One Rod Army!!!
Roman Lake, Furnace Lakes Fishery, Horsham, West Sussex. UK.
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| Furnace Lakes Fishery |
A week off work!! what to do?!? now that's a silly question if you know me! Fishing! With the bitter after taste of losing a monster Catfish estimated 60lb+ earlier on in the season, burning inside me, which I blogged about
The One That Got Away. It is revenge I want! And a new PB, I've fished this place enough times by now, and somehow I haven't managed to catch my first fish over 20lb., and it's really beginning to bug me now. Its full of big fish! and I cant think of anywhere better to catch my first 20lb, so the plan was simple, fish big, for the biggest fish!
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| The superb Shimano super baitrunner XTR |
I set off at silly o'clock, which is probably normal for most anglers, and arrived at 7am, armed with a lot of new tackle and equipment which I've been amassing over the last few months for a imminent Carp fishing trip to France. not only did this give me a brilliant opportunity to test the equipment, but was exactly what I needed for fishing here. 3 x 12" Fox Ranger XTS 3lb test, 3 x Shimano Super Baitrunner XTR 8000RA spooled with 20lb Korda Subline. All I needed now was a fish!
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| homemade boilie rig. |
I was to fish one rod, very close in the margins with a simple running leger with ridiculously large 4" cubes of Spam (luncheon meat) hair rigged onto a homemade rig, made from 40lb Catlink and a eagle wave 2/0 barbless hook, this was to be heavily ground baited with loose cubes of Spam. My second rod was to be a live bait rod, using a ready made Catfish pro polyball live bait rig which was to be fished here, there, and everywhere I could. And my third rod......well, I couldn't resist! I left this for carp, a homemade 15lb braid, size 8 hook boilie rig. to be fished tight against the far bank, with 12 boilies be catapulted out every cast.
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| Ready and waiting. |
After 2 arduous hours of setting up! I was finally ready to fish! I cast out my boilie and Spam rods, and using the live bait rod set up a quick and very crude float rig with the smallest size hook I had on me, a size 10!!!, bad planning, I know! Using 1" pieces of lobs worms I set about catching my bait. Luckily! the tiny fish didn't seem bothered by the 20lb line and big hook, and it wasn't long before I enough Roach to start live baiting. I lost the first live bait straight away as it simply shook itself off the barbless hook and landed in the water to make his escape even before I'd even cast!! so a quick think and rummage through my tackle box saw me find a very small rubber corn which I placed on the hook and pushed down to the bend of the hook after the fish to keep them on. First cast was 1 meter from the far bank underneath a over hanging willow tree. I let the poly ball float on the surface as a visual aid, it didn't matter to much I was barely fishing in 2' of water.
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| First fish, a beautiful common carp |
All three rods were out. as I took the time to relax. I could see the backs of several big carp just breaking the surface swimming along the far bank, I fired 2 boilies at my baited area with the catapult, the distinctive sound made from the elastic snap followed by a "plonk, Plonk" as the boilies hit the water. Immediately two of the carp accelerated towards my baited area, and a third fish even turned around to follow them before they disappeared under the surface. I couldn't believe what I'd just seen, I rubbed my hand in excitement and waited, I could see the fishes tails break the surface occasionally in the baited area, I knew they were feeding. My plan to spread loose boilies over a large area had worked, and now I had the fish confidently looking around and feeding on my loose Monster Tigernut 15mm boilies. It wasn't long before I had my first run. In the next four hours, I took 6 carp from 13lb to 18lb all from the same area.
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| Last carp of the session |
The night was a different story, my boilie rod fell silent as the Carp seemed to change their habit, probably going on patrol around the lakes island. I hadn't had a touch on either of the Catfish rods yet, but I felt this would change during the night. It didn't!, just the occasional big tug of the live bait was just enough to make the alarm bleep once, The rods were silent all night. Even though, I stuck to my guns, I knew these tactics were working for other anglers on the lake, one of which had 7 Catfish to 32lb during the same night only a few swims down from me. At 3am the boilie rod kicked off again keeping me up for the rest of the night, but it wasn't Carp this time, small bream had taken their place, I managed to hook and land 6 even though I missed most of the runs because the fish were fairly small and probaly couln't get the boilie in their mouth. and then a surprise catch, again on the boilie rod the smallest kitten Catfish I'd ever seen, about 1' long and weighing a whopping 1 lb 3 oz, OK it wasn't the monster I was after! Not even close lol, but it was so cute! I really wanted to show a picture, but due to a broken camera that couldn't focus, and low battery on my phone that refused to allow the flash to work, I had to release him without a photo shoot, his day will come I'm sure!
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| The fish with the biggest smile :-) |
Morning was quiet, the Catfish rods were still doing nothing, I landed one more Carp about 14lb on the boilie rod, but that was going to end shortly as I was down to my last handful of boilies. So I decided to pack up before the heavy rain showers that were forecast reached me. With the other two rods packed away, the boilie rod baited with my very last boilie, went screaming off, I took my time to strike this time, to savour the moment and enjoy what was going to be my last fish. I struck................the rod bent, bent a bit more and what was on the end pulled harder and swam further than any of the fish I'd caught so far. Was this Carp over 20lb?, it definitely felt like it! I played the fish tentatively as I didn't want to loose it. The fish didn't surface till the very end and by the way the fight went with slow powerful runs, and lots of those horrible moments when it feels like your fishing line is being pluked like a giant guitar string, causing a nervous wobble of the rod tip, I wasn't suprised to see a Catfish poke his smiling head out the water. Finally what I'd come for!!! still not a monster! and definitely not my PB weighing in at little over 8lb, but a very fitting end to a surreal 24hour session. I would almost count on catching catfish here at Roman lake, whilst the crafty carp are very difficult to catch, but today that got turned on its head. Just like the fact that I've never been so successful with boilies, I've never been a big fan, normally opting for baits such as worms, sweetcorn or bread, but they proved their worth today. And with all the tackle and bait I had with me, all I needed was just one rod, and 1 kilo of boilies. I still haven't beat my PB, and I'm really beginning to wonder why??? I think god may have other plans for me. but in the meantime there's nothing more fun, than trying!
