I manage 100 lb in the heat

Trev’s Lake, Head Fen, peg 51

I’d fished Trev’s Lake just three times in the past few years, the last being a club win about three years ago. But although I can remember roughly where I sat I’m blowed if I can remember much else – weight (I think it was 50 lb-plus), tactics, species caught, or bait. Trev’s Lake is named after former owner Trevor, who died several years ago, and it’s now run by two of his sons. I didn’t know Trev, but I knew his late sister, married to a friend of mine, and she was the loveliest, kindest lady ever to walk the planet. But back to the fishing...

Trev's Lake - a very 'natural'-looking water. Afternoon saw
 bright sun and hardly a breath of wind. It made for difficult fishing.

Eleven of us lined up, having driven through thick mist to this fishery out in the back of beyond, near Ely. A Muntjac deer appeared just before I got to the fishery, and several partridge took off after racing me down the road. We were pegged along the roadsideon Trev’s, and I drew Peg 2 (our secretary had put down our own numbers for the day), which I think is the permanent number 51, two pegs to the right of the tree, with Tony Nisbet drawing peg 1, on my right. I quite like having better anglers than myself beside me, especially when there are no gaps, and I can watch what they do. I hate spacing anglers out just because it’s a commercial fishery – it doesn’t feel like a proper match to me.

Anyway, Tony told me he had won the last match he fished here by casting a straight bomb, with corn, to the island about 40 yards away, catching carp. This is, in fact, a mixed fishery, so there are bream, tench and chub there (at least there were chub though I’ve not heard of any caught in the last couple of years). So I rigged up a bomb, and decided on four pole swims – each side in the margin, one at six sections, and another at four sections.

I had a load of casters and started by putting some in a ball of groundbait and cupping it oput to the six-section marker where it was about six feet deep; then threw some cubed luncheon meat in the left-hand margin, and cast out my bomb. Nothing for ten minutes, then Tony hit a fish on pellet in the deep margin next to a protruding club of reeds, and it turned out to be about 7 lb carp, which gave up without much of a fight. That was not a foretaste of the day, because every fish after that fought very hard, even the bream!

I quickly came in to fish caster over the six-section swim I had baited, but 20 minutes later still had not had a bite. Meanwhile John, on my left, had landed a good carp and Tony had another couple. So it was into the shallow margin, about three feet deep, to my left, and after a short time I also landed a 7 lb carp. Tony had another, and I was already trailing by four fish to one – a thrashing looked likely, especially as there was more splashing in John’s swim to my left.

Perch love worms!

But in the next hour I managed a bream on meat from the left margin, two on corn from the right margin, and another on pellet from the four-section swim, which was about five feet deep. All were approaching 3 lb. So at least I had double-figures. As soon as I had the first one I changed to a worm, which bream love...but unfortunately so do 1 oz perch! And after three perch in three casts I gave up on the worms.

Sport was slow, so I had time to watch Tony
in action. This carp came on his close-in pole line.

Fron then on it was a case of picking up odd carp and bream from the three nearest swims (I never had a bite over the caster swim), and by 1 pm I estimated I had 40 lb, at which time the cloud cleared and the sun started to beat down mercilessly so it became very uncomfortable in the heat. I tried shallow with caster for half an hour on pole, and although carp were swirling under the surface I never got a touch. Later I realised that the strong sun and lack of ripple meant I should have changed to pellet waggler to stop the shadows.

I wandered up to John, who told me he had landed just one, but lost four, and that the rest seemed to be struggling. An old mate of mine also wandered round the fishery at this time, when I had a long blank spell, and remember saying to him: “I’ve got to make something happen.”

I make something happen

Well, I did. I put a steady stream of 4mm expanders into the right margin, and followed them with a 6mm expander on the hook. The reward was a couple of bream, then a blank spell, so I put in corn to the left margin, set the float so the bait was exactly on the bottom, and concentrated on lifting it half an inch occasionally – to be rewarded at times with a big bite from a carp. The four-metre swim also got an occasional look, and I snagged a couple of carp there. But it was all very hard work, and the concentration was intense.

Tony hit five big carp in the last hour
on his pellet waggler with banded pellet.

Tony had been catching steadily all morning from the same swim, using pellet, though his catch rate had slowed, and by 1 pm I estimated he had 80 lb, and 110 lb by 3pm, which included a couple of tench. With a hour to go he picked up his pellet waggler rod, and took five more in the last hour, the first of which looked to be at least 15 lb (we later weighed it at 12 lb 8 oz, probably because it had spawned). But I had only a bream and a 5 lb carp in the last hour, and estimated I had about 100 lb, while Tony must have 160 lb.

Brilliant casting (but not from me)

I fact Tony weighed 136 lb 2 oz, which just goes to show that the other person always seems to have more!  That was the winning weight; I struggled to pull my nets out – old age and the heat combined – but got some help from Matthew. They weighed 104 lb 8 oz for second, with Matthew apparently putting on a brilliant exhibition of long-distance waggler fishing to snare 78 lb 1 oz of carp. “He was casting that float within six inches of the island every single time,” Allan, who languished next door, told me afterwards.

Wendy is a marvel

The result of a long, hot day.

Les, complete with oxygen tank, must have suffered in the heat, but wife Wendy, who really is a bit of a marvel, was fifth, from the far end peg with 46 lb 8 oz, all on a feeder, with her son, Callum, just pipping her to fourth spot. So there were fish to be had on all methods, but the heat made things difficult in the afternoon.

Wendy took all her fish on feeder.

I suspect that it didn’t matter what method you chose – you just had to do it perfectly. In my case I hadn’t really prepared properly – my  cubes on luncheon meat had been frozen and thawed and re-frozen so many times they were very sticky, I hadn’t taken my usual frozen orange juice and had to make do all day with a small bottle of water, and although I had taken a pellet waggler rod I hadn’t put a float on before the match started, so never tried it.

 

This fish looked 15 lb but weighed in at
 12 lb 8 oz, probably having just spawned. 

I lost two carp foulhooked, and a 4 lb bream foulhooked in the dorsal fin just before the end, which just refused to come in, obviously thinking it was a carp. In the end, on its 46^th circuit of my net, it pulled off. But second spot, from a fishery I was not confident about, was pleasing, and I can’t wait to go back. It’s more natural than the adjacent Snake Lake, much bigger, and the water is clearer, with lovely marginal growth, so it’s very like ‘natural’ fishing.