Catching Up With The Monkeys Part II

Tom Clark

Carp anglers are a special bread of people, who seem to have a sixth sense, that little bit of magic which helps them in there quest for big carp. I have not only experinced this myself but have talked to many and read a great deal about other anglers who have also experienced this strange phenomenon. It seems as though we get sent a message by the carp gods, telling us to get in the car and get the rods out because our target fish is just waiting to have its picture taken. It doesn’t happen often but when it does you no about it. It often starts out with everything that could go wrong possible, does just that! Arriving at the lake with no bait, bivvy, rods, landing net, alarms the list goes on, but we get through it, we soldier on because we just know that at the end of it, the rods will be in the water and that feeling, that sixth sense we had to get out there will be rewarded hugely!

This has happened to me on a few rare occasions over my angling career and they all stand out because those sessions have rewarded me with my favourite captures.

One of the most memorable times was last September. I was sat at home with a cuppa in front of the telly, when out of nowhere a mass of black clouds surrounded the area with terrible thunder and lightning not far behind. I then had a phone call from John (the owner of a tricky gravel pit) asking if I could get down to do some pictures of a new p.b common he’d just landed. For some reason I had this gut feeling to take the gear with me, that feeling that I just had to be angling, it just felt right, and everything was pointing towards me been on the bank. I decided to ignore this calling through,  as I had a urgent date with the revision books and could not get my way out of it, even to photograph the big common! All night I couldn’t take my mind of my local and peg 31, it’s a quite peg at the north end of the lake and walking with the dog the previous night I had spotted a few of the bigger originals kicking about under the big blossom tree. The peg itself is hard to fish as it’s very snaggy and has a popular swim opposite which is rarely free.

The next morning I awoke to a phone call, one of the regulars informing me that a 27lb mirror had just come out (one of the biggest fish to frequent the bank that year!) “yes you guessed it”, it came from peg 31! To say I was gutted is a understatement, I swore to myself from then on I’d never ignore the "calling".

Strangely the very next week I was angling on a small pit close to my home chasing the big Tench and Roach which inhabit it, when I got a call from Michelle (the owner of different gravel pit to the one the 27 came from) suggesting I’d better get down, as the fish were tearing the bottom up in the channel and the lake was pretty much empty. I told her I would see what I could do, but had no real intentions of getting down as the forecast was shocking and I had a date with the girlfriend!

I returned home form the mornings tenching and was sat having a sandwich and a drink when I got thinking about my conversation with Michelle earlier on, I had a vision of peg 19 in my head and couldn’t get it out. peg 19 is again a snaggy swim with a cracking channel were I knew the fish would be feeding. I had the same feeling as before and as I swore to myself I wouldn’t ignore it again, how could I? Especially after what happened last time.

I soon found myself on the phone to the girlfriend making my excuses “a serious headache”,  then packing the car and making my way down to the lake, praying 19 was free. I pulled up, the place was empty, which is very unusual.  I was a very happy man to say the least. I unloaded the gear into the barrow and made my way down counting the pegs as I went past 1….2...3...4……..7...8...9………..16…..17….18.. Yes it was free, I was ecstatic. 

Dropping the gear on to the peg, I saw 4 large fish move in to the channel (just as I had expected) and yes they were ripping the bottom up. Unloading the gear I felt I was missing something, bivvy-check, rods-check, stove-check, bait-SHIT. I had only gone and left my bucket of bait in the garage! A quick phone call home and I arranged my sister to drop it off a.s.a.p.

Whilst I was waiting for the bait I had set up camp and everything was ready to go, all I had to do was put the baits on and cast out. Surely nothing could go wrong? I reached for my tackle box to get my baiting needle, were was it? It wasn’t in its usual place. Shit its disappeared (later found in friends tackle box!). A quick phone call, this time to Michelle to ask if she had any spare in the caravan, my luck was in and she was soon round with a needle. Right I thought, nothing else can go wrong now, I’ve all me baits on the rigs, the sticks are threaded on to the hooklinks, lets go.

I was just about to cast the first margin rod out when I felt a trickle of rain, the trickle turned into a sudden down pour! How can it go from been bright sunshine to a monsoon? Quickly, I got the margin rod out and placed it on the rest. I then turned round to find I had left the bucket of ready-made sticks open, and they had all melted (the word northern monkey comes to mind!!)! The sticks on the other two rods remained dry, they were still resting on my bed chair. So after a quick glug, I got them out on to the spots and proceeded to catapult 20 bottom baits per rod.

I started getting violent liners on the channel rod and before long it ripped off. That session resulted in a brace of proper English bread northern 20’s, which is very rare from the lake in question and as expected I was very happy with the result.

That session made me realise that I should always follow my instincts and I’m sure all of you carp anglers out there will be able to relate to this!
 
This brings me to a recent session with my partner in crime Luke Berzins. We arrived on the Wednesday afternoon to find the first lake on the complex empty, so we had the pick of the swims. However we both felt as though we should be on the lake across the road (pit.2) but decided that pit.2 had too many anglers on.  Settling in a swim called point, which we could double up in and still cover the main body of the lake along with a few tasty marginal spots!

After baiting the areas with a good scattering of the awesome large + small dumbells sc25’s and a generous amount of the matching pellet I took a stunning linear ghost carp seconds after setting the trap.

All set for the night, but for some reason things just didn’t feel right. There were Fish were showing, but we both felt as though we should be on  the other lake (pit.2), as some of the originals were due out big style!

We decided to go for a walk around 2 and see which pegs were free, and see how much pressure was actually on the lake. Arriving on the pit, we were presently surprised at the swims which were vacant. Two of the more productive swims at the south end of the lake were free and they both gave us a few of the better, well no spots to target.

Stood there looking across to the far margin, we saw two fish crash. One of them was certainly an original called starburst. Not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, we ran back to pit.1, loaded the gear on the barrows and bombed it at formula 1 pace to pit.2.

Just before dark we had the rods baited and on the spots. Two of the rods were baited with a small sc25 dumbell tipped with a 10mil OCM pop-up, fished over a small bag of crushed sc25 and OCM. The third was fished to a tasty pot-bed, where the originals are frequently spotted. The hook bait was a snowman rig which consisted of a 18mil sc25 bottom and a sc25 pop-up whittled down perfectly, so that it was critically balanced (very tasty!!!) and just wafted above the boilie crumb and sc25 stick mix with added tuna.

The next morning we were extremely happy as our tactical move (sixth sense again!) had paid off big style! We both had two originals in the sacks, preparing them selves for there pictures taken!! “and yes mine was the original starburst”!

This water is a mega tricky gravel pit with only a handful of carp and does receive a great deal of pressure To both get a original in a nights fishing is un-heard of, but we both new we had to be there. Is it a sixth sense or just good luck? In my opinion us carp anglers are blessed now and again with a little bit of sixth sense, and some luck thrown in. This luck isn't always good, but when it is and it gets combined with the message from the carp gods expect great things! Of-course a good bait always helps!!

Over the last month Luke and I have taken some of the biggest residents from our local syndicate and day tickets proving that effective baiting and good angling can land some proper northern carp. Get on the sc25!

Thats it from the northen monkeys until next time, slack lines and screaming alarms.

Tom Clark