Dorset Stillwater II 070107

A new water a scant 6 miles from my house, a fluke discovery of a lake that’s not advertised. No boilies, no bait boats, so far so good. A 3 acre oasis of reed mace enclosed peace with it’s own island circled by 20 feet of water. There is pondweed all around the margins, especially on the west banks and clearing that requires an 8-yard cast into 4.5 feet of water. I put an upside down goose quill on as the wind is strong, and put the bulk shot under the float and a 2ft cast. 10lb through and the old carp rod, as I am told there are big fish here and a lot of weed, so some force perhaps justified. Set up, the float is heeling in the breeze, so I nip it down a touch on the next cast. I’m going for the usual hemp, corn and some cockles. The owner says worms work well, as the fish are not fed and anglers are few and far between. I wait.

At the north end there are shallows, which is good, and there are areas where the high water, recent rain-swollen, laps over grass. The water is around 7.9°C with air at 13°C. Mild really and I chose the west bank for its shelter and the deep water in front of me. That’s warm enough to feed these days, so I’ll try 2 hours and try elsewhere if nothing stirs. It’s an overcast day with a little drizzle and I’ve tucked myself under a small Eucalyptus tree and with the brolly plus the unhooking mat I’m sat on, I’m out of the worst. This is young water but well thought out with a few swims, which are marked only with 4 slabs of concrete set back from the water’s edge. I look up to see my float has gone, too late. An hour later I’ve missed another bite but a slow one. Maybe small roach. But the longer I sit here the more confident I become. There have been a few bubbles in the pondweed, but I basically feel the time is right. At 12:45 a squall with shower passes over. A couple of float movements seem out of sync. with this. Another dip of the float but no follow up, but I’m quite interested now. Then I knock the penknife into the cockle jar, quite a clang. Idiot. Fishy feelings persist though, waiting is what we do.

In wind like this the float is always moving about and this one with the bulk under the float and a BB on a 2ft hook lengths wing with the breeze and dips if the gust move the weed the sunk line is resting on. The trick is to know when the movement is out of sync. Or even if it should have moved but doesn’t.

The bait in the interim, some 6½ft from this movement, buffered by the angle and trace length, is motionless. For larger fish and positive takes this works. For smaller fish you’d gut hook or miss. Carp need time to mouth and ponder and fiddle and diddle without alarm. So you watch the tip moving in the breeze and wait some more.

Even the branches on the umbrella help. They indicate the gust strength and give the brain a little more information to process and overlay. Wind vs. float. Does it look right?

An hour has passed and at 1:45 I get another slow bite and almost in exasperation hit it. A fish is on for about 4 seconds. But a fish! 2 worms and 2 grains of corn. Staying here then. Took off the worms and after 15 minutes of calm a 3lb common follows, thudding into the pondweed, but overpowered, then even as I record it another at 2lb or so. There I was fixated on large carp by repute and then with long traces 10lb line and a 2lb t/c real carp rod, when I needed lighter tackle I didn’t bring.

Around this time I stopped keeping notes. I realised that the few tweaks and dips that I was waiting to develop were small carp taking a quick bite and letting go. I missed another bite, and shortened the trace to 8 inches or so, and retied the float to stop it slipping and reset the depth, taking 6 inches off the depth. That ought to have sorted things out (I told myself), but I missed bites like this for the rest of the afternoon, and failed to add to my tally. The heavier 2lb t/c carp rod is not best suited to fast striking, and with the high wind and 10lb line casting, even Nottingham style was awkward, with a ratio of 2 casts to one success about average.

A smarter man would have switched to the Avon, 6-8lb line and a different rig, lighter float perhaps, maybe a size 10 hook, last shot a few inches from the hook, and perhaps picked up a few more carp, but no, I plugged away. Happy with my two piles of knocked over coins from earlier on. The Avon was in the car anyway.

I like this water, and as I squelched back up the field to my car, I reflected, like Mr. Ransom, that I had failed to catch my share today. It occurred to me also, that I might have done just as well fishing in a hole in the weed, with pondweed not the snag-fest that lily roots can be. Fixated with larger fish, on rumour and then seeing the weed had coloured my whole approach, and stopped rational thought for a session. This happens (well, to some of us…) and fixation or obsessions are part of any carp fishing.

But I’d done the hard work. I worked out where fish might be, in oxygen producing weed, bordering on the deep water out of the heavy chop of the water driven by the wind and having got them feeding, missed out on bagging 3 or 4 times that which I ended up with. Still, 2 carp in January is a win, and they were glorious looking fish – as you can see.