Process of finding the fish at Creedy over 3 sessions.
A quick summary of the 3 sessions at Creedy including process of elimination to find out how we could trick the beasts into rolling over our net. I fished alongside notable blogger Clark Adams who runs the Devon Carp fishing videos (link at bottom) and Nicky Land another local Carper.
Session one
Between us we have only ever fished Creedy for about 2 hours. We have never done a proper session, so for us we were very excited knowing that if you hit this lake right you can have a non stop day. Armed with buckets of bait and no real idea we were up at 3, off by 4 and fishing by 5:30am. The lake was dark when we got there so we set up just the rods and chucked out pva bags randomly until the sun came up. As soon as we had some light we checked out the stunning old lake and stayed in the swims we picked. I was up at the water fall swim and Clark the next swim down. Nicky wasn't with us on this trip. After picking our spots, we put out some bait. Both of us decided on spods and spombs to get a bed of bait out. It was the end of the summer season so we didn't put out too much, my bait consisted of boilies and pellet. Throughout the day I swapped from bottom baits to popups to try and work out what would catch. All day fish had been topping on the surface all across the lake so we were very confident. Around half way through the day things weren't looking good, we stayed in our swim and hoped that something might find out bait. At this point I decided to make a fail safe spot and feed in a lot of bait into my right hand margin. The day slowly went by with another local angler taking A couple of fish on his bank. It got very late and we only had a few hours remaining, so I put one rod on my baited area in the margin. Around this time before it was dark, Clark had a screamer and banked a lovely mid double common. As it got dark we only had a few hours left, and saved by the bell my margin rod went. I also managed to bank a common on a yellow popup. Probably the smallest Carp in the lake.
Session two
Not alot to report on this session, very similar to the last. Although I tried a very different approach. Since the last session we heard the maggots seem to work very well. With this in mind I ordered a huge amount of maggot and some house boilie hoping this would give us the edge. On our first session we noticed that the local who banked some fish had a large amount of fizzing over his area. Whether this was him baiting or not the first place I wanted to fish was there. Same as last time, we waited for the sun to come up to find the fish. It seemed that when the sun came up the fish and fizzing were in front of us, so no need to move. I think that in our excitement I was too keen to try my maggot out, and so I spodded in alot of bait. Sure enough the disturbance from both mine and Clark's baiting had spooked the fish out of the swim. Using a maggot blowback rig I cast and hoped. On the other rod I used a double hook bait of bloodworm boilie in case they weren't keen on the maggots. Throughout the session I hoped the fish would return, but they never did. I had a very heavy weekend, and moving across the lake didn't seem like a fun idea, so I stuck it out in the same swim all day with no joy. Not alot to report on that session, but the prize came in our next trip.
Session three - The result
Right, so on our second session we spoke with the local that had success on the first session, and had told us a lot of things that were very important about the venue. He had said, along with the bailiff that the swims we were in were some of the best, and that the fizzing we had seen was natural feeding and thoughts that it may have been bloodworm they were feeding on. This session was colder, leaves were dropping and it was the start of autumn. He suggested we tried single baits. Same time as ever, when it was dark. My plan was to hit that swim again knowing that fish naturally feed there its going to be my best chance. Armed with less bait and some new ideas in my head, we got fishing. This time I was joined by Clark again and also local Carper Nicky. My first choice of bait was to run with bottom baits and pop ups, but after watching the fish jumping so much I changed to zigs. The whole lake was covered in leaves and amoungst it I could spot areas of low pressure causing the leaves to spin and the fish were loving it. I found that if I fed small 10mm baits into my swim I would keep them in the area, and feeding. After an hour or two Clark and Nicky had moved swims twice to find fish and it payed off with Nicky taking some fish. Around the same time I had some fish. The first fish came off the bottom and it fell to some 10mm boilies. Meanwhile on the zig rod things were hotting up. I had liners but more importantly it was banking me some fish. I found that the boilie I was feeding in kept them interested and as it was shallow water, I put my zig around 2 foot off the bottom(foot from the surface) I could catch on bottom baits and the zig. Another note was that casting in didn't bother them, and if I didn't cast my zig right into the low pressure swirling leaves, I wouldn't get a bite. By the end of the session Nicky had banked 2 lovely mid double commons and I managed to find 6 fish, 5 commons up to 15lb and topped the day off with a 18lb mirror on the zig. So all in all, this long boring summary explains what we needed to do to find the fish. Zigs worked very well, as did small bottom baits, but more importantly if your not on the fish, you have no chance!!
Here are 5 of the fish I banked..
View the video here and subscibe to Clarks growing blog!
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