Silver Snake
The silver fish section of the snake lake at Townsend near Wisbech was dredged and restocked recently, making it worth a look while rivers and drains were out of bounds early close season. That’s my umbrella in the distance as I didn’t want to get frazzled in the hot and sunny conditions. Everyone opted for pole tackle, quickly discovering the place was just as prolific as it used to be before undergoing its recent makeover. Last year it was a bite every put in, with lots of small roach and rudd, plus odd F1s and a few skimmers. I ended up dropping short on that occasion, feeding casters by hand with a shallow rig, catching loads. Starting down the middle this time resulted in a mad flurry of action, with lots more ide in the mix. It was nice to enjoy such busy pole action, a good way of sorting out rigs for tougher challenges to come.
Attacking Floats
Having lots of fish to contend with in 5-6ft of water, positive olivette rigs were selected to get hook baits down quickly. Body-down Edge N5s are ideal for this with their carbon stems and medium hollow tips. 0.75g and 1g sizes were brought into play, to find which worked best. A lighter capacity shallow rig was also on standby, but with lots of small stuff in the upper layers, it was doubtful it would get a run out this time. N5s perform well on nearby drains too, tackled up in similar fashion with olivettes, finished with just a couple of equally spread dropper shot on medium hook lengths. This simple format works when short lining on a pole, or long lining with a whip. It gets baits like maggots, pinkies, casters or soft pellets through to any better fish at full depth. In this instance, casters and small banded hard pellets were to be the main baits.
Surprise Appearances
Despite fishing at full depth, rudd began to push in on the proceedings, including some stunning gold-coloured versions. That was followed by some elastic stretchers, turning out to be unusual red-tinted carp or F1s, I wasn’t quite sure which. I tried going a bit more over-depth in the search for bigger fish and connected with something more powerful. This one fought differently, turning out to be a barbel, which coincided with someone appearing behind me. I took a quick photograph before slipping the whiskery creature back. The newcomer was an EA bailiff, who I had met before on the nearby drains. After checking my rod licence, we had a quick catch up. Because these guys cover such a huge amount of water, it’s always worth asking about other in- form venues. A couple more barbel and plenty of other species kept me busy after that.
Marvellous Manea
Manea Fisheries and Caravan Park is a favourite close season haunt, a great place to try out different things. I first used Edge Adjustable Loaded Pellet Wagglers on here, in the depths of winter, bagging loads of carp. Now it was suddenly spring, I decided to have more fun with an Edge Crystal Clear Pellet Waggler. I loose fed 4mm pellets with a catapult and banded a 6mm size on the hook. My Cadence CR10 12ft Match #3 comfortably coped with lots of fighting fit carp, ranging from a pound up to double figures. Watching my brother-in-law Barry trying to cram one of the venue’s big lumps into his match size landing net made me chuckle. That was taken on a pellet feeder fished tight to the island, also accounting for a rare tench and plenty more carp. Other than that, its huge shoals of rudd, odd skimmers and perch in this lake.
Different Ways
This prolific carp water is called Boat Lake, due to an old cabin cruiser perched on its island. The latter is also home to a white rabbit, something I would need to have up my sleeve to compete with Andy Griffiths, when we returned a few weeks later. Andy was going to concentrate on the carp with stepped up pole tackle, while I was aiming for big numbers of rudd. The latter are growing fast, but I wasn’t sure if they were sizable enough yet to compete with the bigger species. It didn’t take long before one of the beasts that inhabit here was tamed by Andy. He slipped that one back because it was too big for a keepnet, but match sized samples were quickly going in at a steady rate. It was already looking a tough task to see if I could keep track with small fish, but on a positive note, the rudd were queueing up right from the off.
Speeding Up
Many anglers prefer the big fish route and don’t do small fish races, but I enjoy the numbers game, occasionally. It reminds me of when I first started fishing as a kid, taking half a pint of maggots to park lakes, trying to beat my previous best tally. Back then it was roach, perch and gudgeon, often using small matchsticks as floats. A hundred small fish was a good day, whereas I’m looking for ten times that amount here. It’s hard graft but I love the challenge of getting rigs right for catching shallow, striving to avoid time consuming tangles and feeding the correct amount. It’s a fine line trying to keep the rudd interested, without overdoing it and pulling hungry carp in. In this instance I was feeding half a dozen casters every put in, topping up with odd balls of soft groundbait. Top kits were Kitted out with light grades of Edge Hybrid Latex Solid.
