How Darrell Peck conquered the 'Big Belgian Pit'

In the space of 17 nights, Darrell steadily applied up to 4.5kgs of mixed boilies and tiger nuts every 24hrs. The action started after 48hrs and in total he received 30 takes, landing 27, equalling his PB of 65lb 4oz which he then bettered with another common of 67lb 12oz, before finally smashing it again with the largest fish in the lake at 71lb 12oz.

Within an hour of turning up, Darrell had caught a 25lb common and this new PB common of 51lb

Case study #1: A nice slice of lady luck

How missing out on the Burghfield Common was actually a blessing in disguise for Pecky...

Over the years I have fished some amazing venues but few will ever compare to the Belgian pit I fished the year before last. Luck plays a massive part and although I wouldn’t like to credit all my success to it, in this piece it’s where I am going to kick off.

I stumbled across this particular water rather than discover it. One of my commitments with Korda involves participating in the filming of the Korda Masterclass DVD. I have no input on destination, I just get given the dates, turn up and try my best. For example, this year we fished a tricky Dutch canal and the year before the Belgian water we fished a relatively easy French commercial called Carpa-Sen’s. So I never know what I could be facing from one year to the next. What I do remember about this Belgian water though was the response we received in February at the Zwolle Show from our European colleagues. They were very concerned that it wasn’t the type of water where we could go and just knock a couple out for the cameras and consequently we were very likely to struggle.

When I broached this subject with Mr. Fairbrass he looked me in the eye, confident as ever, and simply said: “Don’t worry, son, we’ll catch em.” Admittedly I wasn’t overly concerned; selfishly I was more worried about my angling at Burghfield that year and how these filming trips might affect that.

The spring disappeared in a blur of stomping around the Reading pit and before I knew it the scheduled filming trip was upon us. I’d got off to a decent start at Burghfield, catching a few fairly quickly and I’d also started to find The Common quite regular. I wasn’t the only one that had seen her, but I’d seen her the most and I’d also banked three fish in the particular area where she had been visiting.

What unfolded was quite surreal to be honest. I was en route to the unseen Belgian lake for the first time when I got the text that Dave Lane had caught The Common. Now Dave never caught her where we’d been seeing her but from another spot I’d previously caught from myself at the opposite end of the lake. It was a bitter pill to swallow, as much as I was obviously pleased for Dave, I’d fished really hard that spring, gone the extra mile on numerous occasions and the first time I couldn’t make it he caught her. Don’t think I am saying I would have caught her myself because I am not and Dave is a phenomenal angler. What I am saying is that it hurt to know I’d been close and realistically it was very unlikely to be out again that year.

Now… although this could be interpreted as terrible luck, it was in fact the catalyst to what happened next. I was completely free and I knew I wouldn’t be going back to Burghfield that year so needed another ticket…

You couldn’t write what happened: we pulled up to this 100-acre Belgian lake, done a lap and stumbled across some showing fish. It was late morning, boiling hot, but there was no doubt we had definitely found a large group of fish. We collected our kit from the van, flipped for swim choice which I won and within the hour I’d caught a 25lb common and a new personal best common of 51lb. The rest of the trip followed in the same vein, landing 10 between us in those first three nights, including two more over 40lbs for myself.

We simply cast bright pop-ups at showing fish and they were only too happy to sample them!

Case study #2: Post-spawning and timing

One quiet lake + hungry carp = some big changes

I mentioned that we expected to struggle, as a 100-acre lake with approximately 120 carp is not supposed to be easy. We had simply fallen right on our feet with our timing (30/6/14). With recent spawning, the locals had departed and the fish were very hungry after their annual ritual. At most times of year on this venue the banks are busy, anglers would be occupying the swims long-term but we arrived to find open banks and the carp merrily going about their business.

Despite the deep water and hot conditions the fish were showing heavily, moving round the lake in big groups in all out feeding mode. We simply followed the activity, casting bright pop-ups and lightly spraying a few Banoffee shelf-life’s at them and they were only too happy to oblige.

Rigs were kept very simple

The second trip fell a month later, late July/start of August and although we did well for the type of venue it was, Dan banked three and myself just one. This was less than half the action we received on the first trip. The stamp of fish though was off the scale, Dan had caught two more forties to 47 and myself a 46. They were amazingly dark specimens because of the crystal clear water and despite the reduction in action I was now spellbound by the venue. It was obvious that these fish were well down in weight but they were still very big anyway and we’d not even caught any of the known big ones.

Had we not caught what we had on those first trips I probably wouldn’t have been so excited but I really enjoyed the mobile style of fishing here and started to hatch a plan for a full-scale autumn assault. Realistically the Burghfield dream was for just one carp but here there was many carp that could bust my long standing PB.

I took plenty of boiled food with me

Case study #3: Just fishing to what I saw

If you can't get in the going swims, then you have to create your own opportunities

I returned in September for my third trip, a three-week personal session but arranged to conveniently coincide with four days of filming. It was apparent when I returned that the locals had began taking up residence in some of the better swims, as in Belgium it is standard procedure to rotate swims amongst friends and from what I was hearing some of them wouldn’t be coming free again until November. Although I was aware this would create difficulties for me getting on fish I actually found it quite amusing. How could anglers knowingly just sit it out in a swim regardless of whether the fish were there or not? Well, it all boiled down to experience, they knew the carp’s habits in the autumn and I didn’t.

