[taff]

Fished this swim may 17th 2008.Came out 8th in the draw and wanted the elf as it had fished slow for 2 weeks due to the algae bloom.Well the bear and sexeys had gone by turn so chose the shallows as it had done ok on my previous 2 trips.
There was a fair bit of weed in front of me at the start of the week but a bit of raking and a few fish on the bank soon cleared it.
Started the week off with left hand rod about 35 yards out on a nice clear gravel patch,middle rod half way line between me and the bear,right hand rod just off the tree line.Come tuesday all rods where just lobbed out half way as the smaller fish seemed to be on the tree line.
Would love to tell you all about how good i am at this carping and did this and that but the truth is the fish where there i threw plenty of bait at them and caught 40 of them the biggest being a 48:12
The best looking fish of the week was this 34 common

http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn246/taff_2008/IMG_1317.jpg

This post has been edited by Rob: 26 May 2008 - 11:31 AM

[Hammond]

Good write up smogg :lol:

This post has been edited by Hammond: 05 August 2007 - 09:50 AM

[frothey]

Nice one Smogs :thumbsup_anim:

[thecommonman]

Nice write up Smogsy. :rolleyes:
Thought this was going to be the trip for you.
Oh well there is always next time. :Tongue:

[johno]

Nice write up smog ... :rolleyes:

[Joss]

Rob, on Jul 31 2007, 08:39 AM, said:

Only took me 35 seconds to read it. :rolleyes:

:Tongue: :lol: :lol:

[Rob]

Smog, on Jul 30 2007, 10:19 PM, said:

Feck that just took me 35minutes to write :Tongue: :lol: :rolleyes:

Only took me 35 seconds to read it. :lol:

[Joss]

Smog, on Jul 30 2007, 10:19 PM, said:

Feck that just took me 35minutes to write :Tongue: :lol: :rolleyes:

only cause ya cant type quickly.. :lol:

[jad]

good write up smog'see shame about the week, but I know exactly how you felt, our week was absolutely dia unless you were on the fish. Still always next time. I hear Joss is offering casting lessons if anybody needs it, I'll put you down :rolleyes:

[Smog]

Only about 15 - 20ft but far enough I can tell ya :rolleyes:

[Sir_Blankalot]

I enjoyed that :rolleyes:

How far out did the rod tip go?

[Smog]

Feck that just took me 35minutes to write :Tongue: :lol: :rolleyes:

[Smog]

Right, where to start.

Left Worcester on the 20th July @ 3pm for a trip down which usually takes 1 3/4 hours firstly to Fleet, Hampshire, then onwards to the Relyon Carp Park in another 1 3/4hours time. total journey time approx 3.5hours.

Well finally got to Swindon @ 8.30pm (got to Relyon car park @ 11pm), having witnessed roads closed, M5 motorway down to one lane, Junction 11a closed 5 minutes after I braved the floods across it, Cirencester dual carriageway closed with abandoned cars n lorries. Called me m8 at Fleet to let him know what was happening, everyone agreed to go to the Relyon and hold the coach for as long as they could (if that was possible). Finally came through all of the floods to Swindon and my engine management system in car started to proudly flash "Engine Fault Return To Dealer". Great I thought. funny how 100mph along the M4, M25, M20 actually cured the problem :rolleyes:

Well gets to the car park and im introduced to Dan and his party together with Northern Kev, couple of others + my party and before you knew it the coach rolls up. Gary X jumps off and the weeks banter finally gets going (Merc John drove himself over to Les on account of he was going elsewhere once the week had finished).
Everyone jostles for position in the coach and before you know it, the rules are covered, then again, the weather forecast for the week is dished out and finally the draw takes place! Dan drew 2nd and pulled 18, i drew 5th or 6th and pulled 4, the rest I cant remember.

Anyway, get to the complex, quick walk round and study the form of last weeks catches and the swim choice occurs. 1 already in shed, 2 chooses point left, 3 chooses bear and now the Smogs, do I, dont I, yes i`ll take the Shallows. The swims are divied up and Dan finally lands the MOTL swim.

