So what are we looking for

However, the thing we are interested in is the fish and what they are up to under the water and how can we take advantage of it to put some on the bank. Of course June is the old traditional start to the season and a lot of lakes, and of course the rivers, still start on the glorious 16th so it is with these waters I will begin. The stillwaters will have been closed to angling since at least the end of March so the fish will have had a nice rest. Hopefully we would have been able to walk round the lakes though during this time to have a good look at the fish. I am talking about carp and tench mainly here but bream show well close in during the close season, whether to feed or to spawn, so some assumptions can be made from watching them as well. Access to a boat is handy on larger waters but tall trees are good enough. So what are we looking for? Well obviously any sight of a fish is useful but we should also be looking for areas of weed or, more importantly, areas of clear bottom in amongst the weed. These clear areas will have been created by fish activity, whether by feeding or as routes through thicker weed. The areas should be accurately located from the nearest swim at bank level. It is easy to see them from up a tree but they are largely invisible from the ground so use a marker float to find them. Once you are happy that the lead has hit the clear bottom and the float is right above it, log the distance and direction of the cast by marking the line and finding an object on the far bank that will be visible day and night for you to line the cast up with. Record this information in a book or in your head, obviously making a rough diagram in a book will be more reliable as the season, and your memory, grows older. If you are allowed, start introducing some bait to a few of these areas. This will serve three purposes, 1) your intended species will start treating the area as a natural feeding area, 2) they will start treating the chosen bait as a natural bait and 3) the feeding activity will ensure the clear areas stay clear. If the clear areas are close enough in, we may even be able to watch the fish actually feeding on your bait. This will give us confidence in the bait and will give us an idea of how the fish are actually picking up individual items of food. The more time spent observing your intended quarry now will mean more fish on the bank when the season starts. This applies to all species, not just carp. Back in the late 80’s I took a break from carp fishing to pursue other species and I found watching tench especially fascinating. How we ever catch tench I will never know, they are the most careful feeders I have ever seen, constantly sucking and blowing at items and only moving off with one, and swallowing it, when they are completely satisfied. Also tench are great communicators with other tench, when a source of food is found, instead of getting on and feeding themselves they swim off to find other tench. They also roll heavily on the surface with their tails, then only when a group of tench are present will they get their heads down. Bizarre behaviour, use it to your advantage. I did at a pit near Chertsey in Surrey and caught many big tench by creating clear areas in the weed and getting groups of tench into a real feeding frenzy there. When the season started, the tench were feeding over the areas without a care in the world.Bream too can be made to feed in this way but they are easily spooked close in, so this is an unreliable way to get them going. I have not found a way yet, apart from heavy regular baiting of an area at least 40 yards out, to consistently catch large bream so time is a constant player in the big bream hunters’ armoury. Lastly let’s not forget rivers in the close season. Time spent walking up and down miles of your chosen river will reveal gravel runs and areas of weed. By baiting these gravel runs you will get to know the size and numbers of the species the stretch holds. If it is barbel you are fishing for then bait several spots, eventually you should attract some, and once attracted by regular baiting during the close season they should hang around ready for you to catch when the season starts. Obviously by seeing how many fish turn up, of all species, you will be able to gauge how much bait to introduce, also if there are any barbel in the stretch at all. The same of course goes for chub, river bream etc. So the close season has gone well and the first two weeks of June have been fine giving us loads of opportunities to observe our quarry, so we should now have made a final choice of area or swim we would like to start off with. The final permutations being weather and angling pressure. On most lakes and rivers we should be able to arrive in plenty of time on the 15th (or before!) to bag our chosen swim. On some carp lakes of course it is not as easy as that and some sort of draw will probably take place. If this is the likely scenario then we should have created several feeding areas in various places that no one else in their right mind would choose giving us a guaranteed chance of being on some fish from midnight. I will come back to what happens next later but first lets look at the likely situation on a water that has been open all spring and has been fished regularly during that time. We will find ourselves in two situations here. First, we will have been fishing the lake all spring ourselves so will have good knowledge of what has been caught where, on what and by whom and, more importantly, what behaviour the fish have taken up after three months of pressure. The other situation is where we did not buy a spring ticket or the new ticket starts in June and we are first time members. So we are new on the lake but others have been fishing all spring so have the upper hand. The first situation is the easiest as we will be in tune with the lake and its inhabitants and will have fished using the tactics I suggested in my last piece about spring fishing (see April 2000 edition). It’s just a matter now of continuing the good work but adjusting our