With the locals generally fishing a bait and wait strategy, I knew that I wasn’t going to get any favours with regard to getting in the going pegs. In fact, quite the opposite and this suited me just fine. When I know nothing about a lake I prefer to fish opportunistically anyway because without knowledge it’s hard to sit and wait. The plan was to stay on my toes, watch like a heron and carve out opportunities with mobility and work-rate; just like I’d done during the previous two summer sessions.

When I say work-rate, I really mean it, most nights I would go completely nocturnal, lapping the 100-acre lake by bike with my rods wound in. This might sound crazy but these fish liked to show and it wasn’t a case of ‘if they were showing’, it was a case of ‘where’. I simply saw no point sleeping behind rods on such a low stock venue with no indication there were any fish in the vicinity.

Creeping around the lake on my bike in the early hours was a surreal experience, it’s not something I do regular, but here it helped bridge over the empty chasm that was my lack of experience here. During the three weeks there were multiple occasions where I knew where the fish were but was unable to get to them due to the swims already being occupied. On other occasions I stumbled across them showing close in, unmolested, and sometimes I caught them almost instantly.
I caught eight over the course of the three-week session and most of them fell to this opportunist approach. Eight was respectable without setting the world on fire, especially with the last three sugar coating the entire session, all weighing over 55lbs.

With hindsight though, it was still a woeful return! It wasn’t that I was being out-fished by others, it was more that there was just too much time where I couldn’t get in the swims where I needed to be and they never seemed to hang around long in these un-fancied areas. Looking back, my approach had been getting steadily less effective with each passing day but mainly because other anglers were in the way.

It certainly got rough at times

Case study #4: Time to hatch and execute plan B

Which in essence means: Do whatever most others can't - and in this case that's to fish further out than them

As I drove home from that session my mind was spinning with the highs and lows of three weeks on the bank. Before I’d left, if I’d been offered three over 55lbs I’d have taken it but with the benefit of hindsight, eight fish felt like loose change. At the start of the three weeks they had been coming in close, feeding on the snails in the weed that grew on the marginal slope and with the lake being quite deep (at least 25ft at 30yds range) the only place I found the weed was on the shelf to around 20ft of depth. By the end of that session I could sense the distance they seemed prepared to travel to these natural larders was declining and the fish were noticeably localising around the center of the pit. In the summer I’d seen them at either end in the space of 24hrs but now we were into October they seemed reluctant to come in and often could be seen showing in the middle at night. This is a common autumnal trait that I have noticed on a few waters over the years, especially ones that have inaccessible water beyond the range of casting capabilities and lines.

A plan view of my swim

After being home for a couple of weeks, my writing commitments were complete and I had this overwhelming urge to drop everything. I just needed to get back to Belgium. The way I saw it was that the extreme graft had been done and that in learning so much it was sacrilege to not follow through with this. Tickets were booked and the plan was hatched. If mobility had been Plan A, Plan B was to bait and wait whilst drinking premium Belgium lager to pass the time.

The key to bait and wait as I see it, is carp traffic. If they encounter the bait without having to go out of their way, they are much more likely to get on it regularly. The easiest way to do this here was to bait much further out than the others and deploy these tactics in the area I had previously seen the activity. Luckily there was a central peg the locals seemed less interested in that I had ear-marked for this. Unfortunately in my two weeks absence a very good Dutch angler called Rob had taken 16 fish from this particular swim, whilst fishing fairly long. It seemed he’d had a similar idea to me and now the problem was that the swim was being rotated. So I arrived with a van full of bait ready to put Plan B into action only for it to fall at its first hurdle.

We all need a bit of luck here and there and mine came when after five nights of suffering I woke after a night of storm force winds to see this peg free. Needless to say I was soon cycling my bivvy round like Lance Armstrong on a double dose of performance-enhancing drugs. Once in the peg I set about it with the leading rod for 4hrs. Like myth and legend, there was rumour of a plateau way out in the middle, apparently it was beyond reach of even the longest cast and was only known about because of anglers that had fished the lake 20 years previously with the use of boats and echos. I had an idea which direction to look because of the extensive activity I’d seen during the previous session; it was just a case of how far was it.

Rocket fuel!

Well, I found the near edge and to be honest it was further than I could comfortably bait, I wished I hadn’t found it as it certainly was tormenting to know it was just beyond reach. In the end I settled on an area 20yds back from the start of this plateau as although still at very long-range, I’d be able to bait it in all but the most extreme circumstances.

To cut a long story short I sat in that swim for 17 nights, steadily applying 3-4.5kgs of mixed boilies and tiger nuts every 24hrs. The action started after 48hrs and although there were periods of two to three days without activity, it was pretty steady to say the least. I had 30 takes, landed 27 fish, equalled my PB of 65lb 4oz, beat it with another common of 67lb 12oz, and beat it again with the largest fish in the lake at 71lb 12oz. Apparently it’s carpy to fish like a local!

Until next time, tight lines.