new lake, where to start? advice please!

[Marc]

Right, this might be a long post so go make a cuppa before you start reading :D
For the last couple of years now I’ve been floating about fishing local day ticket waters and have never had a chance to really get to know a lake properly and tackle it with any real game plan getting the fish feeding where I want them and on my own bait.
This is partly due to the lakes either being too small, having lots of anglers on so I’m getting the swim that’s left rather than the one I want and not being able to fish nights on some.

Fairly locally to me there is a lake on a membership which I have been part of in the past which is very rarely fished and when it is it’s always for silvers.
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Right at the top is the car park and the first bay on the right is the only place I have seen other anglers fishing due to being too lazy to walk. I have never seen anyone fishing from the middle divide or down the east/south bank.
I fished this for a year mainly for tench (up to 10lb 8oz :D) but I was around the time I started getting interested in carp after catching a couple of the beds of maggot I laid out for the tench so started putting a rod on boilies as well and in that year I had a few carp up to high doubles and lost a couple which I knew where a lot bigger.
I know back in the late 80's early 90's this lake had a few 30's in but it was taken over and rules changed stopping the carp anglers fishing so for the last 15 years the carp have been left alone and all the carp I caught were virgins to hooks.
The reason I didn't re-join at the time was a few reasons, mainly no night fishing and a hell of a lot of weed which I didn't have time to deal with.
I'm 99% sure this is the lake for me next season as I have just heard the club has opened up all there waters to night fishing on a separate ticket and with my extra experience and knowledge I really think I can get one of the 30's from 15 years ago out. All the fish I had looked like very old strains of carp, real dark in colour and nice big scales so would love to see their parents :D

Now this is where the problems start, the lake is pretty much virgin to carp anglers and apart from about 3 or 4 swims on that top bay, the lake become pretty weeded up all over and when I fished it before I was forever getting snagged up and struggling to find clear spots to put a bait so I’m not to sure where start?
I've been over there at least twice a week in the last couple of months while nobody’s been there with my marker trying to find depths and features and also watching the water looking for signs and from this I have come up with 3 possible swims
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I have chosen these swims as they have all been showing signs of fish on features I have found and have the least amount of weed and snags near them, is this the best idea? Or can you see any other spots where the carp would hang out? I could walk over the weed in the summer on the top left bay so that is defiantly out of bounds and I would rather be away from any other anglers so they don't see me and get curious and try and fish it :mad:
Now, I have found out I can get a half year ticket starting 1st Jan so I’m planning on getting that to start and getting the game plan rolling by first, making the swim on the bank then raking and prebaiting.
I don’t know if any of you have been in this situation where you have a 'blank canvas' to start with but I’m unsure of where to start with the prebaiting, do I bait up the clear spots I have found? Or do I bait up other spots and let the fish clear these with feeding? Or do I just spray the bait out randomly and let the fish get a taste for the bait and then fish a hook bait on the clear spots I have found?
The other thing is the bait, as this hasn't been fished for years the fish aren’t all mainline snobs not touching anything else so I think any bait with a good nutritional value will turn them on or will it? They have happily been feeding on natural food all these years so will they want boilies? I just don't know :confused: I have a friend who swears by the aqua dynamic maggot boilie and worm boilie, so maybe best of both?
Any cheap boilie recommendations welcome or even cheap nutritional recipes I can knock up.
And also any idea how much and how often I should bait up?

This is very daunting to me and I put it off last year but the thing that keeps drawing there is the mystery of the place and what lurks in the depths and I am now willing to potentially have a rubbish season and spend a lot of money on bait just to settle my curiosity................am I crazy?

If I do go ahead with it I will write one of them blog things to keep you all updated on progress.
For now I will keep the location under wraps but if I do start catching I’m happy to share my swim with anyone willing to do all the cooking :D:D:D

View from the right hand swim with the island in front of the left swim to the left hand side of the picture
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Any advice on all of this is much appreciated
Thanks for reading
Mods, if you think this post should be in a different place please move

[John]

looks a nice place to start with :cool:

Baiting up and how often, will mainly come down to your budget and time you have.

I personally would start baiting the clear spots, but not just with boilies, try hemp, corn, various seeds etc, just so they dont get spooked off by seeing a boilie lay there.

