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....

 

Scales

Last time I fished my scales were not having a great time. Since then I have realised my scales were out so did some maths and were my scales read 17.7 for the fish at ash it was actually 22, this expalins why we were all so so shocked when we weighed the fish. So a slight update on the Ash session and my scales have been sent ack for repair!

Ash fishery, hard lake again, second shot, 2 fish out.

Second time around at Ash, start of October, fishing the hard lake again to find one of the big ones. Did a 10 hour day session this time, fishing two methods, on the top and on the bottom. 2 fish banked one lost.

I turned up at the lake at around 7ish, autumn just kicking in. I had nice low pressure, abit of wind. I pitched up opposite to where I did last time, with the wind right in my face. I positioned myself in a spot where I had Lilly's on my right for surface fishing if I got the chance and also had an open water, Lilly and margin spot for my other rods. After pre-baiting I got set up and cast in, was very confident with this session. My approach was to spod 2 areas with a mix I made up prior to leaving home. This consisted of hemp, sweetcorn, crushed boilies, strong glug's, salt, chilli extract and a small amount of ground bait powder to hold it together in the spod. The lake isn't very big and I was only there for the day so I only put out about 4 spods on each of the two rods that were at features, the margin and the Lilly's. My open water rod had just one spod and 2 handfuls of free boilies. Once I was baited up I checked the Lilly's where I was hoping to intercept a few carp feeding off the surface. At this point I had already got 2 or 3 carp confidently feeding, 2 were small, pushing double, but the other was a lot larger. Knowing that if I had a fish it might spook the swim for the rest of the day, I had to be careful not to hook a small one. After a long 2 or 3 hours of watching, waiting and missing, I finally hooked one, and it was the larger one. The fish booted it across the lake taking alot of line. The rod I was using was a very light 8ft rod used for stuff like roach, small carp, small tench etc, but I have alot of faith in that the rod could deal with is so I had one of the best fights against a big carp as the rod was bent double.

The two chaps on another pond who had just turned up rushed around as they could tell it was nice, and on that small rod they were gagging to get involved. One of the guys kindly netted it and we checked it out. They took some shots, a video or two, I gave the fish the care it needed before slipping it back into the lake. 22lb it came out at, and that beat my previous carp from the lake, so 2 sessions and im currently getting better, or more lucky, one or the other. Here is a small video of the fish including the second Carp I had out.

After another hour or so, I hadnt had a touch on all 3 bottom rods, so I thought about changing tactics on one rod but keeping the other 2 in the same spot, just rebaited them. As I was preping my baiting needle with new bait ready to go onto the rod, it streamed off. I was so lucky to get the fish as within seconds I would have been reeling it in to change the bait. I jumped up, tackled the beast that took me on a huge run. Before I saw the fish I thought it was big as it took off, even more than the 22 I had earlier. Finally it topped the surface, this time it was a Common. Got the fish in and it came out at 12 lb 10 oz. Lovely mint condition common, angry aswell so it had its dorsal fin up for the camera! As the session went on I fell asleep for an hour, woke up, and it was time to pack down. So second session on the hard lake at Ash, the fish are getting bigger but still holding out for the monsters that live in there. Here are some photos of the fish.

Afternoon session with Shab at a local venue, 9 fish out

 Fished Mangerton with a friend, a local venue near bridport. We did an afternoon session and had 9 fish, all were under 10lb apart from one. shab fished mainly on on the surface with dog biscuit, and I fished mainly on the bottom testing some new baits. Its a great venue for bagging up on small carp so ideal for testing rigs and bait. After one fish at the begining I then had a streaming run and had a 16lb common. I also had another run on my bottom rod, which turned out to be a big roach which enjoyed two huge pellets on a hair rig, must have been hungry. Here is a selection of photos and a small video of us catching and landing fish!

Big Roach

Secret bait

16lb Common

Ash fishery, hard lake, first visit, 1st september

Right, so Ive fished Ash for a few years, but always fished on the far lake simply because I would rather catch 8 doubles in a day than have a go at catching one big upper 20/30 and maybe blank. But recently I have fished at Ash on the harder lake which contains the bigger fish in attempt to try and trick a big gun. My first session on it I had a 9lb common off the surface but this was only a little trip and I had no real rods in that lake. We were fishing the middle lake and I just had a quick go at a moving fish in the hard lake, and had it. The second time I fished that lake it was the very start of September and I had very high pressure weather conditions but I pushed through anyway. 