Top Tactic
It was the tail end of a busy bank holiday weekend, so the carp had probably been well fed. Andy still ended up with a decent haul, but had to work extra hard for it. He prefers it that way, because it can get tedious if it’s too easy. By carefully trickling in hard pellets, his long pole tactics kept fish coming steadily, while others around the lake were finding it tougher going than normal. Not forgetting Andy put back a monster that was too big for his keepnet, this was by far the top catch of the day. He was slowed down by another lump of a carp, which gave his pole elastic an extended workout, before eventually shedding the hook at the landing net. On tricky days the cad pot approach he used, dribbling small quantities of pellets over a pole float, is hard to beat. It concentrates and almost provokes finicky feeders into having a go.
Keeping Track
I normally drop a pellet into a spare bait box for every hundred small fish caught, to avoid losing track, but didn’t bother with counting on this occasion. I like to keep things simple, not being into fish counters, or clickers as people call them. It was steady going, but I don’t think I quite made the four-figure mark. The rudd are definitely gaining weight and this haul probably took out at least half of Andy’s total, but it will have to wait another year to give the carp weights a closer run. I enjoyed accumulating so many fish, sharpening up ready for the new season, where I would be delighted to weigh in a bag like this on the nearby drains. I’m already planning to get to know the Middle Level better and fish some matches there. Then there’s the prolific Old Nene and Twenty Foot rivers to continue exploring, hoping for similar catches to this one.
Quieter Places
I always enjoy peaceful spots like this, making a refreshing change from more hectic venues. Although there’s some great fishing to be had in public spaces around where I now live, there are lots of distractions to contend with as well. They’ve just built a new bike track in the park at March, close to some of the best pegs on the Old Nene. I don’t think I’ll be going there come June 16th, preferring one of the wilder, more remote fenland rivers or drains. Fish might congregate in well-populated areas, but constant disturbance negates the reason I like to go fishing. Meanwhile, targeting skimmers on a less busy lake suits me fine, enjoying the tranquillity and time to contemplate. There are plenty of other places I would like to fish, but can’t always be bothered with the hassle involved, finding parking and avoiding noise.
Nice Fish
I love catching skimmers, which can suddenly appear in your swim, or just as quickly melt away. In this instance I was trying to feed just enough to attract these fish, while not pulling in too many carp. I had already been interrupted by a couple of lively F1s and a bigger mirror. After that it was a case of wading through lots of small rudd and roach, before switching to pellets to try and be more selective. That worked and a good number of skimmers, ranging from 4ozs up to well over the pound mark resulted, one or two turning bronze enough to almost be bream. My earliest skimmer exploits started on canals around London when there was a big competition scene. It was only through matches I learnt about how to catch these fish. It was mainly about squatts and casters back then, while these days pellets have become an important factor.
The Lagoon
Always interested in trying somewhere new, a trip to one of the gravel pits that line the River Ouse in the Wyboston area was next on the agenda. South Lagoon is run by Luton Angling Club and you can buy a day ticket on the bank, with easy parking close to most pegs. Andy Griffiths was with me, casting a feeder way out into open water, a tactic which didn’t take long to wake up the bream. He caught some proper slabs and plenty of skimmers. Not wanting to clash with carpers who were on the other side of the bay where I ended up, it was the waggler for me. It took a while to get anything decent, using a banded hard pellet to get through the numerous small stuff. A near two-pound skimmer was the first fish to grace my landing net, but after that floating debris from nearby willow trees kept clogging up the reel line as it hit the rod rings.
Finding Escapees
After another stoppage, unpicking balls of willow fluff from my Edge Sinking Mono, I got attached to something big and powerful. It turned out to be a decent carp, but it shed the hook trying to take my rig through an overhanging bush. After de-fluffing again, an identical performance followed from an even bigger fish. I came closer to landing this one, but the bush got in the way again, ending with my hook expertly transferred into a sunken branch. The bailiff told me that a load of carp had escaped from a flooded commercial, getting into the river, which this pit is attached to. So, it was less of a surprise when yet another lump put a prolonged bend in my CR10 13ft Match #2 rod. The damned bush beat me again. The only sign of bream after that was when I took a walk along the river, witnessing a shoal spawning in the margins.
