Carping Allegedly - September 23'

Mirror Pool (continued)
I mentioned in last month’s ‘Carping Allegedly’ that Colin McNeil and I were very frustrated, as it appeared that, aside from those falling to Zigs, carp were caught only very rarely from open water, and although our subsequent trips to Mirror Pool had produced a number of good fish—to high-fifties—virtually all our takes had indeed come from the tiny far-bank shelf. 

Our October 2013 trip to Mirror Pool, however, ended up being one of the most rewarding and pleasing sessions I had enjoyed for many a year. Eleven fish in a week and no losses was a good result by anybody’s standards from this tricky little water, but the fact that Col and I also appeared to stumble upon a method that brought regular pick-ups from the deep, silty open-water spots, felt like an even greater achievement than our catches.

Our previous couple of sessions on ‘Mirror’ had both produced fish, but with exception of a 30lb common that Col had caught from under his feet on the dam wall, each and everyone had come from tight under the trees on the marginal shelf running along the far bank.

I had given the open water a great deal of thought since our last session, and the more I thought about it, the more I concluded that the problem had to centre around the fact that the vast majority of the free offerings, and possibly the hookbaits, were being lost in the upper layers of the silt. Despite what many of the time-served Mirror Pool regulars had told me over the last couple of seasons, I

simply couldn’t accept that the fish were not prepared to feed in the deep water; why wouldn’t they?

My newly formed plan of action for the October trip was to stick it out in the deeper water with all but one of my rods. On this occasion, though, I would dispense with my ever-reliable, straight-from-the-bag free offerings, and my Snowman Rigs, in favour of a combination of crumbed, crushed and halved baits, and a single, critically balanced, high-attract 12mm pop-up, fished on an even-longer-than-usual Super Nova hooklength over the top.

Our last trip had seen Col really struggle with an especially bad back. This saw him unable to fish properly virtually all week. With that in mind, I was insistent that he should have first choice of swim on this occasion. He duly did, and he chose Suicide.

I have to admit, I was a little taken aback. Although Suicide is undoubtedly a terrific swim on its day, the lion’s share of our action had come from the boathouse on our previous two trips, and that was certainly where we had seen the most fish movement. Col’s choice actually threw me a bit. So convinced had I been that he would plump for the Boathouse, ahead of our trip I had given a great deal of thought to just how I was going to fish Suicide, and despite already having had two very productive weeks’ fishing from the boathouse, I was kind of looking forward to it. 

The boathouse certainly offered more options for my new, open-water plan of attack, though, and by late afternoon on the Saturday I had one far-bank rod and three deep-water rods carefully positioned and fishing.

Mirror Pool has very little in the way of nuisance species, i.e. crayfish and poisson-chat. My plan, then, as it invariably tends to be, was to leave all four baits until just an hour or so before dusk on the following day. I didn’t get the chance, though, as I was away just after first light on the Sunday morning. My prize turned out to be a hard-fighting 35lb 4oz mirror. More importantly, I had caught my first fish from the deep water, and on the new tactic, too. Conditions certainly felt good for another chance on the Sunday, but alas, we turned in around midnight with nothing else to show for our combined efforts. 

Later, as I busily investigated some mysterious noises coming from the undergrowth to the back of the swim, the remote signalled my next pick-up. I hurried back down the steps to the rods and spotted that it was indeed another of the deep-water rods that was bouncing. As tends to be the case in deep water, the fight was slow and dogged, and after a bit of plodding about under my feet in the margins, fish number two, another mirror, this one weighing exactly 45lb, was safely in the bottom of the landing net. 

For some mysterious reason, I hadn’t photographed many of my fish from Mirror on previous trips, but for once it was dry and the light conditions were ideal, so Col did the honours with the camera. As I put the kettle on for a celebration coffee apiece, I made a note of the time for my diary: 1.30 p.m. I surmised that the pick-up must have come more or less on the hour.

As the week progressed, I could virtually set my watch by the one o’clock pick-ups. In fact, the 15 minutes either side of that particular time gave me an open-water fish every day apart from Thursday. Other fish, those that came outside of that window, ensured that I ended the week with twelve carp. These comprised four thirty-plusses and eight forties. The far bank shelf didn’t produce so much as a single bleep all week!

In truth, Suicide remained pretty much devoid of fish for the vast majority of the week, although Col did manage three takes, and he picked up his biggest Mirror Pool fish at 47lb, a fish which, once again, fell to crushed, crumbed and halved baits in the open water.

Now, I’ve obviously been wrong before and I’ll be wrong again, but seemingly finding a method that enabled us to catch from the deeper water absolutely convinced me that we were getting very close to one of the two big fish that had attracted us to Mirror Pool in the first place. That’s not to say that these carp weren’t catchable off the shelf, of course, because obviously they are, but from the moment we first set eyes on the water, both Col and I felt that our best chance was from the deeper water. 

Sadly, our October trip ended up being our last to this lovely little water, and ultimately, despite all our efforts, the two big mirrors managed to elude us—shame, really, as I felt sure we were getting close.