swims at this time of day. On pulling in the car park however I was greeted with a full to capacity lake but decided to go for a walk with a bucket anyway. I stopped at most swims for a chat and it seemed everyone was down for the weekend making the most of the extra day. I was spilling my frustrations out to a friend Craig and he kindly offered to let me double up with him for the weekend. The swim was the largest on the lake and commands a big area of open water with more than enough room for us to fish with two rods each. I was made up with the offer especially as Craig had already caught one and it was looking bang on for it so gratefully accepted and returned to get my gear.

I decided to fish with my rods on two different spots, both over a small amount of bait for the first night that I planned on upping each day of the trip. I also wanted to try and use something the fish would approach with less caution as I was pretty sure from previous results that they normally backed off of fresh bait for at least twenty four hours. With this in mind I decided to use a mixture of small pellets up to 4mm in size and add to this some 10mm, 15mm and 18mm chops of Cell from the Kent Particles stable. To give myself the edge over my rival anglers I boiled up some lake water and scalded the whole mix to start the breakdown process thus giving it the effect that it had already been sat in the lake for twenty four hours. It also helps to release the oils and scent from the bait and would hopefully draw any passing fish in to the area.

I have been playing around with combi-rigs recently and having great success with some incredible hook holds. I have been using 25lb Mirage for the boom sections and the 20lb Trickster Heavy for the supple section next to the hook tied with the Albright knot. This is coupled with a size 6 Covert Incizor with a slow Supa Shrink kicker. I have been using bunches of fifteen or so maggots to tip my favoured 10mm pink Cell pop-ups again hoping the fish would treat them with less caution. Before casting I dipped the whole lot in to some Shellfish B5 boilie glug for boosted attraction with a natural and fruity flavour.

To cut a very long story short we ended up having a blinding weekend and between the pair of us we managed fourteen bites and five of which were from fish over 30lb with the rest falling in to the 20lb+ bracket. The highlight for me was a fish known as “The Brute Mirror” at 33.14lb and an extremely pretty fish known as “The Little Peach” at 20.08lb. I can’t wait to get back and hope I can continue the recent run of success I’ve been having. By thinking a little outside the box, I have been able to make the carp feed on my bait even when times have been difficult.

Until next time….