My first visit to Clattercote

Having not been fishing for about 4 years I decided that it was time to hit the lakes again. I'd never been a very good fisherman, previously my personal best was an 8lb catfish that I caught in America, so the crap angler really does describe me well compared to all these carp anglers!

I arrived at Clattercote Reservoir at about 5.15am on a Monday morning in August 2008. Guess what, I was the first one there! I wanted to go against everything I had read on the internet that says you should fish the side pegs between 20 - 40, again this is probably why I am the crap angler.

I got to my chosen swim which I believe was swim 63 which had a small island slightly to my left and a bigger island a few swims to my right. I wanted to fish fairly close to the small island on my left as I liked the look of it when I walked around the reservoir a couple of days earlier, I also wanted to be by myself as I'm a crap angler.



Due to it still being so early I had to set up my rods using my mobile phone for light! I set up a Kobra method feeder on my first rod with a 3" hooklink. I used Bait-Tech Special G Groundbait on the method feeder with 15mm Pineapple Plus Birdfood Boilies by Dynamite Baits on a hair rig. I cast out my method feeder just to the left and short of the island and set up the bite alarm whilst I set up the other rod for float fishing. Before I could even get the line through all the eyes in the 2nd rod, my ledger went on a screaming run. I put the other rod down and played my first fish for about 5 minutes in some pretty poor light and eventually managed to land a mirror carp that was about 8lb. After returning the mirror to the water I refilled the method feeder added another pineapple boilie, cast out, set the bite alarm up again and continued setting up the second rod. I had just put the float on the 2nd rod when my ledger went off screaming again, after another nice fight it was another mirror of about the same size.

I eventually managed to get the 2nd rod set up and even got it in the water for about 5 minutes, but the method feeder was picking up bites every ten minutes or less, so I just decided to remove the 2nd rod from the water and fish the method for a while. I caught a total of 10 carp up to about 12lb by about 10-11am and then everything went dead. I didn't get a bite for the next few hours and had to entertain myself by watching a heron on the far side of the reservoir, a few kingfishers flying around looking lovely and watching the large carp behind the boards basking on the surface - such a shame you can't fish behind the boards!

I left Clattercote Reservoir at about 3pm as the bites had really calmed down and well I was knackered after getting up so early! I was over the moon though as I had a new PB and really hadn't expected to catch so many fish.

The reservoir looks a bit daunting at first due to the size of it and choosing where to fish, but I would recommend everyone to fish Clattercote as if I can catch about 100lb of carp in my first visit there, then so can you!

Tackle:
Kobra small flat carp feeder with 8/10 elastic

Rod:
Ron Thompson Zensorflex Carp Rod

Bait:
15mm Pineapple Plus Birdfood Boilies by Dynamite Baits

Bait-Tech Special G Groundbait