Memories from June 2024

I thought it time to delve back into my diaries again. It has been quite a mixed couple of months since I last shared what I have been up to angling wise.
I never joined anywhere new this year, being more than content with the 4 waters I tend to bounce between, which depending upon the weather conditions and my state of mind whilst making my final decision as to ‘where to go.’ My final decision before my weekly food shop and my food shop depends upon how far I will be needing to barrow my gear. One of the venues, my motor is very close, so I can carry multiple pans etc. I have long passed the everything on one venue attitude that I perhaps once had. I simply go where the fancy takes. I haven’t targeted an individual fish since 1987, so it makes no odds to me what get caught whilst I’m away. I do like to have both deep and shallow venues at my disposal, as well as ones with plenty of shade, particularly for those silly hot days we seem to get here in the U.K. nowadays. By constantly watching the weather, I am usually drawn strong to one of my venues, more than another. The following week it could be one of the others.
I had started to fish swims I rarely fish and rarely saw others in, on my favourite, most chilled out venue ‘The Paradise Pit’. I ended last month with a session in one I had never actually fished before and was rewarded well. It had been a strange weekend as the only carp I saw in my swim, were attached to the end of my line! I guess that it’s the reason I never fished it, because I rarely saw them there. That was a big lesson. There were plenty holding up out of sight. Possibly this is a normal thing on all venues. They have learned they are safe, so long as none of them break the surface and give themselves away. This is one of the reasons I find it sad that some take to using drones to find them. I feel for the carp when their final defence line for sanctuary is removed from them.
Anyway, I found myself the first weekend in June settling into another swim I had only fished a small handful of times over the years. There is a very popular swim next door, that tends to be taken if its available. A swim with so many options, yet the little swim next door, well, you are rather hemmed in with minimal options. I chose the latter and had a game plan. The fish here are incredibly angler aware and particularly line aware. The makeup of the bottom makes it very difficult to get the lines out of the way and it is one of these venues that sees a lot of sediment/algae build up on the lines which makes them look like tow rope in next to no time. Well, I settled myself in and kept the hook baits very close but baited in a line by catapult out into the pit. Got myself settled well back and started to cook dinner.

I never had to wait long, in fact I was halfway through a plate of Teriyaki Chicken I had cooked after setting up when one of the rods sprung to life and an incredibly violent fight started. The carp really ran me ragged, and I was not particularly in control of the situation at all. The speed of its runs and the rapid change in direction had me momentarily thinking I had pulled out several times as the line pinged off weed and stones on the bars. But alas, my small hook remained in place and the head of a dark common slid over the drawcord followed by what seemed like an endless body.
I looked in the net and recognised it as the ‘Coelacanthe Common’, a fish I had first caught float fishing in a small bay after feeding it for a couple of days to get its confidence up and it gave the same type of fight then. The only carp I have caught that managed to snap my float whilst still out in the lake!
I had named it the Coelancanth as it looked so prehistoric and had 3 dorsal fins. I don’t particularly like naming fish, but this one just seemed to come to mind straight away. Anyway, it was good to see it had grown a fair bit too, so, not that prehistoric.

I went to bed that night really content that my baiting strategy had worked so quickly. I’d not put a lot of bait out but had started with a literal ‘sprinkling’ of hemp. So little that the carp would know there was hemp there but be a pain to feed upon. They would not be able to sit and hoover but would have to move from grain to grain if they really wanted some. It was over an area probably 10 ft round with the hook bait sat waiting my side. Among this and spread further with the catapult was broken boilie. Next bit of bait was larger bits of broken boilie stretching further still, and then halved boilies which have a mind of their own and eventually full boilies. A line of bait out into the lake. Not a lot of bait, but enough for them to know it was there and hopefully follow the line as there certainly wasn’t enough to feed more than a couple of good fish.
First light I was dragged from the snugness of my pit to do battle with carp number 2 which was duly landed. A freshly stocked mirror from the winter and obviously on steroids the way it fought.
As it had been tearing all through the swim in its panicked fight, I didn’t really have to think about whether it was safe to introduce more bait. Usually, I don’t at first light as it is prime feeding time on so many of the places I fish. But, I felt any other carp that may have been having a munch would probably have been temporarily spooked and not wanting to come across wrong, although I had a big kick out of catching that second fish, I do know a lot of that stocking are still hanging around together in quite a big shoal and I knew I would probably be in for more of them, so didn’t mind pushing them off for a while and hoping one of the older fish would move through. So, my baited line was repeated.

