Return To Abbey: Ian Poole

01/03/11

RETURN TO ABBEY
When I fished Abbey Lakes last November it was the first time I’d ventured across the channel for over 12 years. The short trip turned out to be a productive one and very soon plans were made for a follow up visit in April, this time for a full week. Having not fished for that length of time since my early days on Horseshoe I was a bit worried whether I could get through a whole week on the bank, but make it I did and I’m back to let you know what happened. It wasn’t the most productive of outings for yours truly, but as a group I think we did pretty well with around 70 carp landed between six of us.
Our party was made up of three Bankside Tackle customers plus Finchy, his brother Tim and me, with Jon and me fishing Heron and the rest of the lads going for Fox. Both waters hold a tremendous head of carp to over 60lb, but for me Heron just seems that little bit more interesting to fish with plenty of weed and a lot more features.
After an uneventful journey we arrived to find Heron fairly quiet angler wise yet despite this, the only area where we did see fish was already covered. After another couple of hours spent looking round we set up a few hundred yards to the right of the only carp spotted, with the plan being to hopefully find out where the bulk of the fish were by the following morning. The early hours of the morning are a good time to find fish on most waters, although on this occasion it was shortly after first light when we saw most activity. In fact, Jon went one step further and bagged a 37lb mirror; a good start and a sign that the Heron carp were finally starting to wake up after a slow start to the year.



A CUNNING PLAN
By lunchtime I had formulated a plan and was going to move into the area the Belgian guy was fishing. He was off in the evening and had done quite well in his two days, landing a 52lb mirror just before we arrived on the Tuesday and then catching a few more since; including a mint 40lb mirror which I photographed. All of his carp were coming in the day so I wasn’t worried about not moving down there until later on, and finally got set up as it was getting dark. The swim had produced another fish as he was packing up, and if the carp followed the same pattern as they had done the previous few nights, they would disappear through the hours of darkness and turn up again around 9am the next day. In fact, it was this pack of mobile fish which I think had produced Jon’s bite on our first morning, and he had picked one off as they were moving back towards the bay where the Belgian angler was set up. As you can imagine I was over the moon to get on some fish so early in the trip, but at the same time I didn’t want to mess it up by thrashing the swim to a froth. In the end I decided to toss out some bags for the night and then assess it again in the morning.
As expected nothing happened overnight, but I was up at first light preparing the rods for the day ahead. I knew exactly where the fish had been coming from and it was an easy task to get a rod and a small amount of bait in prime position. Not wanting to crowd the area with too many lines, I fished one rod on the hotspot and found other marks for my second and third rods. By 7-30am I was ready and the next 90 minutes couldn’t pass quickly enough.
The carps’ arrival on the previous two days had coincided with a strong wind pushing into the corner to my left, and when the day looked as though it would be a much calmer one, I did start to worry whether that was the key to the carp turning up. By midday I hadn’t seen a thing, and the capture of four Tench had also got the alarm bells ringing. Had they sneaked in because the carp had moved off? In the end the day produced nothing, and because our half of the lake seemed so quiet Jon decided to move down the bottom end to see if the carp turned up there the following morning. It was the right decision as Jon picked up two more fish. I decided to give my swim another 24 hours just in case they did come back, but despite the wind returning I continued to catch tench, ending the 48 hours I spent in there with no less than 16. Big baits, small baits, they were snaffling the lot!

ON THE MOVE AGAIN
After another quiet night I was on the move at first light. Jon had phoned me to say that carp were showing everywhere down the bottom end, and by the time I had got packed up he’d landed three more up to 37. I moved into a swim on the opposite bank and despite getting all three rods right on the fish, I couldn’t get a bite. Time was going on by now though and it looked as though I would be in pole position the following morning. Well you can guess what happened can’t you. Once again I made a big effort to keep the disturbance down to a minimum, and as it dropped dark there were signs that plenty of carp were still in front of me. However, a couple of hours later they started showing like mad. After an hour of activity it just stopped and I knew then that something was wrong. I didn’t see a single fish the next day, but now couldn’t really move as the Heron had filled right up for the weekend.
By this time the trip was posing more questions that answers. Was I scaring off the carp when I moved onto them? 90 percent of the anglers who fish Abbey use bait boats so was it this. I wasn’t so sure and I think I just had my timing wrong on both of my two moves. Sometimes it can happen like that, but I still had three nights left to pull something out the bag.



SUCCESS AT LAST
On my fifth morning something finally went right for once and I bagged my first Abbey carp of the week. In the early hours of the morning it was clear a few carp had moved back down the lake and although it didn’t seem like many, it was enough for both of us to get a chance each. Mine was no monster but at least I was finally off the mark. The action saw us stay in the swims for another night, and at roughly the same time the next day I was away again. This carp felt different from the start and just slowly plodded off to the right. It really did feel like a proper one and things were finally starting to look up until it swam straight into something rather nasty. After slackening off I could get the carp to run away from me but when I pumped it back it always got to a point where it would come no further. This went on for 90 minutes until the line cut through and judging by how frayed it was, the carp had found a lot more than just weed.
I have to say that Heron had just about got me beat by then. I will certainly be straight back on there the next time I head back over to Abbey, but with 24 hours to go I was on the move. Fox was fishing really well and as Jon fancied fishing the last 24 hours on there too we moved over to a swim which hadn’t been fished all week. We were into fish almost immediately, although for me things didn’t improve. The first one went solid on something out in open water and the hooklink got cut clean through. I landed the second after what turned out to be an epic fight, and we really did think I had one of the Fox Lake monsters on. Unfortunately, the big mirror turned out to be foul hooked just behind the pectoral fin. I can’t tell you how much it weighed as I returned it straight away, but it was easily big enough to have rescued my weeks angling.



THIRD TIME LUCKY
After that it seemed like the carp Gods had finally decided I had suffered for long enough, and all of a sudden things started to happen. A low twenty mirror was followed by a stunning 26lb half linear and then a 24lb common soon after. Not big fish for Abbey by any means, but after the week I’d had I was happy just to get some action. Another decent common followed at midnight and I rounded the week off with a mid thirty mirror which looked as though it should have been living in an Oxford pit rather than in France. Jon also finished his week off on as high with a 40 pounder just as we were packing up.
I have to say that in my 24 hours on Fox I haven’t seen so many carp show on a water since my days on Horseshoe. Those fish have always been renowned for not being shy to give themselves away, and the Fox Lake carp almost matched them.
So that was just about it then. Looking back I felt I was one step behind the Heron carp for all of the week, and tactics wise I wasn’t sure I got those right either. Follow the fish or sit it out in one spot over bait was the big question, and perhaps my lack of long session fishing over the last decade sort of found me out a little, as it took me too long to make the decisions either way. I did learn a lot for next time, however, and as good old Arnie always says, I’ll be back.