Sanctuary - Giving carp space turned patience into an advantage.

‘stop and think about it’

I was fishing a tricky syndicate which at the time was a little above me, but I was ready for the season ahead and I knew I was going to learn a lot.

The fish in this particular venue were big, scaley, sought after and because of that they were pressured, moreover the real good’uns had been in there years and I’m sure they had seen it all.

At certain points I’m sure it could be as simple as finding them, putting a bait in front of them and nicking a few, but those type of situations didn’t come round often and they never fell in my lap.

Each time I was lucky enough to find fish in an area that was free I learned to always, stop and think about it, the potential fish at stake were always worth the extra bit of fore thought.

 

‘how nice of me’

This one particular weekend I had planned to do an over nighter and it was always beneficial to get to the lake for first light, those first few laps at first light would very often give me everything I needed to know. 

In 40 mins I could find what would have taken me the rest of the day if I had turned up 2 hours later. So at 4am I set off arriving at the lake around 4:30 and by 5am I had found a group of fish fizzing up in a channel between 2 islands.

I had walked it a few times earlier in the week and was technically tracking these fish along the river bank, I was rubbing my hands together all week as every few days they would be a swim down, I guessed that they were following a new wind and I really felt like I was building up a picture of their movements (at least for this period).

So Friday morning as I said I set off early and as I rolled up to the gate full of optimism I saw that the carpark for the river bank had 4 cars in it…. Not ideal! I rolled in, parked up and as day light was breaking I crept past 4 sleeping anglers who were occupying the swims I had seen them in earlier in the week.

Fortunately the last swim down from the guys was free, there were clearly signs of fish in the area and I was technically in front of the direction I assumed the fish were travelling. The bucket went down and I breathed a sigh of relief, now how do I play this?

Im always in 2 minds when I find them at first light, rush and try to sneak a rig amongst them there and then which would be my usual go to, but knowing how these fish respond to pressure the chances of blowing the opportunity was likely. I had time and I trusted that if I left them alone there was a chance more fish would accumulate in front of me. The fish were happy and I was going to maintain there happiness by occupying the swim and not fishing for them, how nice of me.

As the morning rolled on a few more anglers had turned up, one had gone to my right and another guy had gone opposite, this with all my theories about the lake I thought that was a good thing, the angling pressure now was surrounding me and the fish and I knew if I didn’t move them off they would have no safe water to move into and would subsequently stay in front of me. 

 

 

‘rod crumpled in the rests, the tight clutch stripping’

As I said I would never usually do this but I was confident in my plan and as I took a slow meander back to the van to load up my barrow I felt quite chipper about how I was playing the situation.

I took the majority of my stuff to the swim and set up well back from the waters edge, but the rods and buzz bars stayed on the barrow, I didn’t dare stand in the front of the swim I wanted these fish to feel like they had the safest part of the lake. So much so to kill some time I popped off to the shop to get a coffee and some supplies.

I spent most of the morning keeping myself busy and around lunch time I felt I may be able to cast a 1oz lead on braid just to find a few clear areas. The plan was to bait with what I was going to fish with later to try and build up their confidence. At the time I was fishing solid bags with CC Moore’s Prom Stim bag mix and dead maggots so I made up a couple of decoy bags with stones in and I spooned them out to the left and right of the spot along the marginal patrol route just off the island.

 

By this point it was early afternoon and the other anglers had clocked that I kind of wasn’t really fishing, they observed me walking up and down the bank, they must of thought I was nuts! In fact I was starting to think maybe I was, as those guys had picked up a few bites by this point, but I stayed the course and at 5pm, 12hours after I got to the lake I spooned my first rod out to the spot, sunk the line, paid off as much slack as I could with it being close quarters and set the rod on the alarm with the bobbin swinging at the floor.

For all my meticulousness I had forgotten to switch the alarm on, it would seem that even in my most perfect plan there is always something I may forget to bring me back down to earth.

Fortunately in this instance I didn’t need one, with the rod tips pointed up at 30 degrees to bring the test curve of the rod into the bite and with a tight clutch, my ears suddenly picked up to a commotion, I spun round to see my rod crumpled in the rests, the tight clutch stripping and the line like a laser heading out into the lake.

 

We got one!

I grabbed hold of the rod and adjusted the clutch to give this angry fish a bit of a run, but it is quite close quarters having islands right and left with narrow channels on the near bank, Lilly pads and reeds, the scrap was hairy, I had the rod butt up in the air and the rod tip under the surface being dragged down my right hand margin. I don’t mind admitting I was really hanging on to this one it was really rucking, I felt like I had gained a bit of line on it and when it boiled up I was shocked to see it was further down the margin than I thought, my heart was in my mouth and I some how managed to turn her. I reached round for the net and as she bobbed up to the surface I could see it was a sizeable mirror, the sort of fish I joined for.

She went into the net and I dropped on to my bum from the squat position I was in, lowered the rod to the floor and caught my breath. We got one!

 

"you’ve got the queen of the lake”

I wet the sling, Zero’d the scales and readied the cradle. She looked a good size in the net and as I lowered her into the cradle she seemed to get bigger. I peeled back the sling to see this long well proportioned mirror with one big scale in the centre of its left side. “Oh my God, That’s Single Scale!” I shot a bit of footage with my head blown off, zipped her up and lowered her back into the margin.

I walked up to the guys who were all sitting having dinner and said “I think I’ve got single scale” the guys looked at me with a mixture of positive emotions, I think one guy said “are you sure?” To which I replied “well its a big mirror with a single scale on its side” my head was a spin and luckily one of the guys took the lead.

All 5 of us walked back to my swim and Steve went straight up to the retainer peered in and looking back over his shoulder at us 4 said “yeah that’s her” someone instantly stuck their hand out and said “shake my hand mate, you’ve got the queen of the lake”

We rattled off some photos and I slipped her back and joined the guys up the bank for a glass of wine but if I’m honest I can’t really remember anything that was said, it was very pleasant and my head was blown.

Now relative to the stock of that lake Single scale is by no means the biggest and there were plenty of fish like her in that lake, too many to list. With it being my first season on this lake, I spent the spring chasing them round, picking a few off and getting it wrong at times. I started to peep into the gallery and work out what fish were in what lake as there were multiple lakes, and of all the fish I saw there was one that really pipped it for me and that was single scale. 

 

Single scale - 34lb 4oz - Solid Bag with dead maggot

I thought, cor if there is one fish in here I may be lucky enough to hold I hoped it would be that one and sure enough when I opened that sling and saw it was her my head fell off.