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Lake Bolsena 3rd - 9th September 2012

It was great to be back on the banks of the Lot, it was looking as beautiful as ever now looked in perfect condition. The spot I had chosen though has its problem not least the fact that night fishing is banned, its right next to the road and so visits from the police must be expected and also noisy at times with the motor travel. So why fish there, well all the above mean it is virtually negelected by anglers and it has lots of big fish in the stretch certainly 2 or 3 in the 60ib mark and lots of 40ib fish. My best from the stretch is a 50ib mirror although I have seen much bigger fish in the many snags and overhanging trees that line the banks.

It was late Monday morning by the time I had popped to the local supermarket and stocked up with the essentials ie beer! I wanted to fish a different swim to the one I had fished the last few years just to check the options it offered. There was a some good looking spots to my left margin with some fallen trees in the lake and a scan from the boat showed fish basking in the snags with some good fish among them, that was two rods sorted. The right hand rods would be fished across river on a plateau created by the bend in the river and the last one down the right margin against an old sunken wall. As I normally do I scattered a good 5kg of Monster pursuit boilies soaked in the food dip around the whole area. With a river I really like to get plenty of liquids leaking out of the bait and travelling down in the flow to give the signals out to the carp that food was there.

Given that there wasn’t likely to be any problems from crayfish I was back on the 20mm snowman rig and being the first night I wasn’t sure about the night fishing and so just fished two rods which were tucked away. Being nearly June meant that there was probably only 6 hours of darkness anyway. No visits by the Police during the night but I did get a visit from a large catfish to one of the rods in the middle of the night. I really do dislike catfish and knew straightaway what it was as soon as I hooked into it. It probably weighed around the 30ib mark and I just hoped I wasn’t going to get plagued by them.

Next day was really hot and the river looked lifeless although drifting around in the boat you could spot large carp just basking in the snags, nothing seemed to be able to tempt them to feed however. The next night I left all the  rods out  but not a bleep to any of them and whereas the previous night I heard the carp crashing out during short periods, this night the river was silent. Fortunately the next day was cooler and the carp seemed more active with fish bow waving backwards and forwards across the river. Still no day time action which was strange as in previous years I had done okay in the day. I topped up the plateau rod with another 5kg of chopped boilies and pellet as it was the last night, fishing 3 days and nights was pushing it and I would rather leave without getting caught and fined so as I could return another time.

Soon after dark the carp could be heard crashing and I was confident of action and was proved right when around midnight I had a drop back on the plateau rod and a good fish was on. Straightaway I knew it was a carp which was a relief and I played it across the river and away from the snags, the fight in the deep margin went on and on but eventually it was in the net and I could make out in the moon light a stunning common. The fish was sacked and would be weighed in the morning as I didn’t want to be using any torches just in case, since it was early the rod was out back out as I was expecting more. Two of the other rods went off during the remainder of the night and both turned out to be barbel which was slightly disappointing. The carp was weighed and photographed at 43ib a new personal best common for the Lot.