Fishing report: Ashley & friends

Another fantastic week of fishing with lots of sun, lots of big carp and lots of catfish!

This week we welcomed Ashley and wife Sarah along with good friends John and Chris for their 2nd visit. It’s been 18 months since we saw them but it was as though they’d never left! They were super excited to be back so after the tour and a good catch up we left them to settle in.

Absolutely spot on trip and can’t wait to come back 👊👍❤️🥰

John was over in the Big Double and wasted no time at all getting off the mark with two 30lb+ mirrors. Ashley was also quick off the mark with an 80lb catfish.

The colder weather has been holding back the productive area behind the island which meant that Chris had to bide his time to begin with. With temperatures set to reach 25 °C on Monday it was only ever going to be a question of time. Sarah was next off the mark with a mint home grown 20lb common.

Husband Ashley then got among the carp with a nice heavily scaled home grown carp known as Baby Scaly. As predicted, the tables turned in Chris’s favour and he was off the mark with the biggest of the session so far, a 42lb common. And it didn’t stop there. Every morning my inbox was filled with capture after capture.

Click here to see all of this week’s captures.

By Wednesday morning they’d had 10 carp in total and 3 big catfish… and then my phone went on a bongathon! As photo after photo pinged into my inbox… ah, we do love the spring!

On Thursday, things calmed down somewhat and I don’t think the guys were too disappointed because the pace had been relentless 😂 It was also’ bacteria treatment’ day so I spent a couple of hours rowing around the lake. We only plan to do this one more time this year and it’s a very important job for the health of the lake. Big thanks to the guys for letting me get on and do what I needed to do.

A few hours later and the next catch pics arrived. Chris is a very driven and passionate angler and is always working hard towards his next bite. The days were proving very slow for him so he decided to keep one rod out and ready to be deployed at close quarters should an opportunity present itself. He basically combined stalking with a more static approach which is fine to do as long as there are enough hands close by just in case one of his other rods bust off. This hybrid tactic caught Chris the newly stocked Tormod which we are very happy to see out and looking in fine fettle. The other to fall to the tactic was another heavily scaled home grown special.

Over in the point swims, Sarah was working out of point’A’, an area of the lake which has gotten the better of many anglers over the years: it’s shallow, spotty and complicated. However, with the right approach and some accurate fishing, it can be a very productive area. With husband Ashley in the popular and productive point ’C’, the obvious choice would have been either to double up there or to fish the next closest swim, point ’B’, but Sarah set to work in that neglected swim with a leading rod, found her spots, baited it old school style with a spomb and cast her two rods to it… the result? 4 carp from the same spot! Now that’s a proper bit of angling 👏 Oh, and she also landed a massive 112lb catfish!

When Ashley arrived he asked me a question about hooks for the catfish as they’d been told that they need 2/0 eagle waves for catfish of our size. Obviously he was a little surprised when I told him that he absolutely did not. In fact I’m not keen on catfish hooks… They are just too blunt. All you need to bank a very big catfish is a very sharp carp hook. We use the Nash chod Twisters in 5s or 6s but most quality carp hooks from brands such as ESP are plenty strong enough. They say words are cheap and it’s true. Until you’ve experienced it for real it’s difficult to wrap your head around it especially when my advice contradicts the advice of a catfishing specialist. It didn’t take Ashley long to understand what I was getting at. His first one was 80lb, then John banked a 112, then his wife had a 112, then he had a 120… and the hooks were absolutely fine. No issues at all.

John caught ‘only’ two fish last time but this trip couldn’t have been more different for him… he started with two carp on the first night! And it didn’t stop there for John with a proper big catfish (that nearly got the better of him!) and a really steady string of carp all week long. Bite time in the Big Double was all over the place this week, he never knew which rod was going to bust off next so that kept it really exciting. It was a really good result and thoroughly deserved.

On the bait front the guys made big buckets of boilies, pellets, particles with loads of liquids poured over the top. While Sarah went old school and spodded hers out, John and Ashley made good use of the bait boat especially when targeting the far margins.

As the fishing for Chris was a bit on and off due to the movements of the carp, he adopted a lighter hand and set smaller traps. In total they got through about 50kg of bait. That might seem like a lot but with multiple rod resets and plenty of fish caught, it soon adds up!

It was great to see the guys again, they love their fishing, they all work really hard at it, their tactics were spot on and the results show that. Congratulations guys, superb fishing 💪 Everyone had a fantastic time and we look forward to welcoming them back soon.