If your going down the natural boilie route, worm or maggot, you could get some maggots, freeze them and get them on the spots aswell, worms im sure you know how to extract from the garden so i wont teach you how to suck eggs :lol:

I would also bait up some of the less obvious spots, giving you options should the clear spots fail to produce.

How often do you do this, if it was me i would go down every couple of days and feed the spots with 2 or 3 kg of bait, but not fish them for a while, and just continue to observe, this way you can ascertain if the fish are indeed visiting these spots and mopping up the freebies.

Rig wise, going off what you have said regarding weed, i would use a running leadclip or inline drop off setup.

Im sure there are others who will give there opinion :tu: hope that helps for now though.

[jonny vegas]

i think i,d start by spending a load of time just walking round, trying to find fish, as it warms up in spring,, dripping a bit of bait in where you can check if its being picked up by the carp,,then take it from there, maybe a bit of stalking along the way, on the bait front, theres plenty of companies out there that do some great deals on bulk buying, premier and destiny are 2 that spring to mind, you say theres no night fishing,, but theres looks plenty of place,s and cover to sneak the odd overnighter in undetected,, especially the are,s well away from the car park! good luck fella,

[Carpbreakout]

Sounds fantastic and as you say quite daunting! Johnny just read his notes, there wasn't any night fishing but there is now!

The first thing that springs to mind is the fish may not be used to boilies and probably get all there food from natural sources. Consequently it may take a while to get them interested in boilies if you wish to go that way. The question that springs to my mind is using another bait, i.e. corn or maize likely to result in excessive unwanted fish? Both maize and corn are superb carp baits and of course are likely to cost less to prebait with. I know you have said there are tench in there and big ones so whatever bait you are using can potentially be taken by them. Personally I've found corn to be more attractive to silver fish than maize, so would be inclined use maize. There are generally less people using this anyway since it doesn't come out of a supermarket in a can!

The idea of stalking is a good idea! You are then targetting your fish directly. Your idea of targetting the clear areas has the attraction of potentially avoiding weeded fish, which is quite a problem with large carp. I prefer to fish waters that aren't too weedy but several of the waters I have been fishing have quite a bit of weed, and I have discovered that it isn't insurmountable. Obviously the carp like it, its just us anglers that don't. Whichever way you go it sounds very exciting. Yes please count me in for the cooking!

[Marc]

Thanks for the replies!


I personally would start baiting the clear spots, but not just with boilies, try hemp, corn, various seeds etc, just so they don’t get spooked off by seeing a boilie lay there.

The problem with baiting up on particle baits is the lakes full of silvers and any hemp/corn would get lapped up by the roach and dare I say it? Bream within minutes of it going in.
The other bait had my eye on was big pellet, something like 20mm so the roach can't destroy them before the carp find um.


How often do you do this, if it was me I would go down every couple of days and feed the spots with 2 or 3 kg of bait
Do you really think this amount is needed every couple of days? I would have said yes if I was baiting it up for a week’s fishing but potentially I’m going to be doing a couple of nights and a couple of morning/afternoons every week next year. I was thinking more in the region of 1/2kg boilies 1/2kg of pellet every few days than double that come spring when they back on the feed properly.

as for the rigs, it’s an old gravel pit so the bottom is very hard and I’ve only managed to find silt in a couple of places so I was thinking just a simple bottom bait hook link but use an lead ejection system where it drops on the take which I didn't know about before.


i think i,d start by spending a load of time just walking round, trying to find fish, as it warms up in spring,, dripping a bit of bait in where you can check if its being picked up by the carp,,then take it from there, maybe a bit of stalking along the way, on the bait front, there’s plenty of companies out there that do some great deals on bulk buying, premier and destiny are 2 that spring to mind, you say there’s no night fishing,, but there’s looks plenty of places and cover to sneak the odd overnighter in undetected,, especially the are,s well away from the car park! good luck fella,

I'm fairly sure I have selected places where the fish regularly patrol and feed from what I have seen, I know in an ideal world I would have say 10 swims I knew like the back of my hand and could fish when they looked good but in reality there are no proper swims currently round the bottom part of the lake and I will have to get in there and make them myself from clearing the floor to cutting branches down so I can cast.
I like the idea of stalking though, I didn't think of that, I wouldn't have to clear the swim fully as I won't be bivvied up and as it would just be a flick out I wouldn't need to clear the branches either.
That’s got me thinking now :) I wasn't going to go back for a few weeks but I might go for a walk one morning this week and scout out.