tactics to the changing behaviour of the fish. We will have noticed that April was brilliant and the carp and tench fed really well and we put loads of fish on the bank. May was a little harder especially as the weed began to get heavier and there was more angler pressure on the water. Quite probably the carp, and tench especially, had their first go at spawning sometime during the month if there was a spell of hot weather. If they spawned successfully then they should have had a post spawning feeding spree, this is very noticeable with tench, and very large catches are possible for a couple of weeks after they have spawned out. Obviously they will be a little lighter in weight but to my mind they are better than the footballs that are caught when they are in spawn. Look for them in the margins where they will swim up and down looking for food. Choose a likely clear area of bottom and bait heavily with groundbait and sweetcorn or chopped worms. Floatfish if possible, not essential, just purely aesthetic. I have found you can be playing a hard fighting tench visibly twisting and turning whilst just a foot below other tench can be seen feeding away on your bait, nothing will put them off whilst they are in this mood. Keep an eye out and cash in. By June many anglers will be drifting off, a little disillusioned by the dramatic decrease in action. This lack of action is due to several things, spawning as mentioned, increase in natural food as the weed grows, but most of all, angling pressure. On waters that open in June, indeed when all waters opened 16th June, it was accepted that August would be the slow month due to natural food and pressure. Well all that has happened is that we have brought that month forward to June by fishing heavily during April and May, it’s as simple as that. Fishery owners have realised that now, after opening in spring for a couple of years, the fishing is very bad during June, July and August and the fish, especially carp and tench, just are pressured out. Fortunately, many clubs have re-introduced some sort of close season, leaving it to the day ticket waters and lightly fished waters to remain open. So how can we make the most of this apparent lack of enthusiasm on the fish’s part? Well of course the carp and tench are still feeding, they have to do that to live. This next bit applies to both of those scenarios I mentioned earlier, whether you have been on the water all spring or have only just starting fishing it when others have been on there all spring. All that is happening is that the fish are avoiding the often-fished areas and/or becoming more cautious of anglers’ baits. It is at this time when the anglers’ most useful weapon comes into play, eyes, enhanced by a pair of Polaroid sunglasses. The fact that the lake will be quieter as some anglers will have given up is also a useful thing. Try to get down the lake as often as possible but if you can only get down once a week do not despair, just make the use of your time there. One hour with feeding fish in front of you is better than twelve hours with the nearest fish thirty yards away. Spend as much time as possible up trees, crawling around and creeping through bushes. Do not turn up with a preconceived idea of where to fish. For one thing the fish may not be there and for another, if someone else is in your chosen swim you will be totally thrown and the session will be wasted. If you have no idea where you want to fish then others can not disappoint you.If we are quiet, we should be able to see fish moving around. Except on the hardest of waters these fish will be willing to have a little feed sometime during the day and can be coaxed into a feeding situation. Although margins and snags will be the obvious areas, this is not always the case. Last summer I had walked round the lake several times and baited several margin spots but after a couple of hours I had not seen a single carp in the edge. However from up a tree I could see four or five carp a couple of feet down behind a shallow hump of gravel thirty yards out. The surrounding bottom was very weedy so the only place to present a bait was on the side of the gravel hump. The trouble was, how did I get a bait out there without spooking the carp. Knowing the carp liked the odd floater or two, or rather they liked swirling at loose baits and pretending they ate the odd one or two, I fired out some mixers about twenty yards to the left of the hump. Two of the carp moved off immediately then, just as I thought the ploy would not work, one of the swans on the lake swam right over the hump to get to the mixers thus spooking the two remaining carp, that swam off. I quickly took advantage of this unexpected situation and catapulted three pouchfulls of trout pellets and half a dozen boilies to the side of the hump. Five minutes later three of the carp returned and took up residence on the side of the hump again. They were more mobile than before and when the fourth carp returned it went down to feed on the trout pellets straight away. This was my chance. When two others started feeding as well, I waited, and waited. Fifteen minutes later they were still feeding but again the swan spooked them as it swam past. I had one chance and one chance only. For once, the cast was spot on and the single bottom bait landed with a thud on the gravel on the side of the hump. From up the tree I watched. It was ten minutes before one of the carp came back followed five minutes later by the other three. To begin with they just hung around but then one started feeding again and before long all four were feeding in short bursts. I climbed down from the tree and sat by the rod looking at the limp line running out over the blanket weed that enveloped this part of the lake. Suddenly there was a large swirl over the hump followed by a screaming buzzer as line was stripped off the baitrunner. I struck and the carp charged off out into the lake beyond the hump. Once out in deeper water it weeded itself up just thudding around. Under full pressure it was back to square one with it being just the other side of the hump, but