Ash specimen lake again, 4 fish banked in flood conditions

Right so I hit up Ash again, had two days so I packed the car in prep for a night IF I wanted to stick it out for two days. 26th November, very wet, raining 80% of the day (which the Carp loved!) flooding across the south west and very bad in Somerset. The venue has 3 ponds but on this trip every field around the fishery were lakes due to the flooding! I have a short video below, 3 or 4 minutes of fishing and the last 7 odd minutes is a tour around the flooded fishery and surrounding fields. Very interesting!

So I was at the lake and fishing nice and early, probably around 7 am. This time I fished the far end of the lake which I believe was the deepest part and the back of a new wind. I baited light using nothing but boilies. I found a nice over hang to the left, deep water in font and another margin in the easy lake behind me just in case the main lake wasn't doing anything. I fished the over hanging tree and the easy lake with a pop up rig with a bright b5. After around an hour I had a small scaley mirror from the easy lake, off the mark. But with no joy in my main swim I moved to the end of the main lake where I have had fish before but in the hotter months. I had also seen one fish top the surface at that end so with nothing else to see i went for it.

Once set up, I kept one pop up rig on and put it out under a tree to my left. I then changed another rod over to match my third rod. I had the lake to myself and with the conditions I wanted maximum chance so I used three rods. The other rig which I had on my second and third rod consisted of a boiled tipped with a trimmed pop up the same size to create a well balanced double bait. One rod went into a margin and the other in front of me next to some dead Lilly's. These were the rods that produced.

At around lunch time things were looking slow but then my right hand rod( the margin rod) went mad, I lifted into it and after around 5 minutes my long awaited prize rolled over the net. My target was a 20 from this lake as they go up to around 29lb. This was an upper double Mirror at just over 17 and was a great moral boost! Through out the day I baited little and not too often of around 4 or 5 baits that matched the hook bait along with 3 boilies on a pva string which went on the rig each cast. I recast my rig into the same spot and the trap was set again.

Within an hour or so, from the other spot in the dead Lilly's, another fish was tricked into taking the bait. Got this fish in the bag and I was happy to see that it was a Common. I am certain that this common is the one I had on my previous trip, as it weighed the same and looked exactly the same. I weighed the fish to see if it was a similar size and it was 10lb 10. Not the biggest fish but lovely to bank a Common and a Mirror.

After these two fish I was very happy and thought about doing the night for a chance to get a 20 as clearly the lake was fishing well. Shortly after I had another run from the margin rod again and managed to pick out another Mirror at around 10lb. It was starting to get dark and I made the decision to stay the night, as I set my bivvi up I had to move my car as the car park became fully flooded. As I waded back from the car I found a deep puddle which went over my waist. Although I had spare clothes and was warm and dry within half an hour, I decided to take down the bivvi and leave for home on good note with fish on the bank!

 So a nice day session at Ash proved worth while, with 4 fish banked and 2 wellies full of water. The best thing I took from the day was how well my new rig worked, simple but perfect. Each fish were nailed in the bottom lip, and since this trip I have used the rig and bait at each session and has worked brilliantly. So I think I know what I'll be using most of the time this winter. 

Here you can check out the short video on my session...