Emperor Lakes Devon, first visit, recce trip. 1 fish banked

Hello again, this week, with Autumn really underway, I made the hour and a half trip down to check out Emperor lakes near Plymouth in Devon. The complex has a few small pools and two specimen lakes, one syndicate and the smaller one day ticket. I fished on the day ticket fishery which has a good head of carp from double figures up to and over 40. So I thought this is going to be one of my best chances of finding a UK day ticket 30. The lake is also stocked with some cats which go right up to 70lb. I arrived at the lake at around 9:30 and spent a good hour chatting with the very friendly owner Dave and some of his local and resident anglers. He gave me a sneaky insight into the syndicate lake and a tour around the complex. With some very helpful guided tips about the lake. It was also great to get an insight into how he manages his lakes to keep him and the anglers happy. After walking around the lake and checking every spot the clear open water area had fishing moving up by the island and also in a deep spot. I chose my peg on how I could fish over the spots. After using a marker to check out the bottom and depth I decided, with Dave's advice as well, to fish peg 4 meaning I could fish the island, the deep silty water to my right and use a 3rd rod to cast to moving fish or use as a margin/fall back rod.

Peg 4 over looking open water towards island

Right hand side of peg, deep water

After choosing where my rods would go I baited up, my choices of baits for the trip were Pallatrax jungle boilie's as they have been doing well at Emperor and essential b5's. Thought id try two different baits/colours. Using a marker float and a spod rod I put several spod's on two spots, not many as I was going to launch in around half a kilo of boilie's onto the bed. B5 boilie on one rod, Jungle on the other. After a few hours of arriving my rods started going in. I used many different methods through out the session to try and trick a carp, from bottom baits to zigs. I put two b5s on a bottom bait hair rig in the deep water and a snowman of b5 pop up and Jungle on specialised KD rig to balance it correctly. My third rod was dumped 2 rod lengths out with a few boilies around it but kept it ready for and moving fish that take my fancy. So I fished from around 1pm through the night, changed my baits at around 5 as it was getting dark again ready for the night. Put some more free baits in and failed to get some sleep as I had a terrible cold, of all weekends! 

Bang on 3 am I had just managed to get some sleep when my middle rod screamed off like something else! I was in such a haze, my boots when on the wrong way around and I hunted for my misplaced headlight. I got to my rods which had just stopped screaming after a good 30 seconds( that's along time to get to a rod!) I picked up the rod, brought in around 40 yards of slack line thinking damn Ive missed my shot and lost the fish. Then the pressure was back on as I felt the fish plunging for the deep water in front of my peg. After a good 10 or 15 minutes I got it into my cradle, got it on the scales, gave the cat's mouth some klinik where the hook was and revived the fish before putting it into a sling. Within a short while the sun would rise and I could check the fish out and get a photo. The fish wasn't huge and within only a few hours of the sun starting to rise I was confident the fish would be OK in a sling if I were to revive it a bit first. No more hits in the night, but I kept an eye on the Cat through out the night. When the sun rose so did I. As I grabbed the Cat again it went mad so I knew that the fish was fully revived and getting a photo in the light would do no damage to it. After spending a good 20 minutes or so reviving and releasing the fish, I re baited all rods. 

21lb 14oz

 Though out the day I had no more fish or even bites, at around midday on Monday I had fish topping the surface at least every 10 minutes over my baited rods but not even a sniff. I couldn't help but think what I needed to do to get them interested. After thinking, I decided, even though it is a bit colder, the fish were clearly in the top layers so I tried a home made zig 2 feet under the surface to try and temp one. No joy, the zig I used was on a safety in line lead with 6ft of fluorocarbon to a very light KD rig with a small wide gape hook. The zig itself was a b5 pop up cut into a small oblong shape, its bright orange, stinks and I used a marker pen to colour one side black which would be more visible in the gin clear water. My homemade zigs look just like foam or cork which most people use, but with the added advantage of the b5 stench to waft in the water column. 

After midday on Monday I launched the odd solid bag or a stick mix at moving fish just off the island, as the zigs weren't doing anything. Hoping this might catch one out, I used a special, altered D-rig in a solid mag. I came up with the design based on a chod rig without the helicopter lead positioning. I call it the mini chod. The idea behind it gives you the same flexibility as the chod making the pop up able to spin almost 360 degrees in the water so a fish can hook up confidently from any angle, but running on a long hook link to a lead clip as normal. The photo of the rig will be in the follow up to this post so watch this space! I am confident my rig works and can catch out spooky fish, but for one reason or another, the fish didn't want to know. 

After a bleep free day, I re baited at around 5 to take me through until around 10pm when I would leave. The light started to drop as I started to pack down. At 10:30 I packed up my last bits, the rods. So score this session, Toby vs catfish 1 - 0, Toby vs Carp 0 - 1! Here is a video report on the fishing trip. It includes a solid bag and zig tactic and shows you the lake, the swims, the peg and the fish I had.

Here are some more photos from along the way....