With a break from any matches this weekend, a pleasure
session was on the cards, and I’d finally decided that is was high time I
visited Maver’s Larford
Lakes
It seems rather ridiculous, that whilst only living around
35 minutes from the venue, I’d never made it down here before. It’s one of the
finest fisheries in the country, with a fantastic standard of fishery
management, and some phenomenal fishing to boot.
My ever present fishing partner, Matt, arrived at my place
at 10:00 a.m, and after a quick brew and a chat about the day ahead, we loaded
Matt’s mondeo with all of our gear and headed on down to Larford. Incidentally,
although mondeo’s are known for being big cars, it turns out that our combined
gear is enough to push it to capacity. Although to be fair to the car it’s also
enough to open a small tackle shop…
I’d already heard there was a bank holiday open on the match
lake, and travelled down in the knowledge that the specimen lake would be my
haunt for the day.
Arriving, we quickly popped in and purchased our day tickets
and an assortment of pellets, before having a look at the enormity of water
that is the specimen lake.
First thoughts? It’s bigger than I expected… (no
inappropriate jokes please). But after a quick bashing of heads (again…..no
jokes), it was fairly obvious where to head for, as the noticeably warm wind
was pushing down into the left hand side of the lake. With a lake this size,
and the target species being skimmers, bream, and big carp, we fully expected
them to follow the warm wind down into this end of the lake.
With a match on the match lake side, we had to fish the far
bank by the chalets. Not a problem, other than for the mondeo sized mountain of
tackle we’d brought with us. Thankfully we’d each got a trolley in there as
well, which helped, but even so it’s a long walk, and I’d seriously consider
packing light if you’re not overly fit or getting a little long in the tooth.
Walking round we settled on a couple of close pegs in the
mid 70’s, which were close enough for a little bit of banter, but still allowed
us plenty of room for whatever methods we fancied. After setting up my box up
on a nice level platform, I pulled out an assortment of rigs and tackled up a
few rods, as I figured, having never fished the place, trying a few different
tactics would be worthwhile today.
One point to note about this side of the lake is that it has
very high banks (often known as high bank, funnily enough), and as such bear it
in mind if you enjoy fishing long pole (over 13m), as you’ll have to break it
down a few times, which then makes the method a little less enjoyable in my
experience.
So, on the rod roost lay a feeder rod, a pellet waggler rod,
a deck line for 10m, a shallow pellet line, and a margin line.
On the ‘whistle’ as it were, I went straight out on the
feeder at around 25 meters, clipping up to ensure accuracy. I could feel there
was a fair depth of water out there, in excess of 12 foot, and I felt confident
I’d find some fish here. Sure enough 5 minutes in and my rod hooped round with
a decent fish taking a liking to the 2mm pellet and groundbait mix. Thankfully
at this sort of range with 6lb sensor, an elasticated feeder and a decent
feeder rod, I very rarely find myself needing to unclip to let the fish run.
Keeping the rod low and pumping saw a nice 7lb mirror in the net in only a few
minutes. Great start, and already ahead of Matt who’d gone straight out on the pellet
wag, given the mid-day sun now upon us.
Moulding some more pellets round the Preston
30g feeder, and slipping a new krill band’em on the hook, I recast to the same
spot. Reaching for the catapult, I pinged some 8mm pellets over the top of this
line every 45 seconds or so, just to prime a waggler line and ‘drip-feed’ some
bait over the feeder. Another 5 minutes and my rod was round again, this bite
being a much more subtle affair. Pulling into the fish it was quickly apparent
it was a bream, and sure enough a nice fish of 4lb was soon in the landing net.
This pattern continued for another hour before curiosity overcame me and I picked
up the pellet waggler rod.
At this point Matt had only foul hooked one in the tail,
which had proceeded to try and strip his reel of all line, sadly loosing it
right at the net. Out the waggler went, and continued feeding and popping of
the float for the next 10 minutes finally produced a fish, which once tamed was
another nice 7lber. Another half an hour on the pellet waggler and neither I
nor Matt had found any more fish, so again another tactic was being reached
for.
This time it was the turn of the 10m deck line, which had
already received a few potfulls of 4mm pellets and corn over the first few
hours. The rig was set at dead depth in around 8-9 foot of water, with a 0.6g Preston white float to 0.15, down to a size 16 B911 on
0.15 hooklink. The top kit held Preston 11h,
given the main target of fish at this depth would likely be skimmers and bream.
In it went, and almost immediately a nice bream of around
3lb was coming to the net. I soon realised that the 11h had been the right
choice for this line as the high bank was causing me the play the fish in at
some interesting angles, and harsher elastic would have undoubtedly led to some
hook pulls from these soft mouthed fish. Feeding via a catapult was also easier
due to the high bank, and a few pouchfulls of 4mm’s after every fish soon saw
me into a nice rhythm netting skimmers and bream, with the better fish falling
to double corn.
After an hour and a healthy number of bream, the float
buried and the strike was met with something a little more resistant. A big
bream I thought, as the heavy weight came slowly towards me. Down to the top
kit and a little pressure saw a carp of around 8lb pop up at my feet.
Thankfully some fast thinking and even faster hands saw it in the net before it
realised what had happened. Back out and more skimmers and bream followed until
this line started to slow. With around 4 hours gone I thought it time to
abandon this line rather than top up and instead drop in on the margin line to
see if anything was home.
Having fed this line throughout with the occasional handful
of the method mix I’d been using, I dropped the rig in with a red 8mm JPZ on the
hook. The rig was set on the deck in around 2 ½ foot of water near to an
overhanging tree, with a Maver invincible slotty float to 0.17, paired with a
size 16 Drennan margin carp to 0.15. The top-kit held some Preston
13h to give me a little give on the strike, but a little power come to netting
time.
The float was immediately knocking and dipping all over the
place, and after a few minutes sitting on my hands, it buried. The 13h streamed
out of the top kit towards the middle of the lake whilst I put on the rest of
the pole on to follow it out. A good scrap eventually saw a nice mirror of
around 11lb in the net, but not after I had to pull half of my elastic out of
the puller kit and stand on my tiptoes to get its head up. They really do run
in this place, and are some of the fittest fish I have caught in any fishery.
The next hour saw more of the same, and after the full 5
hours I’d had 8 carp between 7 – 11lb, with a good 50lb of skimmers and bream
to back them up
Matt had faired similarly, with some nice bream and skimmers
at 12m, before raiding the margins for the big carp. My early run of fish on
the feeder had put me ahead by the end of the 5 hours, so the damage had been
done at the start. Incidentally, Matt had also had a decent carp on his 12m
line, which on white hydro, had seen his hand almost removed through loss of
circulation as it was en-coiled it yards of elastic, puller kit trying it’s
best to get the fish under control. Even the black hydro on the margin line had
seen him having some fun. His verdict for the day? ‘I'm getting some purple
hyrdo….”.
Scores on the doors and we’d both had a bagful of fish on a
variety of methods. Larford Specimen Lake
had been a thorough delight to fish and we’ll definitely be back for some more
from this fantastic Midlands venue.
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