[Marc]

Sorry breakout, you must have posted as i was typing :)
Maize is also something i didn't think of, i've hardly used it and when i have its just gone in a mix.
I didn't realise roach etc are less lightly to take a bit of maize over corn, does this work for bream as well :D
I don't mind taking another double figure tench but the bream can do one!
and if you or anyone else are serious about taking on this mission then let me know, the lake is about 5 miles from my address at co100ds

[John]

Thanks for the replies!

The problem with baiting up on particle baits is the lakes full of silvers and any hemp/corn would get lapped up by the roach and dare I say it? Bream within minutes of it going in.
The other bait had my eye on was big pellet, something like 20mm so the roach can't destroy them before the carp find um.


Do you really think this amount is needed every couple of days? I would have said yes if I was baiting it up for a week’s fishing but potentially I’m going to be doing a couple of nights and a couple of morning/afternoons every week next year. I was thinking more in the region of 1/2kg boilies 1/2kg of pellet every few days than double that come spring when they back on the feed properly.

as for the rigs, it’s an old gravel pit so the bottom is very hard and I’ve only managed to find silt in a couple of places so I was thinking just a simple bottom bait hook link but use an lead ejection system where it drops on the take which I didn't know about before.



I'm fairly sure I have selected places where the fish regularly patrol and feed from what I have seen, I know in an ideal world I would have say 10 swims I knew like the back of my hand and could fish when they looked good but in reality there are no proper swims currently round the bottom part of the lake and I will have to get in there and make them myself from clearing the floor to cutting branches down so I can cast.
I like the idea of stalking though, I didn't think of that, I wouldn't have to clear the swim fully as I won't be bivvied up and as it would just be a flick out I wouldn't need to clear the branches either.
That’s got me thinking now :) I wasn't going to go back for a few weeks but I might go for a walk one morning this week and scout out.

If your trying to get the carp that is munching on naturals and pre occupied on them onto an anglers bait, you will need a lot more than a kilo of bait every cpl of days, being full of silvers, the smaller baits will feed them off allowing the carp to move in on the bigger stuff, but 1/2 a kilo of boilie will be gone in seconds once they find it, so i think you may need to revise that part of your thinking :think2:

back to rigs, if its a hard bottom wth silty patches, the hinged stiff rig will be ideal for it, I mentioned the inline drop off due to you mentioning it being weedy :tu:

[Marc]

thinking about it your totally right, i'm gonna need to get loads of bait in each week to ensure enough carp get a taste of it and after watching the underwater films i know a couple of carp can do a bed of bait in a few minutes.
I have been talking to a make at work and i've convinced him to get onboard and were came up with quantities that won't break the bank.
after the ice has cleared off the lake (if we get any) we will start with 5kg maize 5kg pellet and if i can get it cheap enough 5kg of boilie per week then double as the lake warms up and they get on the feed.
We will also lay beds of home made party mix when were fishing to give that bit extra.
I'm off greenlaning tomorrow but i will go over wednesday morning before work and take my camera to show you what its like :D
The pellet, maize and party mix isn't a problem getting hold of as another fishing buddy of mine runs a pet food show so trade prices :tu: but i'm still struggling on boilies on a budget.
I will post in the bait section to try and find some recipes as to not clog up this thread.

[Carpbreakout]

Hi, sorry about delay replying always think maize a bit better for carp than corn when silver fish are about since its just that bit harder. Having said that if bream are hungry they will munch anything. I would think very carefully about using a lot of pellets, great bait but the bream love it. I fish Sibsons up near Peterborough which has a fair few bream in it and putting pellet in is the kiss of death for the carp since the bream just home in on it. :td: Always quite like hemp or pidgeon mix, so long as the carp don't get addicted to the hemp.

[jonny vegas]

would be nice if one of your chosen swims was off the beaten track,, buy a cheap bivvy to leave in situ,,, for a bit of covert carping,,,
http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd396/stevj1/covertcarping.jpg

[Marc]

I was planning to do that actually!
I was going to buy a cheep brolly and chair and when i'm not there, pull um up in a tree :-)

[Marc]

well the recon mission didn't go to plan fully, i turned up and saw the baliffs car in the carpark so had to access it from another fishery i know the code for :shh: don't tell anyone ;)

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