SAE Bait Developments

I think the best place to start would be were I left off in the last article “Time to move on”.  Best laid plans come to mind I started off last autumn fishing a low stock estate lake, at the time the stock was estimated at 17 carp I had managed to find most of theses on my first trip.  There and then I knew I would be spending quite a bit of time on there in search of the  scaly old warriors that inhabited the lake I use in search very loosely as ninety percent of the lake is un fishable. I spent every spare bit of time I had walking the banks and fishing it to no avail.

The season came to an abrupt end around the beginning of November with the onset of yet another very harsh winter every lake around the country became unfishable for near on three months. It was near the end of February before I finally managed to wet a line again unfortunately my target venue was still frozen so I decided to have ago on a water I had been trickling some bait into on that very first trip I had lovely small common of around 12lb and lost one a short while after.

My next trip was back on the same water two days later were I managed to nick a couple more bites and land a few more lovely commons I was quite enjoying this run of success and continued fishing and baiting the water.

This went on for a few weeks and the old estate lake took a back seat until late March when I got the urge to get back on. That very first trip back on I managed to get my transit van stuck in the field on the back track to the lake, after over 3 hours of inching my way up the field, with all types of branches and pieces of wood jammed under the wheels and many buckets of sweat I had it out and made my way round the other side of the lake and got setup. Nothing happened that session or the rest of the time I spent on there up to the closed season.

I was in a bit of a dilemma on where to fish for the three months it was closed. I’d gone for a walk around DuPont’s pool the previous week were I had fished the previous year and decided while it was quiet id give it a go, up till the start of the new season and see if I could winkle out the missing fish from the A list. Little did I know this was going to be the start of an unsettled Season. I had made a new friend and new fishing buddy on the northern monkey’s forum through talking about DuPont’s pool, we fished regular on there together although I didn’t manage to catch the last of the A list I did add a few more to my own list one being a lovely 28 lb mirror.

I did a bit more flitting around until the start of the opening season catching some lovely fish from a few waters on my club water ticket. The time came to move back on to the estate lake, on opening night there was a few of us waiting in the car park waiting for the magical june16th while we was all talking of the fast approaching season a few theories  about the stock levels of the lake came to light that wasn’t very pleasing. There wasn’t as many fish in the lake that I had first thought. I myself had found a small dead fish at the end of the big freeze and apparently someone else had found one a bit later into the season, also as the lake was very shallow there was only certain places where you would find the bigger fish on many walks around the place. In the closed season I hadn’t seen any of the bigger fish either only the smaller ones. This put doubt in my mind that I may just be fishing for shadows.

At the stroke of midnight we made our way to are chosen swims, the night passed without so much as a fish showing morning came and I started to get the feeling that a move was on the cards. Just as I was on the phone to Scott from Sae Bait Developments I had a run the phone was flung on the ground with Scott still on the end (sorry Scott), I was in to my first estate lake fish after a short spirited fight I had landed a lovely small old looking common after the pictures were done I rang Scott back and explained which he had a giggle at. The next few weeks passed without another sighting or capture, I heard from a genuine source he had spotted what could have been a big common dead floating on the top.

Now there was only a couple of big commons in there, if this was true the count on the stock could be as little as fourteen carp now as non of the other big ones had been spotted. I had decided to leave the place alone now as I wasn’t feeling it for the place and was just going through the motions. I’ve kept on doing what I have all year. I’m still flitting around and catching which brings us up to date.

This year has been a very productive year for me although I haven’t been settled I have caught more than my fair share of fish made some new friends along the way and one that i will be fishing with a lot next year on are target water I'm currently putting some time in on one of my old haunts and enjoying it to. My very first trip back on there i had two out on the new bait im testing from sae bait developments in the form of a couple of  old dark warriors one pushing the scales to just under 20lb so  until next time stay lucky and keep hauling.

Tony