Bonkers Brasenose!
Tom Maker visits one of his favourite venues, looking to make the most of a window of opportunity, and he most certainly does...
When it comes to my personal fishing, these days it’s only on very rare occasions that I get to just choose a lake to visit, and then enjoy some time behind the sticks without working, as such. By that I mean angling with no commitment to Sticky, Fox or CarpFix, or when putting features together like this one. So when I recently found myself with a free week, there was only one place I was going to head for as I looked for some action and the chance of holding up one or two big girls for the camera: Linear Fisheries.
Brasenose One now holds a ridiculous number of big carp, around twenty known forties and a fifty by my reckoning. By anyone’s standards, that’s some stock.
I arrived on the Sunday afternoon for my usual look around. Unfortunately, no one was leaving the area where the fish seemed to be and were getting caught from until the Monday afternoon. After speaking to some of the anglers, I dropped my bucket behind one with a view to moving into the swim twenty-four hours later, and I looked forward to getting the rods out.
The next day soon came, and on the back of the swim’s previous occupant’s success, I found myself targeting a similar area to that which he’d fished, just shy of 100yds out, if I remember correctly. As per my standard approach, I prepared a mix of mulched Manilla Active, sweetcorn and hemp, along with some chopped worm—edgy.
It was only a matter of hours before my first bite came, a low-thirty carp being responsible. A second bite followed soon after, and as I landed the fish, I believed it to be a mid-thirty, and thought very little of it. The scales, however, told a different story. The fish heralded the start of a crazy run of big carp, and it took the needle round to 42lb 4oz. Happy days indeed!
The action continued throughout the night, and with the session feeling like it was my own, I really wanted to push myself to see just how many I could catch, especially given that there are so many in the water. I had plenty of D-Rigs prepared, all baited with my favourite trimmed-down Peach & Pepper pop-ups. I think I banked seven or eight fish during the night and into early morning, and a few more followed during the day.
Heading into the second evening, I put out more bait than usual, just before last light, in the hope that it would hold the fish and keep the action coming. It was clearly the right decision. In the darkness, a triple take produced a thirty-pounder and two twenties. Suddenly, however, things then went quiet, and this surprised me to some extent. I was shattered, but I made the effort to get more bait out.
It was bitterly cold, and I sat in my waders, watching the rods, which was far from ideal. By 2 a.m. I was done. I badly needed sleep and so wound the rods in, planning to cast them back out once my horizon marker was visible again.
With only a few hours left of the session, I decided not to bait again, fishing just singles to the zone where my bites had come from. I had a 42lb 2oz mirror just before first light, which was followed swiftly by another of 33lb. Then, about an hour before Tom Gibson was due to pass through on his way to Dinton, I had a fish of 40lb 10oz. My mind was well and truly blown.
The total tally at the end of the session was twenty-two carp, and this included six thirties and three forties. Looking back at the session, I believe I had so many large fish because I didn’t top up with bait immediately after bites. Constant baiting will bring you bites, and indeed fish, but it doesn’t not necessarily bring the bigger ones. I think these will often lurk on the fringes of the pack, so to speak. I’ve since been back, this time with CarpFix, and my personal challenge is to catch a fifty from the complex. I spent another night on Brasenose One and enjoyed more manic action, but more on that at a later time!
