A week's tutorial with Nigel Sharp

The CARPology Lake Fish-In Event!

The next date in my diary was a week on Rookery Meadow (The CARPology Lake) with Rob, Joe and a few readers of the ‘Ology’. But a few days before that, the almost forgotten sun came out so I headed for a few hours at Frimley with the floater gear and managed to bank a 22+lb common for my trouble.

The next day I dropped on to the local club water for a night, bagged a 21+ mirror, whilst fishing the crude ol’ size 6, 20lb Amnesia, 18mm boilie set up over a bucket of Super Seed and halibut select pellets.

Back to the date in my diary. With all the plans made, Rob and I had arranged to meet up at J8 services on the M40 before heading to Rookery. We also took my ol’mate Bidders along for the first couple of nights to help out, as Joe couldn’t make it until Monday.

Arriving at Rookery mid-afternoon on the Friday, Bidders, Rob and I had a walk around with Andy (the owner) before he left us to it. Being as the ‘readers’ weren’t turning up until Saturday, we had less than a day to try and bag a fish each to get a feel for the place.

My first one from The CARPology Lake. Stunner, eh?

After Andy left, we all had a brew thanks to Bidders breaking out the brew kit. The plan was, being as it was hot and the whole lakes stock was on the surface, we’d try a bit of floater fishing and set up when it cooled down a bit. With the brews all done, the three of us headed round to the field bank with a rod each, all set up with 5grm controllers, 7ft 8lb Fly Leader hooklinks and size 10 hooks. I ’pulted out a load of Mixers and we sat and waited. Half an hour passed, and several more Mixers drifted over the fish and still nothing took. It seemed a bit puzzling. So Rob and I had a look up the shallows and found a few feeding on the bottom, so we got a rod each. Returning to the swim all the fish had gone. Maybe, as it’s such a quiet place normally, they must have known we were about!

Whilst looking up and down the margins, I noticed a small mirror take a Mixer so I went back to the floater kit. Bidders was already cast out, as he’d seen a few taking so Rob and I cast out and watched the odd fish taking. Three hours passed before the first fish was banked by Rob on a Mixer hookbait after he’d changed over from a cut down pop-up because he’d had several refusals.

I persisted with the trimmed down pop-up, still getting the odd refusal before finally nabbing my first Rooky fish about 8p.m. With my pics done and getting a soaking after having to wade up the bank to net the fish, I called it a day. Bidders carried on and finally lost one just as the light started to fade. Unlucky chap!

Once we’d picked our swims for the night, Rob sparked up the barbie and by midnight we retired back to our swims.

I don’t think it like the fact it had a lump of cold steel in its mouth!

That night was probably the worst night’s kip I’d had in ages. It was like fishing in the Amazon; you could hear all sorts of animals chattering and cheeping. I didn’t sleep a wink until the sun came up and they shut up, finally pulling myself out of a coma at about 8.30am. As I was waiting for the kettle to boil, I could see Bidders and Rob were already flat out surface fishing. With the sense sharpening brew downed, I packed up my kit and put it in the car park before heading round to see what they’d had. Bidders had bagged a li’l one and there were a few taking.

Rob had to go and meet Simon and Richard (The first pair to turn up for the event) up the road, so before Rob left, I got my floater gear and after a couple of casts managed to land a hard fighting 22lb 4oz common. Rob ran off a few shots on his EOS and shot off to collect the two lads. Whilst Rob and Bidders were away, I noticed the fish had pushed up to the shallows, so I moved on to them, fired some Mixers up wind and watched.

Whilst watching them, a few started taking, but they didn’t seem to be really hammering the Mixers; just taking a few before dropping down again. Amongst the group of fish I’d spotted, one that I’d seen the day before was a pale coloured fish with a black dot on its flank. It appeared to be much bigger than the rest of the fish in Rookery.

‘Dot’ at thirty-pounds and ounces.

Within a minute of spotting it, Rob and co came back along the path and introduced me to Simon and Rich. After a quick chat, I looked back at the fish and Dot (as I’d named it) suddenly started taking very confidently. The lads egged me on to have a cast. Without much persuasion, my controller was soon cast out and another smaller fish was bee-lining for my hookbait. With a slight pull, I managed to pull the hookbait away from it without spooking any of them.

Dot was still taking a heading for the hookbait, taking another two freebies on route before making her mistake. It must have looked so easy to Simon and Rich as the water exploded when Dot felt the cold steel in her lips.

Dot put up a fair battle in a relatively small area, before Simon (Silly Bollox as he’s known!) netted her. With the usual trophy shots and giving her a number (weight) of 30lb 7oz, I slipped her back to fight another day.

Well, to cut a long story short, over the next few days a few more fish were landed, all off the top (surface) with Rich firstly breaking his PB by nearly 10lb with a long scaley 25lb 8oz mirror, then upping it at the last knockings of his 48hr stay with the capture of Dot at 30lb 8oz

The ever-helpful-ever-activeever- awesome Bidders got in on the action too.

Whilst watching them on the surface, I’d noticed that they didn’t really compete with each other and seemed to just pick at the Mixers. The same seemed to be happening on areas (patches) of bait that were around the lake. They seemed to just have a quick graze and move on.

After not getting a take off the bottom for three days and trying several different set ups involving Chod Rigs, bottom bait rigs with Amnesia hooklinks, braided and skinned hooklinks and different size and patterned hooks, I decided to have a wade about to see what the lakes bed was like. Eventually sorting out some raised hard spots amongst the clay bottom, I scrubbed them off with my feet and left them to settle whilst I tied up some miniature Snowman rigs with a tiny tiger nut, topped with a bit of fake corn, Knotless Knotted on to a size 8 Wide Gape. The only tubing added was a small piece of silicon just below the knot on the shank.

I didn’t add any curved shrink tube to the arrangement, as I’ve recently come to the conclusion that that type of setup causes hook holds to be in the lips of the fish and sometimes cause hook pulls when the hook point hits bone before fully penetrating.

Another one of the big fellas from Rookery… unfortunately this one was well spawned out. Pukka fish, though.

With the rigs tied, I waded back to the hard spots and lowered them in. Donking the little 11/2oz Square Pears along the toe of my waders until I felt them touch the lakebed. Once the lead was in place, I’d push it into the clay with my toe, then sprinkle a small handful of Super Seed Hemp, 10mm pellets, a dozen small tigers and a few crumbed Sharp’s Boilies.

This method of placing baits accounted for five fish up to 29lb 8oz, ending my week on Rookery with 10 fish. Five off the top, and five off the bottom. Once I started getting bites off the bottom, I tried using other patterns of hooks, but the size 8 Wide Gape set up seemed to suit their feeding situation.

I, for one, learnt something during that week and hope the other lads (Simon, Darren, Mark and the two Ricks) did. They were great company. Always learning!