Unfortunately, the weather man had other ideas with heavy rain being predicted all day on Monday... But what the hell, I was so desperate to get on the bank that I decided to dig out my elderly fishing umbrella from the shed and head out anyway.
As predicted it was raining heavily when I pulled into the carpark. Luckily the lake is only a short stomp away so after booking in at reception I headed down to the water and jumped into the first likely looking swim. I wasn't expecting to see much but swim 13 (lucky eh?!) on the ring road side of the lake gave me a good viewpoint to watch the water and plenty of interesting areas to put a rod to. With my back to the wind and the rain hammering down on the umbrella, I somehow managed to get both rods out, a choddy with a pink popup to open water a method feeder with sweetcorn in the margin to the left.
One thing that became quickly apparent was that the lake is a fairly uniform dept of around 4ft and is very, very silty. Not a massive problem for the chod rod but tricky for the feeder... Ah well, I figured leave the baits in place while the rain was coming down (in sheets...) and watch the water for any clues as to where the fish might be shoaled up. Apart from lots of liners and wind bites on the open water rod nothing much happened and as there was a break in the rain around 10.30am I decided to reel in and do a lap of the lake in an attempt to find another likely looking area.
As it turned out, the far side of the lake down towards the wider end was far more sheltered and out of the wind with relatively calm water. The other thing was a 'feature' in the form of a fairly big set of died back lily pads. After another hour of rain and nothing to show for it I decided to upsticks and head round to the other side casting the method rod as close to the lily pads as I dared and what was the choddy rod (now a helicopter rig with sweetcorn) to open water in the bowl.
I didn't have to wait long! Within 10 minutes the tip on the method rod swung round and I had my 1st run of the day. Unfortunately, I somehow managed to lose it... Damn, I am out of practice! Ah Well, it was as good a sign as any that there were fish in the area and it was worth another cast. The only change I made was switching the short hooklink I was using on the method to a much longer mono hooklink with a size 10 hook and a long hair, my thinking being that the method was more to get some bait in the water and that the fish wouldn't be attacking it as they would in the summer.
The good news was that the change seemed to make a difference as I hit a winter feeding spell and landed seven or so carp over the next couple of hours! Both rods produced fish with the method outfishing the helicopter setup. One thing that I did start to do is feed the swim using a catapult, firing small pouches of sweet corn and pellets little and often. And it did appear to work as I was now getting regular knocks and runs, with one fish coming 'on the drop' seconds after the method hit the water.
At one point, the action was so frantic that I ended up with a triple take, the last fish being the largest of the session - not bad at all!
Miracuously the rain then stopped and the sun came out! Amazing. Unfortunately though, this seemed to kill thinks off and the swim went quiet... I've had this before, especially in winter where the fish seem to back off an area and the solution seems to be to either cast a couple of metres either side of where you've been having bites or move one swim to the left or right. As it turns out, moving swims did the trick as a move to the left and casting 3 or so metres away from the previous area produced several more fish in quick succession.
All in all I had nine carp out and two missed runs - not bad at all considering the conditions! It was also great to be out on the bank despite the weather (although the sun in the afternoon was splendid!) and I really enjoyed the challenge of fishing a new water. Don't get me wrong, I've really enjoyed my pike fishing over the last couple of months but it's hard work, especially with the recent weather. The banksides are incredibly treacherous, the water fast and coloured and the pike less than up for a bite...
But today it was all about a pleasure session in relative (if soggy!) comfort and I had a blast. I'm already looking forward to my next session.