Everyones plotted and away we go. Well the Saturday consists of largely 3 pub chucks with stringers hurriedly bladdered out into the lake. I tried to have a little method in my madness, where I punched a marker rod out to approx half way line between bear/shallows. Walked round and cattied out approx. 5kg of bait all over the swim. Rod 1 cast out at 9 o`clock out towards the baliffs water (approx, 40 yds out), winter secret double 14mm bottom bait + stringer, size 6 longshank nailor on 20lb korda IQ, middle rod cast out on line to the tip of the bear point (approx 75yds out), single 16mm TNM + stringer, glugged in Maple 8 Activator/wrapped in paste, size 6 longshank nailor on 20lb korda IQ, 3rd rod cast directly to the middle of the bear swim (as you look at it) in line with the dead tree (approx 75yds out), double 14mm RnR bottom bait + stringer, size 6 mugga on 25lb Black Stiff Silt combi rig with last inch peeled back. Throughtout the day I kept the bait going in every couple of hours + recasting with stringers/bags every couple of hours to keep the swim active.
After a fishless first day, I caught a bream at sometime o`clock in the morning. From first light/after brekkie I proceeded to blast the marker out in an attempt to find some features of some description. In the end, only small gravel areas/weedbeds existed very close in (approx 10 - 15 yards from my bank) so I resumed the baiting approach out into the open water to entice Mr Carpy to fall prey onto my traps. Started raining around lunchtime, when low and behold a few fish had started fizzing off the tree line, about 20yards back down from the dead tree. Shortly after a stringer RnR (3rd rod) was moved around onto this area. Approx. 2 hours later it rattled off and beat me up in the snag. Called over Gary + Merc and out in the boat went we. By the time we got to it, it had shook the hook so we started pulling the lines n tackle out of the margin bushes/trees to try and clean the swim up. At this point the barbed hooks were discovered on recent/newish rigs amd Gary was promising to take anybody he found on barbed hooks to the train station!

Well kept the bait going in to all of the areas mentioned above, tried baiting up a couple of fall back spots to try later in week. Kept the rods roughly as mentioned except rod1 moved around to point of bear build out, rod2 in line with middle of bear swim and rod3 kept on tree line for days (moved back out to open water at nights). Tried, single bottom baits, snowman, pop up withy pool style, pop up off the lead, 5ft, 6ft, 7ft long zigs "upstairs" left out all day + night, fake corn, fake bread, you name it I went through my entire fishing armoury!

My approach resulted in 6 fish, 1 x 30 & 5 x 20`s (+5 bream, biggest 7lb!). A very slow week on the fishing front but we were well entertained by Gaz & Merc John. Tob & his son came over midway through the week and it was on one of his evening walk arounds when they settled into my swim for a social chat over this n that. Anyway it soon became clear that I was not catching as perhaps I should be, so the inevitable discussion got underway.....WHY ARE`NT YOU USING OSPREY! Well to cut to the chase, against my better judgement I reeled in my middle rod and changed the rig to a bigger bait set up whilst merc tied up a stringer ready to go out.
Tob looks at me and asks if I can cast it out as far as it needs to go with my rods, etc, I huffed at him, "no problem". Anyway the area behind me cleared, my chair was moved to the side and as I pulled back for the big chuck out and positioned meself to give it what for................................unfortunately somehow the line had looped around the top eye, so when I gave it the big heave ho, it cracked off and my tip section javelinned out into the lake. Their was a strange silence for a split second until roars of laughter, quickly followed by the realisation that the tip had sunk down to the bottom. We tried everything to recover it, scooping the bottom with a landing net, marker rod dragged over, rod with hooklink on dragged over, all to no avail. Nothing left to do now other than go in for it (by this time it was gone 9pm!). Smoggsie strips off to his boxers and in I go. Dunno why its called the shallows cos it aint. Anyway unknown to me, Tobs got the video going of me diving down to search for my expensive top section of carbon. Everytime I came up, I was havin stones, baits chucked at me, everytime I came up with a root ball or tree branch they were havin chucked at them. Eventually I found it, sorted me sh*t out and carried on. How we laughed about what had just happened :lol: :lol:

Looking back it was a good laugh, I witnessed the largest fish I have ever seen on the bank, Andy Crawley`s 59.15 common, weighed on 3 sets of scales so I know its a true weight, had a great laugh despite not hauling, was well fed and watered by Gary Ecclestone & Merc John and left there making a few more fishing mates. Back out there October 27th, cant bl**dy wait :Tongue:

[Smog]

Rob, on Jul 30 2007, 04:27 PM, said:

Not because it was close to the lodge then :thumbsup_anim:

I know what you mean Rob, but no that was`nt the reason.

