Linear Lumps

Week 4

Now for a fifteen days of fishing night sessions I hadn't amounted to any real significant captures. In order to up my catches I decided to target the runs water Brasenose 1 to try and get some bites. When I turned up on the Sunday there hadn't been any fish out all weekend and so me and Mike began to worry. Mike had spent the majority of his time on Hardwick and Smiths Pool where he caught 4 stockie fish up to mid doubles. Mike's PB at the time was 16lb 12oz and despite 3 weeks of fishing with loads of twenties he hadn't caught one so we decided to go on Brasenose 1 one to change it.

The 1st and 2nd morning we woke up to this poor sight

26lb 2oz well pleased

As is common knowledge on the Linear complex the fish in B1 are shoal fish and love a big bed of bait, with this info Mike and I decided to bait a patch at range inbetween our 2 swims and work on getting it going throughout the week. I clipped a lead on my spod rod and found a nice clear area at 89 yards, this provided me with practice of fishing at range over bait. So with that the spomb was hooked up a 10 litre bucket of bait was put straight out in the lake. I will put details of the mix on bottom of the post. the rigs were then clipped up to the same distance and a solid bag and a 5 1/2ft Zig rig were put out there. The first night produced no fish but with the weather set to improve the baited patch would start to work for us. The second night was still cold however the fish had appeared to be more active with them crashing out. The windchill was high and therefore the expectation for a bite wasn't. At 2.00 the zig rig rod rattled off the fish kited to the right unfortunately catching up on Mike's lines  (Sorry mate). The hook hold did stay firm and the fish kissed the spreader block. At 26lb 2oz it was most welcome and despite another 5 spombs the fish didn't decide to take a bait again. The morning came around all too quickly but just before work another 5 kilos of bait was put out there to keep them interested. After a relatively easy day of work Mike and I were raring to go. The warm wind was now pushing towards us. Once all the traps were set Mike and I watched fish after fish crashed out over the spot sending a rather large oil slick notifying us of their presence. By 10 o'clock I wondered why neither of us had produced a bite, so I sent 3 spombs right over the spot. As the third spomb was being retrieved the zig rod signalled a take. The fight was slow and ponderous and to my surprise a small fish of 13lb 2oz. That night I caught a further 6 fish and lost one to mid doubles. I went to work happy but tired in the morning not before putting out another bucket of bait for them to chow down on in our absence.  So as I said before Mike hadn't beaten his PB for the whole 4 weeks and with it being the last night things weren't exactly looking up. Mike was yet to get off the mark with a fish from our combined spot. Part of the problem I thought was the fact that the he hadn't been casting from my swim so the distance he was clipped up to was falling short in his swim. With that I prompted him to cast from my swim he got it perfect straight away and the lead hit the bottom with a satisfying donk. Everything was set to be as good as the night before so we ordered a nice curry and i spombed 2 spombs every hour to keep it all topped up. By this point we were yet to catch on anything other than zig rigs over what was a large bed of bait, baffling. In the middle of our curry, Mike had as bite he played it in like a pro and a thick set mirror was duly netted. I am sure you all remember your first 20's and this fish bought the biggest smile out in the big guy. We weighed her at 20lb 4oz and took loads of photos to make sure we got some gooduns. With that fish sorted I had a bite a small double made it to the net and another 5 spods went out. So by this point it was around 11.30 and all we caught on over a large bed of bait was zig rigs. Due to exhaustion a further 2 fish followed to my rods before 12 o'clock and then I retired to bed to sleep before my journey back home the following afternoon. Well I enjoyed every minute and it has ultimately inspired me to start up this blog so see you next time.

Well done mate 20lb 4oz

Details as follows:
The Spomb mix
Vitalin
Mixed particles
Mainline Cell Boilies

13lb 2oz mirror on the zigs

Berkeley Gulp Boilies
Carp Company icelandic red boilies
Skretting pellets in 4 mm
Good Hemp Oil from tesco
Squid sauce from Tesco
2 pints of maggots

Zig rig components
Gardner Zig foam in black and white
Size 10 Korda Kurv
12lb Drennan double strength
3.5oz Korda zipp lead
Korda weedy green Lead Clip
Korda IQ2 Fluorocarbon leader


KIC Max