The Alps fishery near St Merryn in Cornwall is ideal for me. Not only is it close to home, but the fishing just isn't like other more commercial fisheries. The truth is that it's not completely overflowing with fish, and that's exactly why I like it! While a good days fishing can always be had in either lake (the smaller pool especially!), it's the venues specimen lake that is my current pick.
The lake's silver fish species feed confidently during the warmer months and while winter silverfish match nets may only reach 10-15lb, in the summer you can target larger nets of Perch, Roach and Rudd, or you can get your head down for some larger Bream - some of which go well over 5lb in weight. It doesn't take many of those to build a winning weight! Having said that, the lake still requires some thought to get the best from it. The shoals of both small and larger fish can be skittish and it can be difficult to keep fish coming for the duration of a match.
Just last weekend I was lucky enough to win the silverfish section of a recent charity match on this lake. Drawing peg 29 on the lakes long, left hand bank I managed to catch 24-8 of mostly smaller fish with a few skimmers thrown in for good measure. The skimmers mostly came during the last hour of the match. The heavy addition of chopped worm to my groundbait really bought them on. Wanting to test the theory and make the most of a Sunday off work, I'm back fishing the same peg today.
There wind is a little more tricky to contend with this week, quite gusty at times, blowing right to left. Last week I concentrated on two lines at 13m (quite tricky with a high bank behind me) but with the wind today I've come a section closer to 11m. The bottom is still slightly sloping at this point but it's about as long as I'm prepared to fish in the conditions.
I've always enjoyed fishing for skimmers on the pole. Although the way I do things has changed a bit over the years, some of the principles remain. Fishmeal groundbaits for example are a perfect starting point - no matter which fishery I'm on. Maggots and Expander pellets are two hookbaits that have always been with me. I remember the first time I used Expanders effectively was in a match at Oakside near Newquay about 10 years ago. 30lb of small skimmers later and I was a convert! That was the same day that I first figured out how effective a "double bulk" rig could be as well. There was nothing written about it at the time but experiencing the odd lift bite, I played with shotting patterns and ended up with a second bulk just 2" from the hook. It was deadly effective and has won me quite a few since then. I immediately ended up importing some specialist Bream floats from Europe with massively long tips on them. Today this is a widely used rig for catching commercial Bream.
I'm approaching today in the same way as I did for last weeks match. The plan is to feed groundbait on the longer line while starting short on the whip to give the Bream time to find it and settle comfortably over the bait. Like I said, although there are plenty of fish in the lake, there are definitely not so many that you can always be sure that they're in your peg from the start. Experience here tells me that it may take an hour or more for the first skimmer to show. They can also disappear as quickly as they turn up on this place, so sometimes plans B and C need to come in to play.
Starting with bait, before going on to rigs and feeding, it's a fairly simple tray of bits I've bought with me. Hookbaits are maggots and expander pellets (4mm and 6mm). I may try the odd bit of worm but although it will play a big part in the feed, I don't expect to fish it much on the hook. We tend to get a lot of smaller fish on the drop in here and they do love a good worm to munch on! To target these fish maggot is a faster bet, while pellet makes it down through them more easily. Corn makes a nice change in theory, but I've always found it less effective here than the pellet when it comes to the skimmers.
Feed wise, I has a massive amount of fondness for the Sensas sweet fishmeal groundbaits. I've had good success here with their Magic, Lake and Bream varieties. They're perfectly made for the job and the skimmers love them.
I mix my groundbait the night before fishing. It's essential that it's as inactive as possible and allowing more time for water to be absorbed and oils to be spread will help with this. Any small, fizzing, floating particles will attract and keep smaller fish in the area for longer and also have the bream moving around a little further off bottom - leading to less bites overall and the likelihood of the odd foul-hooker following a missed bite or line bite.
I would expect to get through at least 1kg of groundbait in 5 hours fishing, likely 1.5kg. If there are lots of fish present however then I may use up to the full 2kg limit.
