Time for a change

matgreasley · Time for a change

As the name states its time for a change.
The catterick complex has taught me no end this year, and now its time to put those lessons into practice, with a complete change of scenery.

Tomorrow i will be looking at a lake, with the intention of fishing it sunday morning, from what i have seen its around 20 acres, maybe, it is a lovely looking lake and the stock is pretty much unknown, it is very rarely fished and i have heard rumours of it holding 20s.
Not the biggest of fish but i still want a northern 20, it is another step up the ladder.

The plan is to go tomorrow and throw some corn in, the fish never see baits or rigs so i am going to keep everything looking, well i wont say as natural, ill say as little unnatural as i can, if that makes sense.

When i use boilies they wont be round and they wont be small, just lumps of coarse paste that i will steam.

Lead system, i wont need to change much, i have been fishing for very pressured fish, so after a change to un-pressured fish they should, in theory, be easier to hook, not having dealt with leads much in the past.

The past month has been really tough on my angling, important exams mean i have not been able to concentrate on my fishing as much as i probably should, resulting in over a month with no fish, i have no more deadlines or exams until July, so expect to see some results, nothing will get in my way now!

The plan for tomorrow is to look around, find the fish, study them, study how they feed, where they go to feed, how they move and how often they move, weather they like margins or open water, weather they like a bit of corn, how spooky they are, basically everything that needs to be observed before tackling a new water, learning about the fish will mean i can tie up rigs specifically for them.
I will be taking a very detailed approach, so watch this space!

(written yesterday)

matgreasley

Well I visited the lake this afternoon, it really is a lovely looking lake.
I couldnt get to a lot of it, and i was hoping to see at least one carp so i could get an idea of where to go on sunday.
The planned session was going to be in the hours of darkness, due to me having to do work sunday morning, but at the moment i dont feel comfortable enough to go on it, i havent seen enough for me to figure out a gameplan, for all i know the lake could only hold 10 fish, or less!

So for now on i will just look around as often as i can, until i see something that excites me enough to want to fish it.

I took some pictures, just to show you...

The baiting begins:

Of course this means i am still in the position i was in yesterday, i have absolutely nowhere to fish, and i have never wanted to get out more!!

Watch this space....

richchappy

looks a nice little lake...

keep us updated

courtz

Looks good matt,

Get fishing it! No better way to find out about the stock

Michael

looks amazing matt, im jealous of you!

matgreasley

lol, im gonna wait until it starts getting warmer, sort of late spring early summer, before i start looking at it seriously.

I have a theory for why i didnt catch any of the bigger residents of my old lake, i was only using sweetcorn, im convinced the bigger fish wont eat the corn.
The only time i came close to catching one of the bigger ones was when an 18lb ish common, had a mouthful of pellets and left. After thinking about it i realised that all the bigger fish i had caught had actually come to boilies, the few times i actually used them.

So i might as well keep on there for a while, until i can drive and move on, so although not much of a change as i meant out when making this blog, but i am changing my approach and more importantly, bait.

I fished yesterday and while waiting for Mark to bring my boilies, i fished with corn again, i was constantly walking around and getting up all the trees to watch the fish, and when walking past a bay on the other lake i saw loads of carp, some looked fairly big as well, true to form i caught the smallest, aand scared the rest off!!

richchappy

Cough noddy Cough

only jokin mate,

get on the boilies, 24mm sort em out

rav

matt, sweetcorn has caught some great fish. simon scott done over wraysbury for 2 years on corn before he even thought about using boiled baits. he had marys mate and another 40 on it. (cant rmember which one)

when i use it, i tend to fish it just off the baited area. seems to pick out the bigger ones on one of local lakes in the summer.

that lake looks pukka by the way. good luck.

matgreasley

I totally agree with everything you said Rav, and cheers. My biggest fish was caught on corn and and theres nothing of that size in this lake, but whatever the reason it does only seem to be the smaller fish that eat the corn, ive spent endless hours up trees watching big fish sitting there not metres away from my baited spot, they just dont seem interested, now put some boilies down and try and stop em!

Steve Howard

Interesting experiences you're having with corn Matt, but I think that this might be put down to the type of venue and stock more than anything tbh mate.

I've caught a lot of big fish on corn, and I know a lot of other people who swear by it, too, so I fear that your experience when using it may be giving you a false outlook.

Look at it from a slightly different angle Matt - I know that small carp (singles/low doubles) absolutely adore corn, and that if you are on a venue where there are lots of them, it stands to reason that you will bag them, and possibly get hammered by 'em. Often, the bigger fish are slower to react than small fish, and as a result don't get caught. The thing is, if you use corn on a venue where its exclusively big fish, you'll catch them on corn, so please don't give up and think it doesn't work m8.

robvford

matt, how big was the one you caught on down here??

richchappy

Steve Howard

you could be right Rich, but the fact is we still have plenty of venues with small fish where you'll get totally hammered if you use corn. Same scenario, just that it doesn't crop up as often because, on average, the stock in the majority of lakes down south is more advanced in growth.

Not our fault if northern carp angling is a bit behind the times, is it!

matgreasley

LOL

Rob, okay it was bigger than anything in the lake im fishing now, but you can almost guarantee it was younger

Im not really saying its a thing of big carp wont eat corn in general, just that these fish dont seem to, its beyond me, my thinking might be that because of the high competition for food and the low levels of naturals, the bigger fish only eat boilies because its a better food for maintaining their weight??

Sweetcorn remains my favourite bait and always will, its unstoppable, i just dont think its quit ideal in this situation.

Am i looking at this wrongly, should i worry more about presenting that corn bait on a bigger fish?
Since, i dunno, June, i have felt everything was absolutely spot on, i know the lake like the back of my hand, know where to go at what time of day and where you can almost guarantee a bite, yet for the time i have spent on there i can find no plausible explanation for the fact that having put more time on there than almost anyone last year, i cant catch any of the upper doubles, other than maybe i am just a little unlucky???

richchappy

matgreasley

thats exactly how ive caught the bigger ones out of the ones i have had, all on boilies

richchappy

well, think its pointless persisting with somthing your not happy with the results when you have confidence boilies will single out the bigger ones,

northern carper

is that at wykeham?

matgreasley

NOSEY WIFE

really enjoyed reading through that matt nice pics and great write up