Makins Fishery, Bramcote, Warwickshire
Lake 1, Phase 1
The first outing of the PIDs Fishing Club of 2016 saw us heading over to Makins Fishery, in Warwickshire, a fishery that is used as a qualifier venue in the Sky Sports "Fish 'O' Mania" competition, and regarded as one of the best fisheries in the UK. With 18 pools spread out across three phases we had plenty to choose from but the chat on the fishing forums was that Lake 1 on Phase 1, was the best for lots of action from the big carp which would satisfy the requirements of Damian and Richard, and loads of silvers coming out for John, Luke and myself to catch. It promised to be a very interesting and productive day if the websites were to be believed.
The decision to fish here was very quickly taken and everyone began reading up on the venue, what tactics would work, what baits were proving to be a hit with the fish and it would be fair to say that there was a little bit of excitement in the air as we all looked forward to a day out. Following my last session when I had got just about everything wrong I wasn't going to take any chances with bait choice and took along 2 pints of mixed maggots, two tins of luncheon meat, one tin of sweetcorn, half a loaf, hemp seeds for loose feeding and some extra mature cheese that I raided from my fridge. The fishery has a sponsorship deal with Dynamite Baits, so you could only use their feed pellets which were available from the bait shop on site, so armed with all of my supplies and cash for pellets I was sorted.
A trip to the bankside with this lot is always guaranteed to be memorable and today was no different for me. I had started out at about 06.30, to make the 45 minute journey down to Junction 2 of the M6 at Coventry, before heading the few miles around the Warwickshire countryside to the lakes. I don't know if anyone else experiences this but whenever I go away with work or out for the day, I get a strange feeling that I have left something behind in the house, and over the years when I get this feeling I trust my gut feeling. I was aware of this niggling sense as I drove down City Road heading towards the Aston Expressway at Newtown and knew something was wrong. I checked the the cab of the van as I drove along, ciggies, check, lighter, check, wallet...bollocks !!!! By now I had gone past the City Hospital and was in deepest, darkest Hockley just about the go past the Birmingham Mint.
I turned around and headed back home to pick up my missing wallet and added an extra 30 minutes to my journey. Just as I got home Damian rang to make sure I was up and on my way and while chatting with him I noticed that not only had I forgotten my wallet, my fishing chair was still in the porch....DOH !!!! Once I was all sorted and had checked that I had everything I was on my way again and arrived just on 08.00.
The others were there on the pegs on the bankside and so I settled down in a corner peg and began to set up on the new Maver Abyss X 12' Match rod that my eldest son, Alex had bought me for my birthday. I was going to use the Middy Pellet Waggler with a lump of cheese on a size 14 hook and see if the bigger carp would fancy a bit of cheese for breakfast. While I was setting up, John, who was in the peg next to me, came trudging down the bank from the direction of the bait shop with a landing net pole in his hand. He told me that he had forgotten his landing net and had just parted company with £15 for a net and then found out that the pole wasn't included in the price. Suddenly my extra 30 minutes seemed like a small price to pay.
There was no action on any rod all morning and I decided to double my chances of catching by getting the feeder rod out and fishing close to the island in case the bigger lumps were hanging out there. I had a swim feeder free-running on the main line with a size 16 hook on the nylon attached by a snap swivel to the main line. I packed the feeder with maggots and cast out to a point about two thirds across to the lake. I had read that bigger roach tend to stay in more open water figured that there may have been some decent sized roach waiting for a maggoty-feast, but there weren't. Richard came down to see how I was doing and he had a look at my set-up and suggested a change because it was obvious there had been some activity on the hook because the maggots were chewed up but the feeder had snagged the snap swivel and caused me to miss the bite. He suggested a float stop on the main line to prevent it happening again and to switch to fishing the margins where there may be fish there looking for any freebies thrown in by other anglers. After making the changes suggested I cast over to the reeds by the empty peg next to me and waited.
I had decided to change things on the float rod as well and took the pellet waggler was replaced with a loaded waggler float with 3 x No.10 stotz from the Preston Innovations range down the mainline to make the bait fall more naturally and a No. 18 hook with two or three maggots on the hook. I now started to feed loose hemp along the margins in an attempt to draw the smaller roach and perch from the reeds while I waited. After about 30 minutes the feeder rod started moving around and pulling i the direction of the reeds and I knew I was in. I reeled in and there were the familiar sensations of a fish on the line, a sensation I'd missed over the cold winter months and had missed on the last session at Friezeland. John came down to my peg with is new net, a carp specimen net that must have been around 3 feet wide at the top edge and about 2 1/2 feet on the sides. He reminded me of the child catcher in Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang, as he came round the bank, and soon the roach was in the massive net looking completely lost inside it.
