Day Ticket Tactics to try Today.
In this new series
specimen angler Duncan Charman visits different day ticket venues
each month and reveals the tactics that have been working.
Its amazing what
dictates an angler to drop in and fish a swim, maybe it’s the most
spacious and comfortable, maybe one that’s close to the car park or
often one that allows a cast to a feature such as an island, yet how
many anglers actually take a look at the wind direction and allow
this to help point them in the right direction, unfortunately very
few. Although the importance of following the wind grows with the
size of a venue, small commercial style fisheries and club lakes also
follow this rule and picking a swim carefully and correctly can be
the difference between bagging up all day or falling to sleep due to
the lack of action! It really doesn’t matter if you are using the
new wonder catch wherever you go rig or the best bait in the world,
if the fish aren’t in front of you then you’re going to blank,
its that simple, so my first piece of advice next time you arrive at
the fishery is slow down, remove any preconceived choice of swim from
your brain and start with an open mind. Take a walk around the
fishery, try and establish the bank that the wind will be pushing
into and imagine where the fish are going to be, and in spring and
early summer its probably right under your feet!
Finding most of the lakes population
of carp right under my feet was exactly what happened at MBK Pump
Station Pond. Arriving at dawn and knowing that the wind was
going to pick up from the south west I took a quick stroll around and
luckily spotted one of the lakes ghost carp right in the margin on
the north-east bank. This lake is around two-acres in size and holds
a good head of carp, many in the 4-7lb class along with a few bigger
fish to 20lb. It also has the odd large perch along with plenty of
quality roach plus skimmers. Catching a big perch is always on my
mind, yet today was all about constantly getting a bend in my rod as
well as giving myself the outside chance of that big perch, so I
needed before visiting the venue to have a tactic that would provide
both. Everyone knows that big perch often fall to a juicy prawn, yet
few seem to have cottoned on to them being probably the best carp
bait available. The problem with prawns is that they are soft and
difficult to hair rig, yet simply placed directly on a hook and
dropped in the margins under a pole float can be deadly and it was
this tactic that was to be my number one approach. If this approach
failed then I also had a 9ft Scope rod and one of the new Nash
Ballmakers as a backup approach, yet I knew the chances of having to
resort to this today would be slim.
Having located a few carp I set up
well away from the bank as this session was all about stealth, not
spooking the fish and baiting a couple of swims so that after each
fish I could prime once more and move on. Catching constantly in the
margins all day means not getting greedy and by taking one, maybe two
fish from a spot then moving on is the key to success. Hemp would
always be my main feed to get the carp interested along with a few
broken prawns, yet with hemp banned this had to be replaced with a
few sticky pellets.
Tackle simply consisted of my trusted
13ft Preston Carbonactive match rod, reel loaded with 6lb Gardner
HydroFlo a 4x14 pole float cocked using just two number six shot and
a 5lb hooklink onto which a barbless size 12 hook was attached.
Without a doubt the most important thing to get right when using this
method is the depth. It’s an area that’s overlooked by many, or
once found they seem to expect the next swim to be the same depth,
yet every time I move I will plummet the swim so that the prawn is
fished at dead depth. A good tip when rotating two swims is to
plummet each swim then place a mark on the rod blank. This is done by
placing the hook in the rods keeper ring then painting on a mark
where the float tip is on the rod using either Tipex or Nash Spot-on.
Once this has been done is just a case of moving the float to the
correct depth every time I move swims.
Having primed each swim and found the
depth it was time to drop a prawn in but not before making sure that
the clutch was set as I knew on hooking a carp so close in it could
well be explosive stuff. The float had hardly time to settle before
it disappeared and a firm strike saw line leaving the spool at an
alarming rate. These fish fight really hard and its important to use
balanced tackle as too fine a set-up will lead to prolonged fights
and if over gunned, especially in the rod department will see
hooklinks broken. After a few minutes I had the first carp wallowing
on the surface and slid the net under a gorgeous looking mirror of
around 11lb. Moving onto the next swim failed to produce and after
ten minutes I simply primed it again with a handful of pellets plus a
few prawns and moved back to the first only to see a repeat
performance happen albeit this time from a carp around 5lb. Although
I did catch from the second swim it soon became obvious that one swim
was far better and come the end of the day I had lost count of how
many carp Id landed, probably around thirty! Although no perch saw my
net I did take one of the lakes larger residents, a fantastic looking
common weighing 16lb 8oz, one that fought so hard it had me convinced
that it was foul hooked in the tail! I could have concentrated on one
swim, but as I said earlier don’t get greedy, it’s far better to
catch and move than plunder one swim.
To further enforce just how brilliant
this method is I took it to FLE Fishery the following week.
Perch were my target in Lake 3 so I replaced the hemp feed with red
maggot. This tactic saw a dozen net perch landed but soon I had carp
crawling up my rod so moved to Lake 4 that holds carp between 7lb and
20lb. Two anglers had fished a 24hr session and were packing up on my
arrival and during their stay had landed just three carp. I spent 40
minutes float fishing with prawn on the hook over hemp loose feed and
landed two carp as well as losing one. What I could have landed given
24hrs is unthinkable and just proves the point that you don’t need
carp rods, boilies, bolt rigs and alarms on most small day ticket
waters. Simple float fishing using natural baits along with a little
thought on swim selection is far more rewarding and productive!
Venue profile –
MBK Pump Station Pond – Longmoor
Road, Greatham, Hants GU33 6AP
FLE Fishery – Greenridge Farm, Green
Lane, Ampfield, Hants SO51 9BN
Images –
1. Pump Station has to be one of the
prettiest day ticket venues I know.
2. Prawns, one of the best carp baits
available.
3. A few items of kit is all you need
to catch loads.
4. It took just seconds to hook this
double.
5. A plummet is so important when float
fishing.
6. One of Pump Stations bigger
resident.
7. Day ticket should mean constant
action.
8. Spot-on, not just for making your
line.
9. One on the float from FLE Fishery.
10. Next month will be all about tench
and crucians on the feeder.
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