DARREN SPICER CATCHES A NEW 30 FROM THE DAY TICKET LAKE

Darren Spicer fished the weekend, 20th Nov and had a nice result, a 16, 21 and a 31 mirror. Darren spodded a lot of sloppy type spod mix out and caught his fish on little pop-ups, very good angling, well done and thanks for the pics Darren.

I've been saying for a while now for anglers to use small baits on the day ticket lake. They have been jumping and showing like mad for weeks now (might of stopped now though with the cold and snow). Takes on bigger baits slowed down a few weeks ago and the fish had possibly got on the tiny snails, larvae and other small natural food items. The amount of fish showing and moving suggests they were feeding on something and the lack of action on the bigger baits suggests the carp were having it of on very small food items. Darren's result, while most others caught nothing or very little backs this up and to be honest impressed me.

Nearly every winter the day ticket lake has fished well on the maggots, either swimfeedered (my favourite method) or using PVA mesh. Maggots are small food items but a few years ago Martin Gibbinson also caught a lot of fish on semi-dry method mixes in PVA bags, again small food items.

As the temperature drops the fish have to eat something and with less boilies going into the lake they will revert to eating the natural which are mainly small so it makes sense to use small baits doesn't it. The problem is they will then become preoccupied with small food items which will give them less food and eventually settle for eating less and less, and then the fishing will get harder. Also the body weights will not be achieved that they would be on boilies and new 30's like Darren's which was between 27 and 29 prior to spawning will take longer to produce.

They will eat boilies but the method of using boilies has to change and if they don't get any boilies given them they will simply start to feed on what is avaliable, natural food, and the warmer weather boilie methods will be slow. Although they will be feeding the bigger bait methods will not work so well if it isn't backed up with plenty of free offerings, it's that easy. Last weekend, 27th Nov there was several fish caught at the Manor, all on boilies (I had to bloody work at the Carp Society show). One angler had a 40 and a 39. The anglers at the Manor use a lot of bait so reap the rewards. It isn't possible for the anglers on the day ticket lake to compete, most of the Manor anglers are sponsored (so use a lot of bait) but I would of personally feed the day ticket lake and I could keep the carp on the boilies, I'm 100% convinced of that, but it upsets the anglers! so I can't really win with this can I? Method and spod mixes are not expensive though and equate to much better food for the fish than maggots and if they are full of little food items they will present a feeding area similar to natural food beds, Darren's result is proof of this.

Carp don't respond to food like warm blooded animals do, cirtainly not in the colder months. If they have no food their body accepts this and after a while they will eat less and less and can in fact survive on almost nothing for all of the winter. Koi pond keepers can back this and in fact are often advised not to feed their fish at all in cold water (less than 6 Deg C I think it is) and their Koi don't suffer from this but will not start to feed again easily untill the temperature rises in the spring, bet they don't grow so well though which is why some Koi keepers heat their ponds so they can feed through the winter. .Even the Manor fish are low in weight compared to the previous year, and the fishing has been harder, simply because there has been less bait going in this season.

I would love to have fed the lakes all year on a regular 2-3 times a week basis, I know the fishing would have been better but as I said, this upsets the anglers and to be honest unless it can be done little and often it isn't so effective. Saying that though a few weeks ago Mark Twin had 3 fish in a night, the same night I had fed the whole of the lake, all on boilies. As far as I know he hasn't had another fish since and I haven't fed the lake since, it just goes to show doesn't it?

As I've said, fish are not like warm blooded animals, they don't feel or respond to hunger as we know it, they just slow their movements down to the minimum and wait till spring. Warm blooded animals can't do this, with the exception of the hibernators at certain times of year (some animals can slow their metabolism down to 2 heart beats per minute during hibernation) warm blooded animals such as your cats and dogs have to eat to keep their bodies warm, they have no choice or they would die, fish just revert to hibernation, the only thing that will keep fish active is avaliable food. My fish in my pond last winter ate nearly the same amount of food in the winter as they did in the summer, because I fed them. They loved method mix, low oil pellets (flavoured), brown bread, maggots and lots of broken boilies, similar food to what I feed them in the summer. They wouldn't come to the surface though and preferred the bait in mid water or on the bottom.

I've got 26 fish with an average weight of 4lb in my fish pond, 104lb total body weight (100lb to make the sums easier). I actually don't want them to grow to fast or I risk over stocking the pond, not with numbers but with total body weight. I feed them just 1lb (1% body weight) of food a day in the summer, about 2/3 of a pound (0.66 of 1% body weight) in the winter, thats about 150 kilos of food a year. I must actually feed them a little bit more than that because I bought 160kilos of floating pellet last year but there are days when they are spoilt by visitors to my house and I often supplement the pellets with boilies, bread etc.

If you times this up to the total body weight in my day ticket lake this equates to a lot of food. I'm not entirely sure just how many fish there are in the lake but at a very conservative 300 at an average of 15lb thats 4,500lb of fish, 45lb of food a day in the summer 30lb in the winter. Average this out to half winter and half summer,and it works out at 37.5lb a day, 265.5lb a week, 13,650lb per year (6,204 kilos) and so on. Even I have not got that amount of food avaliable, cirtainly not boilies although I do have a lot of pellet etc avaliable. I'm sure there is more than 300 good carp in there so all this is an under estimate. Scary isn't it but fish farming methods suggest more food than this, 2 or more percent of body weight. My fish in the pond would easily eat this rate of food but the lake has had no where near this, so they had to eat the natural, or nothing. Is this why the fishing has turned hard, I think so. Then there is the small home bred carp (one angler caught loads on the pole this year), the roach, tench, perch and rudd which further increases the total body weight of fish and the total amount of food needed could be anywhere up to who knows what. Yes there is more natural food in my lake than there is in my fish pond but with all the fish there is in the lake, including all the species this must be taking a real hammering.

When I've investigated the lakes for natural food I found the stock pond was the richest, because I feed it hard so they leave it alone, the syndicate is the next richest, because there isn't so many fish per acre and we feed this a little and the day ticket lake is the least rich in natural food because there is stacks of fish in there and it isn't fed enough. It comes as no surprise to me that the day ticket lake is not fishing to well, but as Darren proved, there is methods that will catch, small food items and plenty of them.

Well, that's it for now, I hope the above has set you thinking, not just about the amounts of food and all that but about changing tactics to help catch more fish. Winter carp fishing isn't impossible so give it a go.

Gary