World Carp Classic - Offical Global Website
Lake Bolsena 3rd - 9th September 2012
| John Dearden's blog, part 2a |
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Reality was, I actually had three waters which needed to be fished, a single night on each would not do any of them justice, so it was a case of do one well. Choices made, I would arrive at the water at around 7am, just as the light crept over the mountains and hopefully a few fish would pop their heads out and welcome me to the water. I'm sure this goes for many anglers, but the anticipation is just as thrilling as the angling. The tingle running down your back as you look out onto new waters is one which ranks up there, its one of the reasons I fish and very few things in life have that same magic. My thoughts on the water which I discussed in the last issue were pretty much still part of the planned approach, and after a quick look around, finding fish and good places to position a couple of hook-baits, I 'd settled on the area for this session. Only about 48hrs of angling time, but enough to begin building up the picture. The water in the dam was up by around one meter, which presented some other opportunities, but also this rise in water was to give me further insight into the dams character. Id identified last time some areas, such as the plateaux, which was still going to be one of the target areas. I'd taken a fish from there last time, and it just looked so Carpy that I couldn't resist it. Also on the last trip, the deeper areas straight out in front had good structure, plus I'd picked up a good fish in this very area last time, but lost it on some submerged snags, so wanted to give that another go. To reinforce these thoughts, plenty of good sized symbols on the fish-finder showed up, so even though I really only use the fish-finder for picking up sub-surface conditions, with symbols this size, it would be a difficult place to ignore. Just to my left at around 30m the reed and lily's ended, in around 1.5m of water, then about 3m further on a man-made mound of rocks was just visible, with its peak just breaking the surface. With a base around three metres square, and due to the higher water levels a channel had formed between the lilies and the mound. I wasn't sure if the fish would definitely cruise through here, especially when it would be very shallow in normal circumstances, but it too would warrant a try with at least one hook-bait for a while. The last option, which also looked more inviting with the higher water levels was a bay on the far left. Fishing to it would not be easy. 30m of water grass, bulrushes and lilies to angle over, would mean rod tips at 45 degrees and any hooked fish would need to be landed from the inflatable. Placing hook-baits in this area would also not be possible, due to the round trip back to the bank, so it was to be PVA bags, feeling the cast down to make sure the landing was firm, and not into some of the silt and submerged grass. Particles was to be my main approach from a ground-feed aspect. The water is surrounded by vegetation, so seeds and berries would be part of their staple diet, so I stuck with the Parti-blend, for the one area, while the other would have the Big seed type approach. A visual permanent marker would form one end of my feeding line, while my own, tethered to a large 7oz grip weight would indicate the other end. Feeling the weight down on the bottom, bouncing the weight in a few different places, it felt good and hard. I tend to go for the large long balsa wood floats, which give great buoyancy, which when the right depth has been found, means you can have the float sitting high up in the water, making it easy to see at range. The feed was to be a narrow belt along and in-between the two markers, perhaps just under a metre wide and 10m long. My main thought was to get the fish moving and feeding along this narrow corridor which not only ran left to right, slightly diagonal to the bank, but the depths the feed ran through also varied, again encouraging the fish to move up & down, through and along is length. On the plateaux to my right, the water had swamped some of the lilies which were visible last time, but I still have a dense patch of around 4m2 which as you come up from the deeper water at around 4m, rising quickly to 2m, you then have this flat table top, with approx 1m of open water, before the the lily patches begin. To be continued... |
4am Thursday morning, saw me heading along the dark empty streets, only the cold incandescent lights for company, leaving suburbia, for my second outing to the new venue.
