Jake's Blog - Part One

Hello Crafty Readers
Welcome to the first of my online blogs.

This last month has been busy both on and off the bank. What with work, fishing and a girlfriend, I don’t have much spare time, but I’m loving life. In the summer I was luckily enough to help out at a couple of Korda’s Carpfest events, which was a great opportunity to meet some nice people, I really enjoyed showing people a few tricks and also learning a few myself, so if you get the chance next year, it’s definitely worth attending. And who knows, I might just be there; if I am, make sure you come over and have a chinwag, and ask me any questions on stuff you are not 100% sure about.

With winter now here, I tend to fish a couple of lakes. I am lucky enough to have a winter ticket on a low-stocked 30-acre gravel pit in Oxford, which has some great people on there. We have had some good socials and have seen some proper old English carp; they sure do love the Baitworks range, and more than half the members are using it. I have had two takes and lost both of them, but next time I am going there with a plan, and hopefully I’ll have one out. The lake can only be fished from October until March, so I must start putting in some hard work – as we all know, effort equals rewards. I also fish some local club waters, to get a bend in the rods and make sure what I am using actually works, and sometimes I head to Linear Fisheries if I am meeting up with a few mates for a social. This is where I ended up recently, when a good friend of mine, Oz Buchan, rang me up and asked the old man and me if we wanted to do a session with him and his daughter Amy on Friday 18th November until 20th November. He also asked if I would give Amy some tuition because she doesn’t listen to her dad! With no hesitation I said yes, and what a good time we had. I have met Amy a few times at BYCAC events; she is always there for the week with Oz and is always making brews for everyone, and fair play to her, she is getting good at it. Oz has been a marshal from the start of the BYCAC event, so I was more than happy to go and do a session with them and do a bit of tuition with Amy. This is something I have been thinking of doing for a couple of years now, so it would give me a chance to see if it was for me or not. I really enjoyed teaching Amy and will hopefully be doing tuitions next year, so if you’re interested, get in contact with me via Facebook. When we arrived at Brasenose One at Linear to do the session, the wind was blowing a hoolie and some things were difficult to do, but a lovely scaly mirror of 15lb 4oz saved a blank for Amy, which was a bonus with the lake fishing really hard. My old man went camping again and blanked, and Oz lost one, but I was lucky enough to winkle four out to 23lb, so not bad. Brasenose usually fishes better at this time of year, but we couldn’t really complain about the result.

I have also been on the bank with an old school mate of mine, Jordan Sweet, who has just started getting into carp fishing. So, with a couple of hours of me teaching him about rigs and how to tie them, we decided to go and put them to the test on a local club water. Let’s just say he was more than happy with his newfound skills, and we landed a total of seven carp and lost two, and he broke his personal best twice. The first time it was a 19lb 4oz mirror, and then shortly after that he beat it again, with his new personal best of a 23lb 12oz mirror carp. This encouraged Jordan even more. On the way home we treated ourselves to KFC, and as we were eating, we decided to go back there asap because we really enjoyed ourselves. After all, that’s what fishing is all about. We decided we were going to tie some more rigs one night in the week, and decided to go back to the local club water on the following Saturday (which was the first hard frost that we have had), armed with some new pop-ups from Baitworks; they are white and pink 10mms and are called Sent from Heaven, and will be released soon. You must have a pot of these with you at all times; they are something else and have saved me from blanks on so many occasions this year! The fish just couldn’t resist the white 10mms; eight fish fell to me and Jordan, with the biggest being a 17lb 9oz mirror. There was only one other carp out to the geezer next to us, and that was caught on the new pop-ups as well; I had given him a couple to try out. We really have been enjoying it out there, and our target is to catch 100 fish from there before February, which is going to be tough! This is just what you need to keep you going through the winter. It’s a mega-buzz with the rods going off in the cold conditions, and it gives you loads of confidence.

I hope you all have a good Christmas and a great new year.

Until next month, tight lines,
Jake Taylor.