There isn't really anything else to add about the day other than we had rain, sun, snow and a little bit of wind throughout the day as we all sat in the cold waiting for a bite. John managed to catch a couple, though the first catch was a bit dubious because he was stood wafting Luke's smaller landing net around in front of his peg and the smallest perch I have ever seen got caught up in it. Like a man possessed he made sure everyone in our group saw his tiddler. His second catch was more conventional and he reeled in a nice 6oz roach, which again looked completely lost in the cavernous landing net. That was it for all of us after that and we spent the remainder of the day giving the fish a free feed.
Again I came away having learned some new tactics and picked up a few new tips from the more experienced anglers in the group, so it wasn't a totally wasted trip for me, plus I was out doing something enjoyable with great company. The worst part of depression for me is how I have cut myself off from people and become very scared in social settings, avoiding them like the plague because I think I am being judged by people. It doesn't help that I was told by my ex-wife that the friends I had were just using me for their own gains, and you do start to believe it when you're told something often enough. To my eternal shame I had believed her and the fear of being judged or laughed at grew inside me. I don't understand why I get so concerned about being laughed at considering I love making people laugh, but again I have always used humour as a shield because I have always felt that if you can make people laugh then they will like you. This stems from my childhood when I was desperate for my Dad's approval and thought that he must like me if I made him laugh. He was never the most outgoing of people towards me and I can't remember him ever telling me that he loved me, but I was desperate for him to if that makes sense, and so I became Stu the Joker.
Anyway, enough doom and gloom. See you on the bankside.....
The others were there on the pegs on the bankside and so I settled down in a corner peg and began to set up on the new Maver Abyss X 12' Match rod that my eldest son, Alex had bought me for my birthday. I was going to use the Middy Pellet Waggler with a lump of cheese on a size 14 hook and see if the bigger carp would fancy a bit of cheese for breakfast. While I was setting up, John, who was in the peg next to me, came trudging down the bank from the direction of the bait shop with a landing net pole in his hand. He told me that he had forgotten his landing net and had just parted company with £15 for a net and then found out that the pole wasn't included in the price. Suddenly my extra 30 minutes seemed like a small price to pay.
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| My view at Makins |
I had decided to change things on the float rod as well and took the pellet waggler was replaced with a loaded waggler float with 3 x No.10 stotz from the Preston Innovations range down the mainline to make the bait fall more naturally and a No. 18 hook with two or three maggots on the hook. I now started to feed loose hemp along the margins in an attempt to draw the smaller roach and perch from the reeds while I waited. After about 30 minutes the feeder rod started moving around and pulling i the direction of the reeds and I knew I was in. I reeled in and there were the familiar sensations of a fish on the line, a sensation I'd missed over the cold winter months and had missed on the last session at Friezeland. John came down to my peg with is new net, a carp specimen net that must have been around 3 feet wide at the top edge and about 2 1/2 feet on the sides. He reminded me of the child catcher in Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang, as he came round the bank, and soon the roach was in the massive net looking completely lost inside it.
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| My only catch of the day |
There isn't really anything else to add about the day other than we had rain, sun, snow and a little bit of wind throughout the day as we all sat in the cold waiting for a bite. John managed to catch a couple, though the first catch was a bit dubious because he was stood wafting Luke's smaller landing net around in front of his peg and the smallest perch I have ever seen got caught up in it. Like a man possessed he made sure everyone in our group saw his tiddler. His second catch was more conventional and he reeled in a nice 6oz roach, which again looked completely lost in the cavernous landing net. That was it for all of us after that and we spent the remainder of the day giving the fish a free feed.
Again I came away having learned some new tactics and picked up a few new tips from the more experienced anglers in the group, so it wasn't a totally wasted trip for me, plus I was out doing something enjoyable with great company. The worst part of depression for me is how I have cut myself off from people and become very scared in social settings, avoiding them like the plague because I think I am being judged by people. It doesn't help that I was told by my ex-wife that the friends I had were just using me for their own gains, and you do start to believe it when you're told something often enough. To my eternal shame I had believed her and the fear of being judged or laughed at grew inside me. I don't understand why I get so concerned about being laughed at considering I love making people laugh, but again I have always used humour as a shield because I have always felt that if you can make people laugh then they will like you. This stems from my childhood when I was desperate for my Dad's approval and thought that he must like me if I made him laugh. He was never the most outgoing of people towards me and I can't remember him ever telling me that he loved me, but I was desperate for him to if that makes sense, and so I became Stu the Joker.
Anyway, enough doom and gloom. See you on the bankside.....
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