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 Mid
November saw the first of the winter weather arrive, a Thursday
which saw heavy rain then icy conditions predicted for the
weekend of my social with the boys on the Essex Club Lake.
I arrived at the ponds on the Friday afternoon, with about an
hour and a half of daylight remaining. The "Scary Swim" was my
favoured destination, with a new wind being pushed into the area
the previous night and the last fish out of the lake coming from
that area it seemed a good starting place. Unfortunately, the
swim next door was occupied by "the lady" who was fishing to the
overhang covered by the Scary Swim. Back to the drawing board.
The lady informed me that someone had been to bait up earlier in
the afternoon (it turns out this was Jaff), and she thought he
had baited the "No Carp Bay", this, the cold weather and the
shallow depth put me off that area.
(Lake 1) With time running out, I opted to give Pond Two a look
for an evening, thinking that a move was still on the next
morning if the fish weren't moving about. With the heavy rain
before, I had hoped that the water pipe in Pond Two might
imminently be switched on, this would hopefully get the carp
moving around.
I spent the night with the rods spread around the lake, fishing
for liners. In the morning, I awoke to find my hangers
underwater and no carp on the bank! I took a quick look over at
pond one and decided to get a good swim on there. With the rest
of the boys turning up later that day I knew it was best to move
early. I was just thinking about a move when Jaff arrived in my
swim (next time say hello when you arrive mate or you'll run the
risk of having a bankstick around your head!).
The reason my bobbins were under water soon became evident.
Rather than the pump being the place the water entered the
ponds, the “outlet” into the small relief channel that runs
around three banks of the ponds (the third bank being next to a
now stupidly fast running river) was now releasing a muddy
stream into the “Back Bay” of Pond One.
Obviously this is the place to be fishing, unfortunately for me,
it turns out Jaff had actually been putting bait into that
corner (this was before the water started flowing backwards), so
was keen on setting up in there.
(Lake 2) I took the next fishable swim down (next to the now
fast becoming unfishable Scary Swim), which also has good line
angle towards the overhang.
During the day “Lettuce” rocked up and decided to splosh round
to the point, after setting up Lettuce then had to move round to
swim nine as the water continued to rise and the point was
getting cut off (and covered!).
The water was covering most of the pathways around the lakes, so
it was decided that we should find a different venue before we
were flooded out.
(Lake 3) We turned up at Glebe with just enough time to get set
up before dark (4pm, ouch). Almost instantly I received a run
from a rod cast to a tree on the other side of the lake. The
fish kited right on a long line, then came towards me, something
didn’t feel quite right, and when the hook pulled I guess I
wasn’t that surprised, but was quite gutted to lose my first
chance of the weekend.
 I
spent my time trying to convince myself that the carp I lost
wasn’t a whacker (the water itself contains one known 30lb
mirror) whilst the social got under way with a
Chilli Con Carpy
prepared by myself, I managed to tempt a snotty, as did most of
us, including Shaun on his new rod & reel setup, unlucky mate!
The next morning arrived with a cracking frost and with no more
action for me we all drank copious amounts of tea and ate the
staple morning carpers food of Chilli Dog’s.
(Lake 4) A phone call from “Geezer” to let me know that some of
the Africa Pit boys were on a small estate lake in North Norfolk
had me packing up swiftly. I decided to head up there and give
that a crack (my luck had to change soon!), so upon arriving,
imagine my despair at finding that they were all blanking too!
Jay soon made amends by pulling out a sorry excuse for a
cyprinid, and my best efforts at snaffling a carp were just not
good enough…
…. The magazines all like talking about “mobile” anglers, well
you can’t get much more mobile than 3 counties in 3 days… eat
that Dave Lane!Basil
● Back to In Session
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