This was my first session on shakerley mere, it is 17 acres in size and around 4-5 ft deep through out most of the lake. It holds a good head of 20s but can be a quite tricky water to fish!
I had be doing some research on this lake before the session and i had found that pegs 1-5 and 48-50 are good pegs so as you do first place i walked to was these pegs and of course these swims were already occupied! After taking another stroll around the swim i got speaking to a feller called mat who had a 30lber out the night before, so we took another walk around the lake finding good spots but not being able to fit the bivvys in it was no good, in the end we loaded the gear and walked round the lake to pegs 9-10 as i had seen fish cruzing on the surface.
The rigs and bait
Using a longer hook link that usuall as the bottom was quite soft where i was fishing and lighter 2oz leads instead of my usual 3oz leads. I was using 11 inch Nash missing link with a Nash size 10 fang twister with a rig ring on the shank just before the bend of the hook, fishing it blow back style with a small peice of shrink tubing on the eye of the hook pushed over the knot, i was using 15mm Nash coconut creme boilies topped with a 12mm matching pop up, sliding down the rig a small PVA stocking of coconut creme pellets soaked in the coconut
Creme booster juice! After each cast i was putting 4 hand fulls of boilies out as free offerings aswell.
I was fishing 60 yards out to a small slope i had found with both rods on that
spot as i thought this was the only thing i could find in the swim, after waiting all day nothing happened it was a warm week and the fish has begun to spawn so i thought our chances where really low, and the fact that the people we had spoke to hadn't nothing after spending 2 nights on there wasn't very reassuring
for us, after spending most of the day getting settled down and eating and sunbathing it came to 6 o clock when i decided to reel in and re bait for the night, after that we sat down to enjoy our tea and then it was time to get some shut eye, being right next to the M6 it was quite difficult to chill out, but yet i fell asleep hoping for a screamer.
I was woken up by a few bleeps through out the night and then finally at 5 o clock the rod screamed off i ran out in my indie and socks and leaving my head torch in the bivvy i soon relised i couldn't see a thing so i kept a tight line to the fish and tried to reach in to my bivvy to grab my light when suddenly the line went slack and the fish escaped! I was devastated after waiting for so long i had messed it
Up! After getting in a little strop with my self i packed my rod away and put it into the bivvy when suddenly the other rod screamed off! I ran out with my head torch on to find the fish had already surfaced, at first i thought it was just a bream then i seen the lovely full scaled body on this little 14lb fully scaled! After
Netting him i tried to wake my friend up to get a picture for me but he was in a pretty deep and having none of it so i let this one go! After that fish i decided to set my other rod back up and get it out there as i thought they are on the feed so i put both rounds back out. Its was around 6:30am at this and i decided to try and get some more sleep. Only to be woken half and hour later by another screaming run! This time landing a stunning mirror carp at 21.07lb
After getting a picture and weighing it, i decided to change the baits on Paul's rods as he had nothing all night so we changed his rods over to the coconut creme, the same as i was fishing and cast out and the line hadn't even sank when it started to sail of the reel. It had been out there for no more than 5 minutes and Paul was in resulting in a 18lb for him and also meaning both of us now had a fish from a new lake that people said was a hard lake! After landing that fish Paul was quick to change his other rod over to coconut creme boilies and yet again a bit later on this time around 9:50am his rod screamed off resulting in a 16lb common carp!!
Stunning lake! Stunning fish! Great great days fishing and great company couldn't ask for anything else at the end of the session an old guy we had be speaking to the day before came round and asked us the usual "have you caught anything?" And after telling him we both had 2 fish and lost one, he was quite surprised as he said no one ever fishes these pegs. Moral of this story is dont always try and go for the favourited swims on the lake!
Thanks for reading hope you have enjoyed it and there will be many more to come!
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