Winter Field Testing Success

With not a lot of time spent on the bank this year, my mate Ben and I decided to take advantage of a long weekend and put in a 48 hour session at a difficult open access municipal water. We started baiting up two days before the session, putting out a kilo of boilie on each swim with the throw stick on the first day and then the day before the session another 2kg on each swim.

Ben was fishing at around 90 metres out in 21 foot of water in the deepest part of the lake. The lake is pretty featureless with the majority of the bottom being deep silt. The lake drops down slowly from 1 foot in the close margins to 21 foot in the middle. Ben fished safety clip drop off leads with 15cm hooklinks and bottom baits whilst I fished drop off inline lead arrangments.

After no less than 3 hours of having his lines in, Ben was off the mark with this lovely 21lb 13oz common.

After recasting that rod, it was off an hour later with yet another stunner 21lb 13oz common.

Ben was in the action again shortly after 11pm with this 25lb 2oz common that needed alot of help. The fish had two large sores behind the anal fin that were cut almost to the bone. All we could do was apply some Medicarp and hope for the best. This fish gave the best account of itself out of all the fish banked for the session going on 3 powerful long runs spooling no less than 20 metres of braid on each run.

Morning arrived with no action on any of my two rods fished in 19 foot of water. My left rod fished at range in 21 foot of water however had the stow bobbin clipped off. Strange that the buzzer hadnt sounded at all. I tightened up the slack and reset the bobbin without any hassle. 10 am the left rod gives off a few bleeps, then the middle rod and then the right rod... Puzzled and standing around like Tom looking for Jerry I decide to bring up the slack on the left rod. The bobbin starts to drop but no bleeps from the buzzer. Again I tighten up the slack and the same thing. I pick up the left rod and begin reeling in. The line coming in very slack and feeling as though I had been cut off. Then out of no where, the line comes from my rightside and I feel a heavy weight and then the line starts peeling off the reel. SURPRISE and I'm on with a carp. The fish was on the surface less than 5 metres out infront of the close margin bull rushes. A short fight ensued and without any fuss we netted this scale perfect double figure common at 14lb 2oz.

 

 

We saw no other action for the rest of the day as the cold front arrived on time like the weather man predicted. One more surprise was yet to unfold before us in the form of a healthy 29lb 4oz common again taken at range by Ben in the early hours.

 

A great ending to a superb session for my mate Ben, and proof that prebaiting a good bait can get results in the toughest of conditionS...