We turned up to find Bivvies everywhere. Unperturbed, we had a walk around the lake to find an empty swim. We found one at the far west end of the lake. As we walked back tot he car to get our kit, someone walked past us with all his kit. Finding the spot before us. So we walked around the east lake and found a small 2 man swim behind the island. While looking in the water, we could see 3 reasonable carp basking on the surface under some bushes against the island. We decided to fish here.
Left hand swim
We payed the fees, and set up. Andy taking the left hand side of the swim, me taking right. By the time I got my carp rod set up, Andy had already got his pod up, and both rods in. Left rod fishing the undercut of the bushes we saw fish previously, right rod in a clearing against the island. I set my rod up and put it right on the corner of the island. Andy got kettle on and I started setting up a float rod.
Less than 5 mins of my rod going in, the alarm started beeping. 3 beeps then it screamed.
I grabbed rod and struck in. Wasn't a heavy fish. the clutch managed to keep it in check until I landed the 2lb common.
I cast back out, and continued to set up the float rod. In the mean time, Andy was getting excited at all the carp cruising through our swim on the surface and decided to set up one of his rods with a pop up boilie on the surface. Very basic set up. Line direct to hook with pop up boilie on a bait band.
He started targeting the fish that were going through the swim. They kept taking the bait, but he was unable to strike. Often pulling the hook out of the mouth. And because there was so many snags and trees nearby, and because he was casting something so light, and with the wind being quite brisk, it was inevitable that he would often snag up and crack off. Needing to re-rig every other cast.
With my float rod now set up, I started targeting the swirls in the swim, and soon hooked a small 1lb mirror. Followed by a nice size Rudd.
As the swim was tight (between my carp rod, and Andy's right carp rod, there was less than 10 feet of swim.) I decided to rest the float for a while, and set up my quivertip. As I picked up the rod to run the line through the eyes, my alarm started screaming again. I struck into a nice, very pristine 2lb mirror. As I put it back Andy's left rod started screaming. He struck into something that put a nice big bend into his rod. He fought it for about 5 mins, and we often saw it come to the surface. Estimating its size at about 15lbs.Then with a fin flick, the hook came out. Andy was gutted. He re-rigged, and cast out back to the clearing.
So I continued to set up the quivertip. Small 1/2 oz weight, 8 inch hook link with size 14 hook. 2 ground bait covered sweetcorn on the hook, and cast out to an area I had covered with ground bait. It was there less than a minute before the tip bent round violently. I landed a nice common with a mangled mouth.
It was at this point I realised that with all three fish I had caught on the float and ledger, I was having issues getting the hooks out. I decided to examine the hooks. And although the packet said barbless, the hooks actually had barbs on them. So I removed it from my rig, and picked up a size 16 hair rig hooklength and cut the hair off then used this on the quivertip. Next fish I caught the hook fell out.
All the while, I was using my usual feeding pattern of feeding three areas within my swim. One being the corner of the island, the second being the deepest part of my swim. (Swim was not very deep. It plumbed at between 2 feet to 3'6".) and the third being under the shrubs to my right.
I had noticed some activity under the shrubs so I slowly pushed the tip of my carp rod under the overhang, and lowered the boilie and weight into the swim. Put rod on rest, tightened up, set alarm and bobbin, and opened the baitrunner. 2 large balls of ground bait, and a hand full of boilies and left it. Then cast the ledger to the corner of the island.
I caught a few more fish on the ledger then gave it a rest as it went quiet.
Then Andy had his second scream of the session, He struck, but wasn't sure if he had anything on. He leaves his rods set up so they had 4oz weights on from a previous fishing trip where he needed a good cast. Here we were casting less than 10 yards. We then saw colour. It wasn't a big carp. It wasn't a carp at all. It was a large roach of about 1lb, on a 12mm boilie. We put it back, he set up again with a string of boillies then cast out.
Then my alarm started beeping. I put my hand on it to strike, and waited. We could see the bobbin moving up and down. This had to be a delicate strike. The bait was behind the rod tip, so a small sweep was needed. the bobbin fell off, and alarm started screaming. I lifted the rod and pulled it left. The rod tip bent right round, and it felt like a dead weight. From where Andy stood, he saw the fish. He reckons it was around 10lbs. Then the line went slack, and the tip straightened. Thinking it was heading form me I wound in but alas, it had gone. I put the line back, and re-set the rod.
Then Andy's rod started going. He struck into a nice dark common. We landed it and weighed it at 12lb, 6oz. It looked like an old fish. And had a lot of damage around its mouth. We placed it back giving him lots of time to recover before he glided away.
We started packing up in the last hour, then with 20 minutes to go, Andy had caught another carp. I did not take many pics on this day, but I did of this one.
Sevington Lake:
A very nice lake of around 2 to 3 acres. Has about 20 pegs. Not a huge lake, and its easy to cross swims. It's right beside the M4 and is very noisy. Most swims are spacious. A few swims can hold 2 people. The swims behind the island have too much over head shrubbery. So much so that overarm casting is impossible. But here you don't need distance. So the accuracy of an underarm cast is best. The fish seem to congregate at the far west of the lake, and behind the island when the main lake is busy. We spoke to a few bivvy boys when we got there, and all of them claimed to of caught nothing. Indeed for the first 5 hours we were there, the guys opposite caught nothing. They left, the pegs re-filled with new guys, and they had really annoying bite alarms. I swear one of them played the 'birdy song' tune when it went off.
The kit:
I caught on all three methods I used. Because of the low trees making overhead casts impossible, I opted for a heavy float set up. A 3AAA float that came free with anglers mail. And my 13foot rod so underarm chucks to the cover opposite were easy.
The ledger set up was again a simple 5lb mainline with a running 1/2oz ledger weight with a bead stop tied into a loop so I could use the loops on the hooklengths for a loop to loop connection.
The carp rod was similar to the ledger, with a korda 2oz weight with the line running through it to a swivel onto a 10lb hair rig hooklength of 12 inches. I was making pva bags of boilies and dry groundbait and placing the hooklength and weight inside before tying it all on and casting out.
Bait:
Sweetcorn with groundbait mixed in to give the corn an added touch.
Stickybaits 16mm krill boilies
Mainline high impact groundbait.
Wishlist:
During this trip I decided that I needed to add the following to my wishlist:
Second carp rod and reel.
Rodpod.
Specimen landing net with float and 3 meter handle.
Shelter/bivvy.
I think its also time I did a review of some of the equipment that I have used frequently.
Clunk.
thank you very much for your detail I will be fishing the lake very soon and have now taken in what bait works well thanks ladd
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