Badbacks,Don't forget Steve & Plenty Of Fish
Posted: 13th Oct 2013
What a great weeks fishing the lads have had this week with the first part of the week being mild and the fish feeding hard for the winter ahead. All the lads had 40lb+ fish and each Peg produced throughout the week. I'm not sure if the cold end to the week was the issue but 3 out of the 4 lads had back problems over the week, they said is was all the big fish they were lifting, I think they were just a bunch of Geriatrics!!
Now not forgetting Steve in Peg 1, who this time could not use his baitboat and moaned about it all week, but he fished well using a bait spoon for topping his spots up along the far bank and taking fish every 24hrs up to 41lb+. The Grassies seem to be down Peg 1 end of the lake with Steve catching 5 of the 6 caught this week to just under 30lb all on snowman style rigs with a bright 10mm topper.
Ray in Peg 2 broke his pb with a fish of 48lb (Steve says it doesn't count because he did not confirm the weight, Now, Now, Now Steve!!!) Along with his new pb Ray also had regular action from Peg 2 and fishing to the left of Peg 3 making it an enjoyable week for the two lads.
Now Peg 3 was left empty with Colin & Bez fishing 4 & 5 giving a space between the two groups and allowing more water to fish. Most of the 40lb+ fish seem to come from this end of the lake with Colin taking 2 fish just under 47lb back to back and Bez taking a 46lb 10oz (Pictured), towards the backend of the week also. Some absolutely stunning young stockies were banked this week with the fish of the week for me being a Golden Coloured Fully Scaled just under 20lb. These fish in the next 2-3 seasons will be the most sort after in the lake.
The down side to the week was 20 fish lost for one reason or another, and most being hookpulls, but this is one of the highest numbers I have ever seen at the fishery and it was not down to poor angling or rigs to be honest. I think the way the fish were feeding played a part and they are now are finding your baited patches within 30 minutes, clearing you out and ejecting the rig. I mentioned on the blog at the start of the week about a baiting plan, and from the results this week it was very clear that a change in tactics as the week progressed increased the catch rate and produced most of the better fish. It is not a simple case of putting out 3 kg of bait over your rods and sitting on it because this can lead to 48hrs of nothing before they clear the bait up and you manage to get a pick-up. The opposite scenario is you fish simliar tactics to most waters back home, put 30 boilies out and fish for one fish at a time, but this is not the UK and the stock of fish in the lake can only be appreciated when you drain the lake and see with your own eyes what 200 fish averaging 35lb+ looks like, and then you can comprehend what a shoal of fish of this proportion can eat. You will catch fish with 30 boilies over your spot, or a pva bag with a sprinking of pellet but it's almost impossible to build the swim over the week with your catch rate increasing because there is no food available to build the confidence of the shoal, in turn you hook a few and the rest start to get tetchy and nearly every time the spot dies as they move off elsewhere. I see this with at least one angler each week and they seem confused that they have caught fish very quickly within the first few days with no further runs commencing. I divulge this information because I want you to catch fish and not go home with a blank, it's not a simple case of me trying to encourage every angler to fill the lake in and make the fish fat because it's not as simple as that.
The equilibrium of the lake is maintained from careful managment, balanced fish stock, natural food availability, predator balance, anglers bait, & feed I introduce at specific times of the season. For this reason the bait limit of 25 kg per angler prevents any water quality problems from over feeding the lake. You can use any combination you prefer being 25kg of boilie or a combination of boilie and pellet etc. 10-15kg of boilie and 10kg of pellet you will use if the fish are feeding with a steady introduction over the course of the week. If the fish are not playing ball you may take half of that amount back home with you. Greed normally gets the better of the fish and by applying a little and often tactic you tend to get more fish feeding creating more competition, even if you start hooking a few fish in the shoal the others have already had a nibble and they cannot help but return to the spots even though they know it's danger.
After talking to the lads this week about baiting strategies, apart from the baiting after each fish and topping the swim either in the morning or evening, they tried introducing around 10-30 boilies each hour over each rod and the difference was phenomenal. Steve in Peg 1 had numerous fish this week by rebaiting his spots, recasting and it was producing fish within 5 minutes or at least within 30 minutes. For the other lads the rebaiting and casting also triggered pick-ups, but Colin in Peg 5 turned his week around with this technique and it produced all his 40lb+ fish midweek onwards.
The lads landed 36 fish this week with no less than 11 over 40lb+. 14 fish of 30lb+ upto 38lb, 6 grassies to 29lb+ and 5 x 20lb+ upto 29lb+. The lads did have a large number of the stockies this week with a good 12 landed and half of them being 19lb. I never included these fish in the overall total and most weeks you may see between two or four of them caught, but small or not they are the future fish and little stunners too. All in all a great week for the time of the year and this October seems to be fishing very well indeed, just imagine if they had landed the other 20 fish dropped!!!!
Bait this week was a real mishmash and I think it was more a case of how you baited other than bait choice that was key. Essential Black snail, Cell and plum, cell, fishmeal, birdfood bait & Sanctuary Pellet all producing fish this week.
We have two new lads here this week who have booked the lake, the only down side is the massive weather change we saw on the Saturday change over. It rained from first light while we packed the lads gear away, and never stopped all day, combined with a biting easterly wind, it would have been a ground frost this morning without the fog holding it out. The weather is set to warm up again with a change in the wind, but still further rain to come. I just hope the lads work as a team and the mild weather returns, but we shall see how the week unfolds.
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