Targeting A New Water

In early April I joined a new water for the start of the new season. Now, being a month or so down the line, I want to tell you how to go about fishing new waters so I will include tips and tricks which should hopefully help you steal a few more bites!

I bought the ticket even though I had never even seen the water itself but I had read up on it since it was only a small water maybe 1-2 acres in size. I knew it would be ideal for my tackle which is a Nash Dwarf set up, I have two 10ft 3.25lb Dwarfs which breakdown to around 4 foot partnered with the dwarf landing net. I can fit all of this neatly into the Nash Dwarf 2 Rod sleeve which conveniently has a pocket inside of the bag to fit your landing net as well as your two rods. This makes it a breeze carrying this stuff around without a 6ft landing net pole waving about everywhere. For all my terminal tackle, alarms, bank sticks, hook baits and anything else small I might need, I keep this in my Nash Ruckall. This is very handy as it has separate compartments which allow you to store your tackle very neatly. It also acts as a barrow bag and a backpack in one, as it has standard rucksack handles which can be zipped away and turned into a heavy-duty base for the bag so it can sit flat to make accessing the bag very easy. The only other tackle I need is my Nash sling mat. This is very handy as it's both a nicely padded mat so helps protect the fish and at the same time allows you to zip the sides up to weigh and put the fish back in the water without harming it. I also take two buckets of bait with me. In one is 5kg Apex Bait Spod & PVA Pellet and the other with 5kg Apex Baits Maliboo boilies.

I planned my first session to go on Monday 5th April. I'd been tying up standard carp hair rigs the night before and eagerly looking forward to my session. On the Monday, I had to put a graft in at work before I could get out but when I  finally arrived, the sun was blazing down onto the lake and since it was early spring it was a carping paradise. It was the first time the sun had been out all year and it was nice and warm with very little breeze. There were so many carp on the surface so instead of looking around the lake like I had planned, I went straight into the first peg and started chucking dog biscuits out, whilst that was keeping the carp occupied I was quickly tying my bolt machine onto one of my rods then tying Nash’s Zig & Floater line straight onto my hook with a 6 turn blood knot. I used one of the Nash Hookable floater pellets and within 2 minutes of it being on the surface I had hooked into my first fish. It was a lovely little mirror having been told it is mainly commons in the lake it was quite rare to have one out which i was super happy with.

The main thing I learnt from this is if there’s a chance to catch the carp right there go and take it because I could’ve walked around the lake to come back to this swim to find the fish have gone into the deeper water or if the sun was to get blocked the carp may come off of the surface.