The Sessions - April 2021
Monster Crucians
I signed off last month again after having looked back through my diaries and telling you about an amazing trip to the Ebro System in Nov 2012 where I capitalized on some brilliant Carp fishing. Finally this month I can get back to normal and tell you about my last month’s fishing.
4 April 2021 – Ivo, St Ives Lakes
As restrictions started to ease I started watching the weather fronts and made plans to fish two sessions on Johnsons before it closed on 15 April. As soon as it was clear we could travel and the club were going to allow members to night fish I booked my leave and got the Crucian gear sorted and ready.
However I had a free night on the 4th and wanted to visit St Ives with a view to joining with Bream and Tench the targets. There has been a lot on interest in the St Ives complex this season and Gordy has sold out of the Eight Lake ticket which is great news for him and fully deserved for all the effort he has put in to make it a fantastic fishery, but with it being so busy swim choice becomes very difficult.
I dropped onto Ivo and settled on a corner swim where my pal Jock had picked up a few big Bream while Carping. The margin area with overhanging trees was deep and clear so I clipped all three rods at 40-55 yards so the baits were fished along the deep margin. I mixed up a spomb mix of hemp, pellet and sweet corn with a good helping of molasses and put 30 spombs over the area.
The rods were set up with my favourite Avid sinking hooklink as a leader, 45g method feeders and short hooklinks. Two with size 14 hooks and popped up fake corn, the third on a size 10 hook and a single 12mm Pineapple pop up, using my special groundbait mix on the feeders.
I’d love to say it was a brilliant first trip back out but as much as I enjoyed being outside by the water I didn’t get a single bleep on the delkims. I intended to stay all the next day but the weather changed significantly and the wind swung round blowing straight into my shelter and flattened it. I got that sorted and set up again and the temperature dropped and it started snowing, that was enough for me as that was certainly not going to kick start the fish into feeding. I packed up and spent the rest of the morning walking the complex with Jock re-familiarising myself with it, definitely time not wasted.
8 April 2021 – Johnsons Lake, Marsh Farm
I drove down late on the Thursday evening knowing which area I wanted to fish. I’d made a couple of calls to Wil the bailiff and he told me it had been very busy on the Railway bank so I knew a lot of bait would have been put in so definitely did not want to be on there, it hadn’t been fishing well so the extra bait would make it even harder to get bites.
The wind was blowing onto the Chicken bank and the forecast was for a warm day before the temperature dropped and the wind swung round to a north easterly blowing off that bank, leaving what should be the warmer water in front of me.
The carpark was packed when I arrived and that moment of dread was there, “would I get a swim, would I have to wait, am going to be able to fish?” I went for a walk and found a day angler in the swim I wanted to fish, which was perfect and why I drive down late evening. He was more than happy to have some company for a couple of hours, so I set the shelter up behind him, set the rods up and sat chatting until he left at 22:30. I then put the rods rests in, mixed my groundbait up, set the alarm for first light and went to sleep.
9 April 2021
To recap on my tackle, I use the brilliant Free Spirit Seeker Specialist one pound test curve rods, they are perfect for the job and handle the accidental big Carp easily. Reels are small baitrunners, currently I use Daiwa Emcast as they have the twist buster facility, spooled up with 6 pound mainline.
My rig is a metre of Avid 20lb sink braid as a leader and attaching it to the mainline with a water knot, it sinks well and is not as thick and visually noticeable as leadcore, a 35g Drennan method feeder, a short 3 inch hooklink, I use Drennan 6 pound sinking braid to a Guru Super MWG size 14 hook with fake casters as hookbait, I made one slight change dropping the rig putty I was moulding to the leader knot as it was causing bad line twist last summer.
I was up at 05:00, it was cloudy and cold with a good wind blowing onto the area bringing a lovely ripple across the water, which for me is crucial to success with Crucians.
I had the rods and spod rod wrapped and clipped for 40 yards and wanted to ensure everything was accurate, I then put five spombs of hemp and caster onto the spot and left it to settle before casting out the rigs.
I made a change to my special little groudbait mix adding a liquid flavour making it smell very strong and pungent, while keeping the variety of items with different buoyancy levels in it. My thoughts around this were I didn’t want to put much bait in and was planning on recasting the feeders every 45 mins to an hour, so I wanted the feed on the feeder to be really attractive for the fish to home in on.
My friend Matt Wright was planning on fishing the Railway bank but the swim next to me became available so after we spoke about the changing weather fronts he set up next door and what a great decision it turned out to be.
12:35 – I’d been recasting the feeders every 45-50 minutes and kept them all very accurate, we hadn’t seen any fish roll but it just looked right, the temperature was up to 12 degrees with a lovely ripple on the water. Then right out of the blue the left hand rod was away and I lifted into a fish that felt like a Crucian but felt heavy, I slowly played the fish towards the net and it went in first time and looked very fat and huge, we put her in the sling and up onto the scales and what a fish, a new PB at 4-06 and 8 drams, I was over the moon, all the planning had worked perfectly and I was straight on the phone to Julie to celebrate.
13:40 – the next bite was on the same rod but this was definitely not a Crucian and was a crazy male Tench at 6-05.
We then had a crazy 15 minutes at 14:55, Matt had his first bite and landed a Crucian at 4-02, this was quickly followed by one to my rods at 4-03. Two fours in a day to my rods, I couldn’t believe it, amazing stuff.
We then had three Tench between us and at 17:30 I topped up my spot with another five spombs of hemp and caster.
As it got dark I had a take but the hook pulled straight away which to me suggested a foul hooked fish. Matt then had two quick bites with fish at 3-10 and 4-00, we were dancing and laughing on the bank, four fours in a day between us, it was seriously good times.
