PERSONAL BEST FOR MARK

Jun 04,2008 00:00 by gary

Mark Twin, a Bayeswater regular upped his PB last weekend, the first week of June, with a 19 lb 10 oz mirror caught on a zig rig. There has been a lot of PB's this year, in fact it was Mark who sent in the last one from the day ticket lake when young Oliver, Marks nephew had a PB. Mark is really keen and regularly features in these news pages, because he sends us his pictures. Thanks Mark and well done on your new PB, you need a 20 pounder now.

There have been mixed results lately, due partly to the awful weather conditions but unfortunately also due to some anglers reluctance to ring the changes a bit more. There are literally hundreds of carp in the day ticket lake but they sometimes refuse to throw themselves onto the end of your lines. YOU HAVE TO ANGLE FOR THEM.

There have been big catches on the zig rigs, method mixes, margin fishing and yes, also the just chucking out in the middle system that is the only method some anglers use. No one method works every day on any water, yes you might catch the odd one most times even if you stay on one fishing style but except on the red letter days you will not improve your fishing by being a stereotype angler. You have to be prepared to change your ways, that's just how it is....!!!!!!!!!!!

I have moaned enough, the thing is we want you to catch more. There is a lot of for instances, but the thing is do you really want to catch one fish when you could catch a lot more?

Last Sunday afternoon there was only the Linkevicius father and son duo on the day ticket lake. They had caught a few, casting towards the middle but as I watched they were really fishing hard, re-casting regularly, searching out the best bite spots in their swim and swapping rods about to get faster results, awesome effort. Even so, they were reluctant to fish really close in.

There was so much movement all around the lake that I decided to have a little go. After having a look about it was clear to me that there was a good area about 30 metres out about a third the way down the syndicate bank, rolling fish and a good few bubblers gave the game away. Then there was also an area of clouded water in the margin, nearer the car park end. So, armed with a bucket of method mix, two rods and a mixture of boilies, that I mixed into the method mix I soon had both areas covered. The plan was to switch to shallow margin or deeper 30 metres out depending on my first bite, 2 rods on the fastest bite area was going to catch me more fish in my mind.

After about 10 mins the margin rod was away so after a good battle both rods were dropped in close. The next bite took a little longer, mainly due to my bank side movement so I put both rods out a little further into 4-5 foot instead of 2-3 foot. That worked a bit better and so I put a few extra balls of bait in to hold them in the area immediately after my 3rd fish. In the end I had 6 fish to about 18 lb and pulled out of one.

Danas and Modestas had packed up by then and witnessed the last two takes, both closer in than they had ever fished so now they have another method to try next time they fish, "margin fishing".

Unfortunately the access is still a mess in the wet weather, I'm sorry about that and hope it will soon improve. In the mean time don't forget your wellies and waterproofs, it makes me feel cold seeing people in trainers without waterproof clothing. Seriously, you will fish better if you are comfortable.