To the groundbait I will add some relatively healthy portions of softened 2mm and 4mm pellets, casters or dead maggots and finally chopped worm! Last weekend it was the worms that proved to be the real trigger as far as the skimmers were concerned. After four hours and just a few skimmers in the net, the addition of lots of worm to a stream of top up balls quickly had the larger fish settling and feeding. I should confess that I have rarely included worms in my Cornish skimmer game plans over the last decade or so, but from time to time they have really proven themselves winners. I have 1/4 kilo with me today and will use all of it. It'll be a nice test to see how quickly we can get them feeding properly, and more importantly whether we can use the worm to hold them.
I often feed two longer lines at full distance. One positively, one sparingly. Today I'm potting in six balls of groundbait on the left hand line, and just one ball and a small ball of soft pellets on the right. I want to see this week how they respond to a less groundbait/more pellet line. Depth on both longer lines is the same at around 7 feet.
As with the feed for these longer lines, I'll set up two rigs for the skimmers; one positive, one a little more negative.
The more positive rig, and the one I hope to catch on is the double bulk rig. This consists of a 1.5g carbon stemmed float shorted with an olivette 18" from the hook and two no.8 Shot just above the 6" hooklength. It is plumbed to be fished with the two no.8's sitting just 1" off the bottom - so I'm effectively 5" over-depth. Rig body is 0.14mm Garbo Line. The hooklength is 0.12mm. Hook is a size 14 Drennan Silverfish Pellet. I expect to be using mainly 6mm expanders or three dead maggots on this one.
For anybody who has not fished this kind of rig before, it's a little different to the norm. Bream tend to feed with their heads down and tails up in the air. The double bulk rig is clever in that when the fish picks up the bait on the bottom and rights itself, they lift the lower bulk with them - resulting in your float rising at the surface as the two or three lower shot is lifted. It is with this that a gentle strike should ensure a properly hooked fish. So in effect, we're not waiting for the float to go under but to lift/rise instead. Sometimes the float will dip and drag under as a fish rubs against the line, but quick knocks and dips of the float (even if it goes under) should generally be ignored. However, I will count to three when the float does go under, and if it's still down I will give it a little lift to see if a fish has taken the bait. Carp and other species are often hooked this way. It's the faster dips you want to ignore.
The second rig is a bit of a catch anything option. If the going is a little harder and/or there are a lot of smaller fish present then it's smaller hook and finer line combo means I can mess with smaller baits if necessary - just to catch something. Float is a 1g wire stemmed version for stability shotted with a standard bulk and two no.10 droppers this time. Again I'm using a 0.14mm Garbo rig body, but this time with a 0.10mm hooklength. Hook is a size 18. On to this I can mount anything from a 4mm expander to a single maggot.
With the longer lines fed, I'll aim to start fishing away from this bait, hopefully putting a few pounds of smaller fish in the net while waiting for the skimmers to find me. I set up 3m and 3.5m Garbolino Maxim whips with 0.4g and 0.6g floats respectively; each rigged with a bulk and two droppers. The heavier rig is set to dead depth in 4 feet of water while the lighter version is 18" off. Maggot and/or caster is all that's needed to feed this line, although I'll sometimes flick a nugget of groundbait towards the float as well - just to keep the eels away!
The eels are worth mentioning actually. There are a lot in here! In the match last week everybody was reporting catching them. In my mind though, there are usually only two reasons I'll be catching eels on here. 1) there are no other fish present (the usual reason for this is that you've not been feeding enough. Or you've caught them all!), or 2) you've not fed any groundbait. Everything but the eels in this lake loves groundbait so my advise is to feed it!
So, to the fishing!