Fished hard, all of my party did, culminating with Andy Crawley`s 59.15 common from the beach on the long. Wow what a fish, slightly scarred on the one side, but a wood carving on the other. It was weighed on 3 sets of scales before finally settling on 59.15. As you say honesty defo counts and earnt a lot of respect off everyone along the way.

[Rob]

Not because it was close to the lodge then :thumbsup_anim:

[Smog]

No actually, the shed, point left & bear all went first.

I fished NTC in Spet 05 and I did`nt fancy Jurassic. Besides I`d checked in the book and the Elf had been quiet the previous week, so fancied a swim I`d not been in before and somewhere on the Elf. The shallows seemed the perfect choice.

Still could`nt get my head round, the constant fish showing & fizzing along the open water marks, yet sat behind quiet rods until the bream moved in.
That was the frustrating element of the trip. The rods would be out from tea, and in the early morning I`d have that bream drop back at 3am.....................great joy :thumbsup_anim: :thumbsup_anim:

Would defo go in there again and fish it exactly like I fished it this trip...........i.e. baiting up often even though no runs, little & often, re-casting couple of times per day with bags to keep swim active. Obviously if the fish for whatever reason were`nt playing ball, theres little else to do but to sit it out and hope they move in. On the last day, I had 3 fish & lost one at the net so it sort of shows them moving in as the week went on.

[Joss]

Smog, on Jul 30 2007, 04:14 PM, said:

I was on the faithfull pink sweets, using 3 rods i had a different variety/rig on each rod.

Goes to show, when they`re not havin it (and the bream are getting there ahead of the carp) I think bait dont mater :thumbsup_anim:

Hardest thing was that the bear was catchin all week, fishing close in to his margin (I`d say a max. of 35yds out, all in catty range).
I could`nt buy a take in the open water and I had set out determined not to fish the tree line aka nursery :thumbsup_anim:
Fished hard all week, trying pop ups, off the lead, zigs upstairs, single bottoms, snowman, fake corn, the list goes on.
Tried everything, it just was`nt to be :thumbsup_anim:

Back out for the last trip, so we`ll see how we go on that one :thumbsup_anim:

not dis similar to when i fished it last sept then fella, couldnt get a take from open water all 19 runs came off the treeline, landed 15

[Rob]

What was the deciding factor in chosing the Shallows Smog? I assume the Shed, Bear and NTC were the first 3 to go.

[Smog]

Rob, on Jul 30 2007, 03:49 PM, said:

So you can't blame the draw this time Smogs. Was it the bait? :thumbsup_anim:

Perhaps you should have stuck with the faithful pink sweeties.

I was on the faithfull pink sweets, using 3 rods i had a different variety/rig on each rod.

Goes to show, when they`re not havin it (and the bream are getting there ahead of the carp) I think bait dont mater :thumbsup_anim:

Hardest thing was that the bear was catchin all week, fishing close in to his margin (I`d say a max. of 35yds out, all in catty range).
I could`nt buy a take in the open water and I had set out determined not to fish the tree line aka nursery :lol:
Fished hard all week, trying pop ups, off the lead, zigs upstairs, single bottoms, snowman, fake corn, the list goes on.
Tried everything, it just was`nt to be :thumbsup_anim:

Back out for the last trip, so we`ll see how we go on that one :thumbsup_anim:

[Dannyboy1978]

Rob, on Jul 30 2007, 03:49 PM, said:

So you can't blame the draw this time Smogs. Was it the bait? :thumbsup_anim:

Perhaps you should have stuck with the faithful pink sweeties.

It was very hard going i think we was both pulling our hair out at the end of the week, I see smogs in the water anyone would of thought it was a laughter store at his swim !!!