Dexter Petley PART 2

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Crystal Pope
5 years ago
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1 TREASURE ISLAND by Dexter Petley PART 2

2 The logic of persuasion sang sweetly for a summer campaign. The World Cup would keep the rowdy indoors till nearly mid-july. The prediction was a heat wave. I usually despair at heat waves, being strictly shade loving, lowpressure functioning, but now I was banking on July water temperatures of 25 degrees centigrade for this to succeed. I had the bait and knew it was working. 50kgs of 14mm Live System. I d switched to Live System in October 2009 because it had the profile I was looking for. Light, air dried/eggless, natural shelf-life, four season, milk protein/bird food. Until then I d always rolled my own bait, along those lines, one by one, each a different shape and size, but the quantities I needed now were beyond me; apart from the rolling fatigue. Back in October 2009 I d had two sightings on Art House pit. The 34 spot once again, and a bigger fish sixty yards off the playground bank. I took bearings and searched this area. A stony, bumpy plateau at 7ft which dropped in peaks and troughs down to clay and silt at 14ft. All in an area less than 20 square yards. I decided not to bait it for the moment, being unable to determine where it showed. Sticking to the island for the first few sessions on the Live System, both eyes remained glued to the other side in case it showed again. I fish alone, short sessions, mid afternoon and two hours into dark, at least three sessions a week all year round. Most of that is observation. This includes Christmas Eve, New Years Eve, it doesn t matter, but never a Saturday or Sunday on a public water. Otherwise, you observe things you shouldn t have to. Apart from human atrocity, there s the slaughter of coarse fish, the pike anglers fishing gorge tackle on four rods left 300 yards apart and the usual beer bottle wars. October 5 th was a Wednesday, mild, light showers, slight breeze off the north end. Second session on the Live System. One on the 34 spot, the other at 9ft in a silt gulley. Water temperatures on both was 15 c. This is often the case till November when the hard frosts hit after sunset and the water clears. I try and take temperatures every half hour, finding safe spots of similar depths away from the baits.

Both rigs fished tiny bags of crushed and whole boilies bulked with Live System pellets cut with rough sea salt. I haven t cast a hook bait without a bag in four years.

3 Both rigs fished tiny bags of crushed and whole boilies bulked with Live System pellets cut with rough sea salt. I haven t cast a hook bait without a bag in four years. Bags allow complete control over presentation. I use double strength bags all year round, usually mini, credit card size, the lead outside the bag for any distance up to fifty yards, sixty with the wind behind me. PVA bags don t behave like you think. Putting them in a tank is only half the story. When using the lead outside the bag, most quick-melt bags split open on the way down as you feather the lead, compromising the whole rig. If you re hiding a hook bait among pellets or boilies, you want a long meltdown time whatever the depth or time of year. I don t usually fish for bites twenty seconds after casting, so quick-melt is just a selling point of no use in bottom fishing. I m not talking about over-stocked runs waters, obviously. Lead-in-bag considerations are also another subject I won t be touching on here, just to avoid irrelevant diversion and a hundred

4 arguments for shorter hook-links. But with any bag system I m looking for a two minutes plus melt time. I don t want anything moving or resettling until I ve sunk the line and have the rod on the buzzer with the reel in final position. When the rig itself is activated, you should get a signal, one bleep off the alarm as the bag and nugget release tension, even on a slack line. If I m fishing light leads in deep water, two double strength bags are sometimes essential. I mentioned the nugget, or chip. This is vital when fishing bags on running leads outside the bag. Jamming the run ring tight against the rubber sleeve or leader with a PVA nugget or else it will slide up the leader onto the mainline during the cast. The bag wants to travel at a different speed and is pushed backwards. The lead can then twist, trapping the run ring way up the leader. Even feathering a lead down doesn t guarantee the ring sliding back in position on the sleeve, especially if you re using pin-down putty on the leader. Most of the time, you wouldn t know this has occurred; reeling in generally corrects the rig, falsifying your assumption that you had a short hook link on a running rig. In reality it behaves like a fixed lead on a three foot hook link. Both rigs were identical in principal. 15lb Synergy mainline for the abrasion, 5ft Amnesia leaders, Nash run rings, 2oz dirty flat leads (I filth these up myself by coating them in dried marginal detritus I get from the pit edges. This includes sand, leaf, grit, twig and larvae cases). The silt spot fished a 5 inch Korda Hybrid combi hook-link attached to the leader by a small quick change link pulled tight into the sleeve; an extreme bottom rig on a size 8 wide gape barbless; the plateau fished a 15lb Amnesia hook-link ditto. There were anglers everywhere. Roving pikers opposite, carp anglers round the back of the island; three, four rod set-ups, hang dog anglers with their backs to the water. Even on day sessions, they set up their bivvies. I d stopped to chat. They had enduro hangovers and said two bream and one small common came out the whole forty-eight hour match. One of them sneered at my 2 rod quiver and tiny baits still attached from the last session, astonished when I said I was carp fishing. You only catch bream on small baits. All French carp anglers tell you that. You can only buy 22mm baits here. They find my set-up weird and always say so. Two rods, 12 bank sticks, the reels 3 off the ground. What are you doing? they say. It s four rods here! Discretion offends them, I m afraid. Here comes that English poacher, they mutter when I turn up. I was thrown off my local municipal pond, even as a season ticket

holder. Told to go back to England, just because the locals weren t getting bites and I d been seen stealing fish. They think you re up to no good just fishing slack lines, you see.

5 holder. Told to go back to England, just because the locals weren t getting bites and I d been seen stealing fish. They think you re up to no good just fishing slack lines, you see. So I was set up on the island and it was mid-afternoon. Much to my embarrassment, the plateau bait had been in place only forty-five minutes when another of those toppling drop backs plunged the indicator down full stretch. All the hang-dog eyes were on me as I acted through a repeat of two weeks previous, the same three-scaled mirror, this time at It was either bulging from enduro muck, or, as I suspected, a glut of natural food. Persuasive bait in either case, that Live System. There s nothing like confidence in your bait. Even so, the rest of October I struggled to find alternative island spots with potential. There was a complete lack of activity, not a single show, and falling temperatures meant that chances of identifying feeding spots were reducing fast. I needed live spots before winter or I d just be feeding bream. I kept bait going on the one productive spot, but no lines. It could have been a case of one territorial carp and I didn t like the idea of stressing it further. In the event, this fish would become a revelation, confirming my switch to Live System as a breakthrough, an inspiration on traumatised waters with low populations of bigger fish which trigger-binge on naturals.

Winter Carping at Abbey Lakes

Winter Carping at Abbey Lakes My veiw from Heron lake With our winters becoming milder and even more wet, with fewer cold spells until the later months of winter, carp fishing is changing all the time.