DT Diary Piece: Part 1

After being fortunate to join the DT team early this year, I couldn’t wait to start with the new bait. Unfortunately, January and February aren’t the best months for a proper test, but to be honest I was so confident with the Green Beast, I knew if I could get my location right, I’d be in with a good chance. To start off with Green Beast was an easy decision, it was still winter, and I had heard so much about how good this bait was in low water temperatures, I already had my mind made up for me.

The first week of February I made the trip up to my syndicate lake. I was pretty lucky here, as this lake, being situated right next to a river, floods most winters and is unfishable. However, this one had obviously been dry enough for it to have stayed at almost normal levels. That said, due to this frequent flooding, I wasn’t sure about what sort of winter form it had. It was mega exciting though, as I drove in the gate and saw no one was there. I had a good walk round, which made it apparent early on, that the main open water appeared totally lifeless. Apart from a stack of birdlife, I never saw anything despite having several laps round. I know that snags are always the best bet at that time of year, and more precisely ones that have a good deal of sun hitting them. There was only one area I had a good feeling for, as it had a mass of overhanging trees on the right side, and a nice deep margin that shelved away under the trees. As I walked into the main snags, that were pulling and tearing at my clothes, I could just make out several dark shapes sat right down deep under the branches. The good news was that they were active, and as I watched one or two swam slowly out of sight, only to re appear a bit later on. That made my mind up for me, and I soon had a single Green Beast pop up on a stiff hinge rig lowered into that margin, with a handful of 15mm baits around it. Being that close it was easy to place the rig, as I was virtually dropping it off the rod tip. With braided mainline on I had a few drops, all feeling pretty much the same, until one hit much more firmly than any of the others. That was the one though, and I carefully laid out the leadfree leader I was using along the bottom until I was happy my trap was set perfectly. The other two rods I fished out on spots into the lake, but I wasn’t overly confident with those, as all I was able to find were strands of dead black weed, and a lake bed that was barren really.

I missed a couple of weeks then, and we were into March, with the light levels increasing and Spring starting to feel closer, I went over to another venue for a couple of single night trips. This lake was really deep, mostly in the 15 feet plus range, but it had a decent stock and I felt there may well be an early chance. My first session was quiet, in fact I saw nothing, but my next produced a cracking 25 lb mirror on a wafter fished on a D rig at about 100 yards. Whilst I caught on that session, I did see a fair few shows in a swim to my left, and on the opposite bank. As I packed up I took a walk round there, and while I watched I saw one push its head out nice and close in. I had about a kilo of bait left, so I spread that around knowing I could be back in a few days. By now with the water temperatures were rising I had chosen to move on to the pukka fish with peach and sour cream. I’ve always preferred fishmeal’s, but I must admit I didn’t have a clue what to use as my spring/summer bait, I liked them all! That N Blend looked awesome, and I’d never liked nut based baits before, the blood and orange I knew had caught some big fish over a lot of years, and the oily chicken again was a proven big fish bait with an impressive track record! In the end I made a decision, but it hadn’t been easy. Fenton had shown me the DNA liquid, which I really liked, and I had given the frozen baits a glaze of this and allowed them to thaw with the fish pro on them. Being a high-quality coarse bait, it easily drew it all in, massively boosting attraction levels. After 2 days these baits almost seemed alive, and oozing high levels of flavour. I knew then they were exactly as I wanted, nice and soft too so break down time was perfect, and giving me optimum pulling power. The fish thought so too, as within two hours of getting my rods out I had a 27 mirror, and at first light a 31 mirror. This fish ripped off, tearing line from the clutch and staying deep almost until I gratefully scooped it up in the net. It had really tested the tackle, which wasn’t surprising as it had a huge tail on it, built for scrapping. I was on a decent run, but hoped it would continue, as the week after I had a trip to Churn Pool booked. I had never seen the lake before, but I knew being pressured it would be a good test for the bait.