With the very high pressure my first thought was surface fishing, with that in mind I fed in over the Lilly's plenty of dog biscuits in the hope that while I'm setting up I might get a few fish confidently feeding. Before setting up I had I little swim spot and cast around a marker to find out what I'm fishing in, once I had my spots chosen I also baited up each spot where my bottom rods will go. I often like fishing with 3 rods on the bottom but on this occasion I had 2 on the bottom and my light 8ft rod for stalking/surface fishing. After a few hours I had the odd fish show on the top but not confidently feeding at all, hardly even picked up a biscuit. In the other lake which I could also fish as I was bang In the middle of the 2 lakes, plenty of fish were showing and I had around 30 or so fish out through out the day all up to around 10lb. Meanwhile in the hard lake my bottom rods had no action until around 11 am and the alarm went crazy. I run over to the rod from behind my peg, slipped over in the mud, and am playing the fish from the floor. When it comes in it hits 16.9 on the scales, not a bad start for the first session on the lake. No more fish were taken from that lake but for me landing a fish from that lake, off the bottom, on my first visit was good enough. It gave me a good idea where fish can be produced in a day session. Here are some photos of the small Carp which I stalked, and also the 16.9.

16.9 Common

9lb Common

16.9 Common

Fishing with friends - photos

 OK, going Carp fishing is fantastic, waking up at 5 am just as the sun rises over a misty lake with double figure carp topping on the surface and no man made sounds for miles. Couldn't ask for more. Well yeah the sound of your rod shooting off. But when that thrill can be shared with friends as well, the experience becomes even more unforgettable.

Sam Russel and his PB Common at 20lb

 Fishing with company can go from one extent to another, it could be you father showing you the ropes and catching a few roach on a bamboo cane, to showing a local how to fine tune your high-tech hair rigs to catch your personal best carp. I have been fishing for a long time now and even worked in a tackle shop for around 7 years, learning to fish from scratch was fun and tiring at times, but it enabled me to have a full understanding into the world of Carping. By learning and working it out yourself, you have a huge advantage into learning more and fishing itself. The one thing that I get an even bigger thrill from is when after all these year of learning, you can forward your knowledge and skills onto someone else and have them catch a fish of a lifetime, and that's down to you! Over the last year particularly, I have fished with a lot of different people, from meeting fisherman at the waterside and getting to know them, to taking out good friends who have never held a fishing rod before. Some of which take some time to learn, and others who seem to pick it up instantly and naturally are able to bait up, and even reel in the monster with the perfect technique on their first hit.
Like Bethan, within half an hour or so of quick tuition, she landed 4 fish, the same as me and as consistently. She did ever thing from baiting up to netting it herself, very keen to learn and get stuck in, and this proved her well as her first fish from the lake was the targeted species, a lovely 12lb Common.

Bethan Jones, first ever carp at 12lb

Those moments when your fishing and something happens which locks in your brain, those things that happen which make you tell everyone when you see them what went on. Whether its falling into a lake(which I have done various times) or catching a fish. When you are older and have done your time, its then when these times sitting by a vast expanse of water hoping for a run, comes rushing into your mind. Many times I have sat by a lake with friends, not caught anything but still gone home happy! As they say, "a bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office". This is so true, like I said earlier, the sun rises or drops over the picturess lake, you have nothing to think about, forget everything and relax in the backdrop of a stunning environment which too many people take for granted, or ignore completely. My friend John once said to me recently, "id rather go and sit by the lake for a couple hours of an evening and maybe not catch anything, than sit inside cooped up in a room playing on an xbox".
John of all my mates has the most enthusiasm and motivation to get out on the bank and get involved, never will I see him sat down with a beer if there is work to be done. Even when we are sat fishing he will be setting up an extra rod or trying to find out if we can find a fish differently. He has already said to me he is looking at buying a set of gear, and out of all the people I have showed what to do, he is the one person who I could leave all my gear with and with in an hour he could be set up, fishing and not miss a thing. He has been able to listen and take in what I've taught him, and on the next session he can put it into practise without a reminder.

John Gage with his brace of Commons

 As much as I love showing someone what it takes to catch a fish, its a treat to fish along side someone with the same knowledge or skills as me, then I can set up and not have to worry about how my friends are getting on. All I have to listen for is a voice from one side of the lake shouting "net, get the net!" at which point I am more than happy to help! In fact that's the moment when your heart starts racing, the adrenaline is pumping through your body like nothing else and you achieve what you came for.

Here are some more photos of fishing with my friends, enjoy