Mid-day Saturday and after a bream interrupted the party, I had what was to turn out to be my largest carp of the week-end. A pleasing start to June, a nice, contented weekend, left alone, up until someone turning up on the Sunday and making it clear they intended to wait for me to leave and take the swim over. I’m not used to that type of thing on the waters I choose to fish these days. But, hey ho. I ended up leaving earlier than I usually would.

The following weekend was a work party weekend. 3 days of hard graft laying road stone to complete a track we had started the year before.

Yes, I fished between the working days, and I managed to land a carp. Only just in time though as I had wound two of my rods in for the Sunday workday, when the 3^rd ripped off. Sometimes your luck just holds in. To be fair I am confident I would have caught more had I not got to wind in as carp were still evident as I walked away from the swim.

I know I have mentioned plenty of times that I got Lymes disease last July and still suffer from it. The main affect it has on me is being very tired and struggling to keep awake. This makes a lot of everyday things a problem as I have further complications in as much as I have for the past 19 years had to connect to a life support machine before I can risk sleeping. Basically, I stop breathing when I sleep, so must have air forced down my throat to help keep my windpipe open. For obvious reasons, I can’t just take a quick power nap when tired. To give an indication as to how the Lymes Disease has affected me, I used to average less than 7 hours sleep a night (you can’t cheat an average). There is like a tachograph running permanently that is impossible to cheat (I know, I tried as I always used to get into trouble with the doctors for not sleeping long enough) monitoring that side of my health. I basically used to run out of sleep after 6 and a bit hour, 7 hours was a lay in. Since the tick bite that went wrong, I can be out for 10 hours if an alarm clock doesn’t wake me.

Well, after the work party I went down bad again with the various symptoms I get from Lyme's and also had the arthritis in my shoulder really start to play me up too. The following couple of weekends were spent on the bank, but I hardly feel as though I had fished and suffice to say, I blanked. Both trips I found the carp elsewhere, but just didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. I hadn’t even put the effort in to set the swims right with bait. All I had wanted to do was cast out and crash out. Effort equals reward and I am more than aware I had not tried to help make it happen. Often, I am content just to be there.

June ended with our annual British Carp Study Group social weekend and A.G.M. 3 days in the best company imaginable. All egos left behind years ago. No-one with anything to prove, just great banter, the odd idea shared and a rather merry time. When I stopped drinking alcohol in 2022, I felt the A.G.M. weekends just wouldn’t be the same. I was always last man standing with whoever was still enjoying a slurp. More than once it turned light without us realising, until someone noticed and commented. I remember one year at our own Korda Lake, the sausage and burger van we had hired for catering had turned up to do breakfast and we were still drinking. We ate breakfast and went to bed. That was a first for me, breakfast, then bed. Nothing to be proud of, it was all harmless fun, no aggression anywhere, just blokes sat catching up with others we often only see once a year. It is nice that I have still enjoyed the last two years just as much, whilst remaining sober. Long live the B.C.S.G.

This was also the first A.G.M. I remember attending that we as the Steering Group, came away from without extra jobs that needed addressing. It seemed the members were happy with how things have gone after quite a major re-shuffle of roles last year due to a couple standing down after years of great service to the group.
Well, I was going to include July in this blog too, but feel I have rabbited on enough for now. So, as always, I sign off wishing you all the very best.

Shaun Harrison

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