Spring time proper at last

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I must admit it its been a long time since I savoured the arrival of spring to the extent that I have of late. Every day I’ve been out on the bank taking in deep lungfuls of fresh air and really enjoying my fishing time. Thankfully, little Honey our daughter has reached the age where she can attend nursery for the afternoon and this means that I get my third night back, as I’ve been restricted to two nights a week over the last year, so this will make a huge difference to my fishing for the rest of the year. Of course in the spring I’m super busy prepping for the arrival of the right weather. I’m currently baiting two waters, one a big sixty acre pit that holds one big fish but doesn’t get much angler pressure in the big scheme of things; and the other is about half the size and contains a dozen carp and is again lightly fished, so I’ll continue to bait my areas on a weekly basis until I feel they are “prime” and the conditions fall right for me to fish one of them.

The big pit spot that I’ve chosen is a shallow bar on the Southerly bank in five feet of water and is best fished on a Northerly wind, whereas the other lake spot lies on the North bank and receives the warm winds from the South. Both spots were chosen carefully to ensure that when it's right for one lake to be fished it's not right for the other, so I’m not put into the position where I have to choose one over the other.  I’m now three weeks into my weekly baiting routine and the weather's steadily improving, so it will not be long now until I start to drop into my baited swims, once the weather falls right for them. Until then, I’m busy flitting around as usual on waters that look right for it or out shooting magazine features on various waters.

My first trip to France is still a way off, so for the next month or so, I’ll keep a very close eye on the weather and pick my venues according to the temperature and air pressure, when deciding on where to head.

The next two weeks are almost written off, as early next week I’m off to shoot a feature on the South lake on the Yately complex, and the following week, I’m headed to the Cotswold water park, to spend three days filming for the 'Thinking Tackle' show, which is shown on Sky Sports. This will be quite challenging as I’ve never laid eyes on the water we are going to, let alone fished there, so I know nothing about the lake whatsoever; not even the basics like where the deep or shallow areas are. What’s more, we arrive to film immediately after the Easter bank holiday so the lake will have been very busy and received a big quantity of bait. Terrible timing really, but that’s the thing with TV - you have to book well in advance and stick to the dates so I’ll just have to do my best, I can do no more than that after all.

Luckily, the lake holds lots of good sized carp, so I’ll turn up in the dark because I can't get there any sooner, which I’m used to, and walk round the 30 acre pit until hopefully an opportunity presents itself before the cameras arrive early the following morning. Let's hope the carp gods smile on me!

Since my last blog I’ve been out and about to several waters and have caught lots of nice carp, but no real monsters as of yet, but I’m sure one's not far off with the weather improving by the day.

I’ve just returned from two nights on a big lake over near Heathrow Airport and managed to get amongst the fish. The lake in question has recently turned syndicate, so last weekend I went down early on the Sunday morning to go into the draw for swims. Now I’ve always done terribly in draws and don’t usually bother, but on this occasion I came out third which was nice, especially as this meant I had a good chance of getting in one of the two swims that cover the shallows, the rest of the lake being quite deep on the whole. The reason I'd gone in the draw in the first place was that it offered the best chance that week, let me explain.

As an avid weather watcher, I’d noticed a big change forecast, with temps up to 18-20 degrees(the warmest days so far this spring) and gentle easterly winds(blowing directly onto the shallows on said lake) and this would, I was sure, push the fish in numbers up onto the shallows where there was fresh weed growth and depths around 6-8 feet. Perfect for spring feeding. What’s more, it is well known on the lake that when the fish hit these shallows, that big hits are on the cards. Now this doesn’t usually happen until later in the spring, but I felt sure that with temp's as high as those forecast, that some would visit, so I took the gamble and arrived for the walk off the following Wednesday morning.

Amazingly, I managed to get my first choice of swim, the rest was up to the weather - would my gamble pay off?

Well yes and no, the wind as forecast sprang up from the East, but it was much stronger than predicted and cold! On top of this, the warm weather wasn’t as warm as expected and it arrived a day late. The upshot was that I awoke at first light on the first morning to a big display out from the edge of the shallows. The fish obviously wanted to push in, but the cold wind held them in the deep water out in the lake where they jumped like dolphins. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t get a cast to them as they were in an area that wasn’t in my water. Oh well, that’s fishing for you, best laid plans and all that.

It wasn’t all bad news though, as in the night I'd caught one after the brisk wind died away and obviously a few had crept up into the shallows, and a nice 27pound mirror got me up in the early hours.

The next day stayed cloudy 'till late in the afternoon, when the sun eventually burnt off the mist and we received a couple of precious hours of warming sun and I hoped a few more would creep in for a feed overnight.

Well I needn’t have worried as I’d caught two more nice fish by the time I packed away the next morning, but the weekend warriors would soon arrive and fill the lake, so I was on my way home by 10am, happy that I'd caught, but the trip had proved just how important timing is at this time of the year.