Longer lines fed, I'm feeding maggot and fishing the same on the hook. Like I said, you can always guarantee that you will have any fish in front of you when you start - even small ones - but you can just about rely on the micro perch in here to get you off the mark. As it happens, both today and last week I'm pretty quickly in to not only the perch but also roach and Rudd too. Regular feeding has things getting stronger and although it's not completely hectic, I've probably caught about 5lb by the end of the first hour. This includes an 8oz skimmer which is a nice addition. As usually happens here (I don't think that there is such a massive head of fish that you will just keep on catching on one line), the short line starts to slow. Timing wise it's just right to go out and have a look at the long line.
Before dropping a bait in though I add a worm laced ball of groundbait to keep anything that's down there happy. We used to insist that you shouldn't feed on top of feeding bream. I've never found it to be anything but a positive on these types of waters though. Saying that, I usually plan my feeding around a slowing of bites. If I'm not getting bites, or I get the impression that the fish just aren't sitting right then I'll add a ball. After I've added a ball, I may be immediately pestered by small fish, but if the bait makes it through them then very often the enthusiasm of any bream present is immediately rekindled.
I forget the exact details of what happened next, but I do know that I was much more quickly in to a decent run of skimmers this week. When these fish arrive properly here you will notice that you are pestered by far fewer roach and Rudd. Often, catching one of these two (at depth) after perhaps a couple of skimmers is a good sign that you need a top up ball of feed to get the skimmers back.
Average fish size here is probably 8-10oz. Pole elastic on the double bulk rig is a J-Range, yellow (7-10) hollow. The catch anything rig is matched with a J-Range, orange (3-5) hollow (through just one section). The yellow has enough power to land any bonus carp (and is soft enough for skimmers) while the orange is superbly soft for hooking and landing all of the smaller stuff (I would go on to land carp to 6lb on it during this session mind!).
It was an interesting session to fish, that's for sure. I am certainly still convinced that adding freshly chopped worm to balls of groundbait does make a positive difference here. As far as feed went, groundbait also proved superior to balls of soft pellets. While the pellet attracted and held fish, they sat over if fizzing and bubbling whilst not being so easy to catch. The pellet also attracted more carp! Balls of groundbait containing worm/pellet/caster on the other hand seemed to keep their heads down. During one spell when things got a little quieter (even the smaller fish drifted off), I topped up with three balls of heavily worm laden groundbait which quickly had them back feeding again.
About mid way through the session the wind picked up a little and both rigs were really towing through the swim. Although a positive rig, the nature of the double bulk rig means that it's more difficult to hold back in the tow without constantly lifting the tip yourself (making bite detection hard). During this spell, the lighter rig was far easier to control (and hold back) and a switch to firstly single maggot (trying for a bite) and then 4mm pellet bought a great run of fish. Typically, after fishing 6mm pellet for the previous couple of hours and not seeing a carp, first drop with a single maggot... You can guess what I hooked... Took a while to land on the lighter rig. Bream to 3.5lb also followed during this spell on the lighter rig. I just wasn't catching these fish on the double bulk at the time, even though they were there. Eventually the wind dropped however and a return to the double bulk rig began to catch well again.
I didn't make it to the end of the session before I ran out if groundbait. Is only mixed 1kg today, and although I would have caught more fish if I'd had more, running out forced me to continue with a different feeding strategy.
Soft pellet balls were my only remaining option really as anything truly loose was going to be scattered by smaller fish on the way down. As expected though, fizzing fish, foul hookers and too many carp (considering I wasn't fishing for them) were the result. It was certainly interesting fishing. I was changing depths - coming off bottom - dumping feed less regularly and generally just trying anything I could to settle them down. There weren't loads of fish in the peg or anything, but those that we're there were being tricky.
I ended this session pretty happy. 6 or 7lb of bits, 40lb of skimmers (with a few over 3lb) and 6 or 7 carp to almost double figures. No keepnets allowed but approximately 70lb of fish in total isn't a bad days fishing by any bodies standards - especially on a venue like this where you really need to work hard to keep them coming.
I shall be out again next week for something a little different.
