Well, I've had a lot going on both in my fishing life and my personal life that have been a massive distraction. I'm not going to bore you with the details but I will just say it's nice to be back !
So straight up to date with some recent events.
Earlier this year a friend suggested a trip to the famous and historic Yateley Pads lake, to which I jumped at the chance. The lake is now under new ownership since being sold off by the previous owners and is run under an exclusive booking system which means a group of anglers or any individual can hire the lake exclusively to themselves. Of course this exclusivity comes at a price but divided by a group of anglers, in our case there were four of us, the cost becomes relatively inexpensive given the guaranteed privacy and freedom of choice of swims, not something that is a feature on many of the more well known day ticket waters up and down the country!
Our session was timed for the end of October and was to be 48 hers in length. Now, the Pads lake is a very shallow lake with an average depth of just 3.5-4ft. we knew that timing would be crucial being such a shallow lake and any severe drop in temperatures at this time of the year could shut the lake down. Conversely should the weather continue mild then we could quite possibly fill our collective boots.
Unfortunately about ten days before we were due to go a cold front settled over the country with brisk north easterly winds which made the temperatures plummet. Far from ideal and my heart sank at the prospect that the fish may not be in a feeding mood by the time we got there.
The day of our trip came and thought the four of us were excited, the mood was down beat as we knew in our hearts that it was probably going to be a tough session even though temperatures had risen ever so slightly in the last couple of days, but the Carp would still be acclimatising to the change.
On arrival at the lake we surveyed the scene, being our first time at the water we took a good walk round to soak in the atmosphere and try to familiarise ourselves with our new surroundings.
The previous party of anglers was still on the lake when we arrived, so we took the opportunity to engage with them and glean as much information about their session as we could in order to assess the situation regarding our own tactics.
They had been on for a week long session and between four of them they had managed six fish and lost three, so nine takes in all between them. Not too bad you might think, however it became evident that some of them if not all had applied a fair amount of bait towards the end of their session. Not a clever thing to do and far from ideal for us. Given this information It was decided that minimal bait application and fishing for one fish at a time was the best way forward for us and we collectively agreed on this tactic.
First job though was to draw for swims, an amusing and interesting exercise but everyone seemed happy enough, there is plenty of room for four anglers with something like fourteen swims to pick from though many cover similar areas of water being as the lake is only around 3.5 acres in size.
Once we were happy with our swim choices it was time to ascertain the nature of the lake bed in front of us and find spots on which to present our baits. Being a shallow gravel pit the lake is quite weedy in nature and though treatment is applied regularly in the form of a dye, a lot of the weed still remains. My own swim known as weedy corner was indeed just that, a weedy corner, however this is where the fish would want to be in my estimation given the falling temperatures and the availability of remaining natural food larders at this time of year, and so it proved to be. I found enough low lying weed and clearer spots for me to present my baits on, both in pva bag form and single chods, and even found a gravelly spot under some marginal snag bushes which I presented my normal boilie rig on and provided me with my only take of the session.
Despite plenty of evidence of fish activity with rolling, jumping and fizzing all over my end of the lake the fishing was hard going. Whether they were taking advantage of the remaining natural food or clearing up the previous party's bait I'm not sure but no matter what I tried I could just not get them to pick up a bait presented in the weed. The second day did provide me with a take as I mentioned off the snag bush but sadly it wasn't to be as the fish came adrift after a few minutes of playing it after having got a reasonable look at it too. I'm not normally phased by losing fish, and it's not something that happens to me very often, but I must admit that one did hurt a bit given the apparent difficulty of our session.
Worse still was the North easterly breeze that kept threatening to spring up over the course of the 48 hrs that we were there and several times it began to gain momentum but petered out again.
The lost fish proved to be my only chance and it looked very much like the whole party were on for a total blank but on the last morning with only a few hours to go a shout went up from my Son Liam signalling that he had made contact with a fish in the point swim. By the time I got to his swim to assist he had already managed to land it and nestling in the bottom of his net was a pristine common Carp which we weighed at 18lb 10oz. Not a big fish but definitely a worthy prize given the circumstances we had been faced with. There was no joy for my other two friends and though three of us blanked at least the young superstar of the group had managed to save some dignity for us.
The Pads lake is a nice little lake with a great stock of fish and we shall definitely return for another try, and hopefully we will find favour with the weather wizards next time!