10 April 2021
The night was thick cloud and as forecast the wind had swung round to a cold north easterly but didn’t feel too bad under the cover of the trees. I spombed five loads of hemp and casters onto my spot and got the rods back out for 06:00.
08:45 – Matt had the first take of the day and what a crazy 30 minutes, he had three fish at 3-12, 4-02 and 3-15, and then as quickly as it started it stopped, the feeding spells were very short.
10:10 – it was then my turn for a short spell, my first take was a Tench at 5-14 which I quickly unhooked and left to rest in the net. With the feeding spells so short it’s important to get a bait back out on the spot as quickly as possible, so the rod was quickly rewrapped and cast back out. Ironically we hadn’t seen a Crucian roll at all on this session and as I cast the rod and released the line it was like watching life in slow motion, the feeder flew through the air and as it was about to land on the spot a big Crucian rolled just as the feeder hit the water right next to it, it was so close I thought the feeder hit the fish. I couldn’t believe it as I thought the fish would bolt away along with its mates…..
25 minutes later that rod rattled off and I lifted into a heavy fish, one of the bailiffs Colin had joined us and was stood with me, we could both see it was a good fish and by the way it was fighting it looked a Crucian. I slowly coaxed it in and then it rolled 25 feet out and we could see it was a massive Crucian, I don’t normally get nervous but on this occasion I did and was willing it not to come off, ever so slowly I drew it over the net and it went in first time and looked huge. I drew the net towards us and lifted it out of the water, we were both speechless it was massive and so much bigger than my 4-06. I quickly unhooked it and left it to rest while I rewrapped and recast the rod, Colin couldn’t believe what I was doing, the fish was so big he was afraid it would get out of the net before we had chance to weigh it.
Once the rod was set I weighed the sling at 6.8oz and then slipped the fish into the sling and lifted it up, we were both speechless, it went 84.8oz, after taking of the sling the fish was 78oz, as we were doing all this Matt and a young lad returned from the shop to witness it all, a staggering 4-14 and a new British Record. I don’t mind admitting I went weak at the knees, what a moment and what a fish and shared with friends who appreciated everything it takes to catch one so big. After the photos I was straight on the phone to Julie, she loves my captures and loves to celebrate with me so I couldn’t wait to tell her.
As much as we tried to keep it quiet it was round the lake within two hours and a steady stream of people came round to congratulate me.
That was the last of the action and I left at 16:00, really short feeding spells but well worth the effort, what a session, we’d had six fours between us and I couldn’t wait to get back.
12 April 2021
I returned on the Sunday night and got back in the same peg, the north easterly wind had brought the cold weather with it and the temperature had really dropped at night to -3 degrees with a frosty morning. I started fishing at 05:30 following my normal baiting approach and was spombing in the snow, it was snowing quite heavily and this continued for two hours, absolutely crazy weather for April.
Well nothing had been caught since I’d left and this continued for most of the day, I was lucky and had one Crucian at 3-06 and a 6-06 Tench.
The following morning was the same and nothing was caught until late afternoon when the angler next to me had a PB at 4-03 and another angler had two 4’s around the same time, again very short feeding spells but very big fish.
I always maintained I would drop the ticket if I caught a 4-08 plus Crucian as it would be tough to beat but after catching a fish so close to five pound and a genuine love for Crucians I have renewed my ticket and can’t wait until next Spring to try to break that magical figure.
I have started the process of submitting a claim for the British Record, I’ll let you know how that goes in the coming weeks.
22 April 2021 – Sandmartin, Blue Bell Lakes
The weather had not changed since I returned from Johnsons nine days ago, we still had the north easterly winds, clear sunny days and cold frosty nights, definitely not Tench fishing weather and it wasn’t forecast to change anytime soon. Working full time I have to take any opportunity to go fishing so planned a Tench trip eventually settling on Blue Bell. There are good Tench in all the lakes and I planned to fish Sandmartin but getting a swim would be the challenge.
I arrived at 18:00 and it was rammed with people, I walked the complex and thought I may get lucky with a corner swim on Swan but there was a bucket there as I approached it. Eventually I got a central swim on Sandmartin but not in the area I wanted as the wind was blowing off my bank, but it was the only one free so I set up.
I cast the Deeper and knew it was going to be tough straight away as it dropped away so quickly and was so deep, it was 21 feet at eight wraps going up to 19 feet at ten wraps and the back to 21. The obvious area to target was the 19 feet hump so I put ten spombs of hemp and caster on the spot. The rigs were set up with the Avid leader and 45g method feeders, 3 inch 10lb braid hooklinks to size 12 Super MWG hooks. Hook baits for the night were treble fake caster on one, tutti wafter on the second and a pineapple pop-up on the third, they were then cast out for the night.
23 April 2021
Nothing happened in the night unsurprisingly as it was very cold down to -2 degrees and frosty. The Carp lads were doing well with fish to 42 but I hadn’t seen any Tench roll and I wasn’t feeling confident. I added liquidized and whole sweetcorn, ground hemp and tares to my mix and put another ten spombs on the spot. I recast every hour and swapped my hookbaits about trying to buy a bite.
By 14:30 I’d still not had a touch so swapped two rods over to heli-rigs with worm kebabs and chopped worm in the feeder, with the third on the method feeder and fake casters recasting every hour.
I spombed again at 16:00 and kept up the hourly recasts but to no avail. I did the night and into the next morning without a touch which was disappointing but expected as the deeper water had just not warmed up enough to get them feeding, but there is always next time and I’ll be out again soon trying my best.
As I finish writing this piece looking back on a brilliant month and to cap it all off I made the front cover of AT again with another surprise I can’t talk about until next month.
Until next month, tight lines and be lucky 😊
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