Trouble at Crockerton

[Banana Steve]

The plan started that I would fish Crockerton for the evening and night, pack up at 7am the following day and go to bed. Nope that didn’t happen. Minutes after I bought the night ticket {£1.00 for the night} I received a text from Claudia, “what you doing tomorrow” “Po” I thought, I could change my mind and not fish and join “Trouble” I mean Claudia, for days fishing. So a quick phone call was made and I told her that I had planned to fish the night, after a brief discussion we came to the decision that I would still fish the night and I would wait for Claudia to come over to the lake in the morning, where I would spend a couple of hours with her, helping out on the pole.


I got to the lake at around 6pm on the Friday, when another angler turned up who was also planning to fish the night. He must have realised that I too was going to fish the night, because he grabbed all his kit and started to run to Peg 7 on the lake, it was so funny because he was dragging his kit along the ground where he was such a rush. The thing was I didn’t even want to fish peg 7 and he fished the whole night without a bite Sometimes it just worth slowing down and spending sometime looking around and not getting all stressed out.


I decided that I would fish Peg 2 and hopefully when Claudia arrived she could fish peg 1. Because I fish the lake on a fairly regular basis, I am slowly starting to learn the lake, I have found that you don’t need to cast that far and fishing 15yards out is all you need to do. The evening started off not so well, I had been fishing for about an hour, I was fishing for the carp on my light outfit, Barbell rods, and I was using Meat; when I hooked into my first Carp, after playing the fish for 5 mins or so the hook length snapped it wasn’t until it got dark that things got really good, between 11pm and 1am I had 2 doubles, three Tench and 4 skimmers.
Carp Number 1 = 14lb

Carp number 2 = 13 ½ lb


By 1:30am I was getting very tired, and I knew Claudia was coming down later, so I decided to call it a day and brought the rods in and went to bed.

I awoke at 6:30 am, the weather was a little overcast, at this point I decided to re-cast my rods back on the meat and waited for “Trouble to turn up” Claudia arrived at 8:00am and after she set her self up on the pole in peg one she started to fish. At around 9am whilst I was chatting to Claudia my bite alarm screamed off. On rushing to my rods I struck into a nice Tench, a nice male off around 2 ½ lb.


I decided that I would bring my rods in a sit with Claudia, and talk her through some of the tips for fishing the pole. I also decided that I would stay for a while longer.
As morning progressed into the Afternoon Claudia, was holding her own on the pole and very well, catching some nice skimmers on the meat.

Claudia hiding in the bushes
As the afternoon wore on I had, another screamer of a run, this time it was no Tench.
It was another good quality Common of around the 10lb mark.



At 3:30pm Claudia, hooked into a lump, a 25 minute battle followed, to produce a “Top Quality” Common of 14lb. and fantastic feat, considering she was fishing an 8 elastic and 3lb hook length.

Action Shots:







And the final result: 14lb Common Carp




I packed up at 4:30pm and left Claudia there to carry on, and she must have had over 30lb of fish, but I will let her tell you all about her self.

I enjoyed the day, and considering the forecast was rain, we had a beautiful sunny day and the fishing was top draw.

[fishypaul]

lovely fish there,well done both of you

[Catfish Virgin (Still!)]

Brilliant report Steve, those carp look in superb condition.

You are a good teacher and "Trouble" a good pupil, a carp of that quality and condition on that set up is quite a feat! I've just got a text from "Trouble" and knew it must have been something a bit special (again!)

[Twiddler]

And the pole was dancing...Crockerton report

Arrived at Crockerton a wee touch later than planed,(only by an hour) snooze button on the alarms fault.

Steve was alredy up and dancing...errgh I mean up and fishing on the second peg, so I set up on the first.
Out came all my new gadged for my seatbox to make my life more comfortable, like a spray bar I bought to support my pole...darn that thing weighs more every time I use it lol.

I decided on silver fishing, no way would I manage to land one of those monster carp in there, so I set up with 8 hollo drennan elastic,(after Steve showed me to lubricate the elastic) 4lb mainline, 3lb hook length, 18" hook.
My swim


view to the right


view to the left with some locals

Baits of the day were maggots and Dynamite spicy chilli luncheon meat. Again I started off with 7m, cupping out some maggots, single red maggot as hook bait.
I didn't have to wait for long before I had my first bite, a little roach.
I knew I had to get through the tiddlers before getting to the better fish, so I fed more maggots than I normally would, trying to feed the small stuff off.

No matter what I tried I just couldn't get pass the smaller fish and after the third deeply hooked mini perch, I decided to change bait.
So i went over luncheon meat, cupping out a few pieces, putting my hook bait over it, catapulting a few pieces around the float again and soon I was in to the better fish.
I had some lovely slabs around the 2-3lb mark, more Perch but better size, a lovley coloured rudd, hybrids and even a nice Tench of around 2-3lb.


I didn't take a pic of the Tench because sadly it had some kind of fin rott, so out came Steve's klinex, a quick treat and straight back in to the water to avoid even more stress.

During the day I kept swapping baits to keep the fish interested and it seemed to work.

I had a nice bag of mixed silver and to finish the day off another little Tench around the 1-1.5lb mark.

Steve decided to leave around 4-4.30pm as he had been fishing all night and was getting tired.

I stayed on until 7pm when it was time for me to depart too.

I had a great time fishing Crockerton again and to see that the lake holds a cracking mixture of fish.

A big thanks to Steve again for inviting me to fish his lovely lake....I'm even concidering of joining the club next year, £35 for a year is well wrth it.

Last fish of the day


The end result


Oh yeah and there was another wee fish I caught as you can read above

with the same set up, 8 elastic, 4lb mainline, 3lb hook length, 18" hook and spicy luncheon meat

[fullcreel]

Nice session both of you, steves commments on some of the impatient ones made me smile.
Well done on the carp, my best from the Croc is only around 8lb, must improve, plenty of summer time left tho.
I had intended to pop down myself for a couple of hours, but wound up working allday, not so good but thats life. Will be taking sime time off shortly after 16th June, I'll give the rivers a couple of days to calm down after the imp[atient ones have bad their fun

[fishypaul]

very well done trouble,you going to pole fish in france this year ?

[Twiddler]

I might do, bet those sturgeon are fun on the pole

[pingu]

nice one there both of you
looked a top day /night for both of you

dave

[Fishing Forum Admin]

great report and well done both of you !

[Greenheart]

Exellent couple of reports. Nice to see Crockerton comming up trumps again. You'll have to try Berkley lake next Twiddles. All included in the same £35 ticket.