not moving any further. To avoid total disaster I slackened the pressure only for the carp to surge off again into the weed. Three times this happened before finally it rolled over the hump back into solid weed on my side. Now the carp was only fifteen yards out and rolling around but the blanket weed was solid. There was only way, into the water up to my waist. From this position I was able to put pressure on and walk forward so the carp was at least getting nearer. After another five minutes, a ton of weed and a scaly flank finally fell into the net. Not sure the carp was there, I was like a schoolboy at Christmas tearing weed out of the net when finally it became visible, indeed the carp was there, a big one at that. After wading back to the bank I was able to clear the weed and unhook it. It was a big one going 29lb 14oz on the scales. A great result from a difficult situation but this is the sort of thing we should be looking for at this difficult time of year when the fish are not playing ball. Look for spots under overhanging trees or the side of overgrown islands where we would not usually look, very shallow bars or humps, especially late evenings and early mornings are good as well. The usual problem is bird life getting on the bait, so we may have to stay in particular swims deterring them whilst we wait for the carp or tench, darkness at least reduces this problem. Remember though, this is still June or July so let’s not make things too difficult, the usual spots on the back or top of bars or on the far bank trees will still produce. Just try and do something different. Do most anglers cast out a single hook bait and then fire out a hundred boilies round it? Then after a night of no action wind in, recast to exactly the same spot again then fire out another hundred boilies? Well, if so, can we do better than that? The majority of anglers will without doubt be over-baiting for the length of time they are fishing at this time of year. Try using a bed of particles with a few boilies over it, or a stringer of ten boilies with a pop-up over it. A PVA bag of chopped boilies with again a pop-up over. Any of these cast to exactly the same spot everyone else has been casting to may produce a result. Be observant and do not be afraid to try something different. Right, now we have arrived back at the scenario where the water, lake or river, has not been fished at all during the spring and it is June 16th. We have done our homework by observation and baiting up, what do we do now the season has started? Well hopefully on opening night we got one of the swims we wanted and enjoyed the BBQ or whatever the club put on, or just sat quietly drinking in the atmosphere of opening night. By dawn hopefully we caught something and the season has started well. If not though, well there is a long summer ahead and plenty more chances. Depending on the angling pressure, the carp and tench will carry on with their close season behaviour for a few weeks so we can hopefully cash in on the feeding areas we created. Look for the areas that we concentrated on that were away from the usual areas fished by others. The early season angling pressure will have pushed the fish into these relatively quieter areas. Therefore by being stealthy we can get action where others will fail. However try not to be too dogmatic, keep your ear to the ground to see where fish are being caught from by others and be willing to change tack at a drop of a hat. The carp and tench will be feeding every day now we are into summer proper, so don’t be afraid to introduce plenty of bait. Though it is not so much the amount of bait, rather than what it is that matters. If we are doing two or three day sessions then we can afford to sit and wait. Therefore we need plenty of bait out there to attract the fish into a swim and once there, hold them there. In this scenario, by all means fire out a couple of hundred boilies round each rod, however ensure it is good quality bait that the fish want to eat. A bait that we know works, because we should have been putting it in during the close season and hopefully even seen the fish eating in the margins. If there are several anglers all doing long sessions, all firing in hundreds of boilies then unfortunately we may have to follow suit. However, if all the other anglers are just sitting in their bivvies for three days then I know we can do better by spending our three days constantly on the move looking for fish and baiting up several areas. The only reason we can’t do that is if every swim on the lake is occupied, a very sorry state. If that was the case I’d probably go to another water until the pressure calms down. As June passes into July the carp and tench will start retreating into safe areas, under bankside bushes and trees and in snags. Although these fish are probably sulking and not feeding they will eventually come out to feed. Therefore do not ignore them but do not spook them any further by fishing for them right in their sanctuary. Find a spot a few feet out from the bush and introduce a bed of particles with a few samples of hookbait over the top. Watch the fishes reaction over a few hours, or days, and watch for a weakness. I bet they will sneak out for a little feed when they think you are not looking. Once they have done this a couple of times, make sure the next time you have a baited hook sitting there waiting! Don’t forget all the patches of gravel we baited in the close season. Every trip trickle a bit of bait in and keep an eye out for the fish feeding there, and keep looking. I am no expert in river fishing but common sense dictates that what I have said in this piece applies to barbel especially as well. With some adaptation feeding areas can be created in rivers and angling pressure has the same effect on them. After all, they are still fish! As July wears on the angling pressure will decrease but the weed will get worse and the fishes behaviour will change again to one of high summer laziness, this is one of the most difficult times of the year to catch, next time we shall have a look at that.

Have fun!